[1996-12-21-CWA-Eurocatch Festival] Terry Funk vs Dave Finlay

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

"Born In The USA"? Am I watching Mid South? Or is Terry Funk having the most awesome entrance ever being led by an American flag and a flaming branding iron? Even if this match sucks, it's worth it just for the intro. And it's Funk/Finlay, it can help but at the very least be fun. All the punches look great and Funk does his standard punch drunk selling. Cool seeing Finlay in Europe as the total babyface.

[Tim Evans]

The ref here is almost as bad as Tirantes Jr. getting involved in matches. Some good punches and like Loss said, great to see face Finlay in Germany.

[Zenjo]

The ref here is almost as bad as Tirantes Jr. getting involved in matches. Some good punches and like Loss said, great to see face Finlay in Germany.

Well the ref got his own ring introduction and entrance music, so obviously he thought he was the star of the show! I couldn't sit through the whole match as wonky fancams do my head in.

[PeteF3]

The ref gets entrance music, but he doesn't look like anybody special to me, and is introduced just as "the referee." Actually it's the ring announcer who tends to interject himself needlessly more than the referee in these matches. I think we all know the real meaning of "Born in the USA," but in a foreign setting, be it Fabuloso Blondy in Mexico or here, it works perfect as a heel theme. "Belfast" by Boney M is pretty much the same principle, actually.

 

Funk's a little unclear on this whole rounds thing, but he's having fun working the crowd during the breaks. This would have been much better off without the rounds, but Finlay's bloody comebacks are pretty exciting. Finlay wins this by KO/countout. Fun to watch in a "this happened" sort of way.

[soup23]

Cool enough seeing Funk in Europe but as much as the big FMW multi man was Funk in the 90's in a setting I like him, this was the opposite. Most of the action felt chaotic just to be chaotic without any rhyme or reason. Add to that the camera angle from the long shot and overall my mind drifted quite a bit during the duration of this. Referee was way too involved and terrible. A neat novelty but not a match I really enjoyed seeing. **1/2

[tim]

The form of this match sure didn't help: the rounds, the ref getting involved, not really any sense of what was going on with whether the match was supposed to have ended or not. But when these two were mixing it up it was actually some damn good brawling; Finlay's big comeback with Lawler-style no selling and then unloading with punches was awesome. Could have been a damn good match in better circumstances.