[2000-01-06-WCW-Thunder] Bret Hart vs Terry Funk (Hardcore)

[soup23]

Nothing really represents the changing of the new decade yet like this match. Whereas with watching 1990, it felt like it took a while for the changes to come, both with the matches I am watching in the first 10 days, the booking choices of new big guys like Sasaki and HHH getting the belt or unfortunate real life circumstances like this being Bret Hart's last true match, the changes have came early that we are going in a different direction. This match really serves as a endpoint for that. Bret isn't able to do much and the plunder affair him and Funk go through here feels really by the numbers for me. It isn't terrible as this is two top 100 workers of all time, but both were pretty spent and didn't see the need to really amp it up for something of this magnitude. This match also mainly works as a backdrop for the ongoing NWO angle as we get some silliness as David Flair locking Anderson in a room and coming out with a referee shirt, the NWO attacking the ring and the camera fading to black with Nash powerbombing Funk through the table. Farewell Hitman. *3/4

[Loss]

This was better than I thought it would be, even if it was a little uncomfortable to watch since we know Bret was concussed at the time and he did take a few hard shots to the head. He didn't look himself, but he did turn in a solid performance on instinct. His execution being so good was enough to carry him along. Terry Funk is reliably Terry Funk, bringing the chaos by throwing chairs into the ring, rolling Bret in some type of buggy at ringside into the ring apron and even attempting a moonsault on Bret who had a garbage can on top of him. In the post-match angle, he even ate a powerbomb through the Thunder set from Kevin Nash. It's of course a shitty way to wrap up a great career for Bret Hart (he does have one more match coming on Monday, which gets forgotten for whatever reason), but WCW hardcore matches were always far more violent and fun to watch than the WWF versions of hardcore matches, less so under Russo, although that still rung true.

[stro]

The one more match that gets forgotten is actually very solid, for sure Kevin Nash's best match in at about a year, and one of Bret's better WCW matches as well. Not a surprise, considering those two always had excellent chemistry. But the Bret/Funk match is a bummer all around. Funk in general was certainly past the point in time where he was fun to watch, and Bret taking head shots, holding his head, looking in agony, and like he wants to throw up certainly isn't fun, either.

[Laney]

The match itself was pretty decent, but wasn't anything noteworthy. This is kind of uncomfortable to watch given Hart's condition and knowing how much better both these guys used to be.

 

This is also a nice snapshot of how awful WCW booking was. Pointless ref bump, David Flair and Arn Anderson apparently both have a referee license, Arn getting locked in a room, NWO beatdown, just a mess. Nasty powerbomb onto Funk to end this.

 

**

[Willninho]

Man this match was just sad to me. Funk I thought surprisingly looked much older than he has in even the 1998 stuff I seen and then knowing Bret's condition; just sad.

[Karl]

I liked a fair amount of this..perhaps thats just nostalgia on my part, but I cant get enough of seeing these two work even when broken down. Funks moonsault looked to almost kill him and Brets leg breaker chair spot looked ungodly brutal. I enjoyed everything up to the Arn & David Flair bit...from then on, it was crap. **

[goc]

Ending a show in January of 2000 with an nWo beatdown feels so tired and stale that even going back to heel Flair vs babyface Hogan in February feels like a better direction than what we got here. They also just tried to cram way too much shit into the end of it, like how do you have that big powerbomb spot and then immediately go off the air?

[GSR]

Bret in black denim shorts and NWO shirt, as opposed to his traditional pink and black. Non-title match with the WCW Champion going one on one with Commissioner Terry Funk under hardcore rules. Funk throws some chairs into the ring and Bret rams him head first into one. He then makes the most of the hardcore rules, driving a baseball bat into the Funker’s mid-section before cracking him with an unprotected chair shot to the head after they end up outside. Funk with a chair shot, but at least Bret gets his hands up. He dumps the ‘Hitman’ in the cart with all the hardcore weapons and wears a garbage can out on him. Funk with a moonsault and he was lucky not to break his neck, landing almost head first on the canvas. Bret with another full force chair shot to the head and he then ties Funk’s leg up in the chair and comes off the middle turnbuckle with an elbow to it. I swear you can see his leg bend. Bret nails referee Charles Robinson while Funk hobbles around on his leg. We then cut to the dressing room and see Arn Anderson putting on a referee’s shirt when he is joined by David Flair. They exchange words and he gives Flair the referee’s shirt, David locks him in the dressing room to protect him from the NWO and then heads to the ring. Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner and Kevin Nash are out before him waiting and it’s an NWO beat down. Crowbar and Daffney try to help Flair but to no avail, while Nash ends up powerbombing Funk off the stage and through a table.

 

You hear the names Bret Hart and Terry Funk and you have high expectations, so in that regard this has to be classed as a disappointment. It wasn’t terrible or anything, it just seemed like a run of the mill match to fill some time before the angle with the NWO at the end. I hated the chair shots to the head that Funk took and he was damn lucky he didn’t seriously hurt himself with that moonsault that he missed.

[bucky]

Gotta love the two stoned white dudes with the NWO shirts at the beginning of this clip. It's weird to imagine anyone still being super into the NWO by this point. Hart in jean shorts. Laney mentioned above how sad it is to think of this as one of last matches Bret would ever wrestle. I think the saddest part of that is that he wrestled his last matches in fucking jean shorts.

 

Terry definitely looks old and exhausted here, even moreso than some of his other stuff from this period. Hart is such an effective heel. I know it's a broken record at this point but man, that he didn't get a longer run as a top heel in either promotion is such a shame. I think I'm overdue a 1997 rewatch, which I will get to in ten years when we finish watching all this stuff. I think overall this is an effective brawl. Awesome punches by Funk, weapon shots by both that seem pretty stiff. Funk putting Bret in the laundry cart and pushing it over, ending with Bret basically taking a high angle backdrop bump on the top of his head on the floor has Bret checking his dome for blood. He rolls out of the way of the ugliest goddamn moonsault I've ever seen, and then gives Terry a receipt for the laundry cart in the form of one nasty chairshot to the brain.

 

Funk's sell of the Pillmanizer is hilarious, as he decides he'll sell a potentially broken leg by standing up and stumbling around. Bret punches Charles Robinson in the face because why the hell not. Then we get a shot of Arn Anderson and David Flair backstage next to a cooler (because why the hell not) and then the NWO comes out to beat up Terry Funk. Then David Flair The Referee With The Crowbar comes out as I begin to wonder who in the world would be watching this besides us psychos 17 years later. Then, seconds before the show goes off air, Funk takes a Nash powerbomb through part of the stage, landing on his neck and shoulder. What the fuck is wrong with this company?

[Stiva]

Watched this out of curiousity and it just...upset me on many levels. Obviously, Bret is in bad shape, Terry Funk is Terry Funk in the Year 2000 and there's nothing too wrong with the work. It's plodding, Funk runs through his crazy old man spots and that's that but everything surrounding it is just awful. An nWo beatdown, two old guys in your TV main event, David Flair in general. It's been years since I've seen end of days WCW and it's even more depressing than I remembered. Over on WWF TV, you have blazing hot crowds, guys like The Rock and Foley putting together electric segments and, in about, 3 weeks, they're going to rob WCW of 4 very good hands. Just a sad indictment of what's to come.

 

Nash's powerbomb through the stage looked suitably nasty though.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

This was some real WCW bullshit, here. I thought Funk was good, in his very-late stage way. I remembered very early on in the match that this was Bret post-concussion, so I am sure that that tainted how I viewed his performance. Both guys were able to make it violent without using nothing but plunder, and that was nice. Once the nWo fuckery starts, it goes straight off the cliff. David Flair and his crowbar, locking Arn in the back. Daphne. Just a whole lotta what the fuck. Of course there's no finish because it is 2000 Thunder.

[Zero]

This wasn't good. Just some chair shots, and other plunder. Neither guy looked horrible, but it was just a nothing affair. Funk's moonsault in there might be one of the worst attempts I've seen him pull. At one point Jarrett drops the bat he was using and it hits Bret in the eye laying on the ground.

[jiraffejustin]

Terry Funk is good at eating chair shots to the head. That's about the only good that can be said of this match, and I guess the powerbomb at the end looked kinda nasty. Okay, I also like how reckless Terry Funk's moonsault looked. And that's really it. The NWO stuff is just played out and boring and been there, done that at this at that point. I've never really been a big Bret Hart fan, but I was hoping for something interesting between these two guys. I didn't realize this was post-concussion Bret Hart, so if I had realized that, I think my expectations would have been severely tempered. He wasn't looking good at all in this match, and he didn't really do a whole lot. I don't blame him for that, but it just wasn't a good look. But that's probably been said a lot out about late era WCW.