The Road Warriors vs. Dory & Terry Funk (9/20/87)

[El Boricua]

The Road Warriors vs. Dory & Terry Funk (9/20/87)

[elliott]

Los Hermanos Funk have spectacular music. It’s perfect. Fans are throwing shit at the Funks from the very beginning. Road Warriors coming out to Iron Man is always awesome as Terry picks fights with random audience members. Terry throws a chair in the ring and Dory grabs it as the Roadies jump in the ring and they just straight up take it from him. Good luck Funk Brothers. Terry plays psychological games with Animal and refuses to tie and tags out to Dory right away. Dory isn’t as smart and tries to shoulderblock Hawk. So Hawk picks him up and press slams him. Hahaha. Dory sucks. He tags right out to Terry. Hawk whips Terry around the ring. Chops and punches him until Terry gets tied up in the ropes and tumbles out. Dory comes in to face Animal. Lets see what Dory’s master plan is this time. Dory actually plants Animal with some European uppercuts until getting shoulderblocked to death. Terry & Hawk come in. Hawk misses a splash off the top rope and Terry puts Hawk in a front face lock before tossin him outside. Dory comes over and works on Hawk and hits him with a chair. This just pisses off Hawk. Hahaha. Hawk just takes the chair from dory again! And starts blasting him with it. Dory is helpless getting crushed and Terry comes over and cuts off Hawk. Funks do the least spikey spike piledriver ever on Hawk but keep up the double teams hitting their awesome double forearm smash. Terry controls Hawk with a sleeper and choking him with tape. Hawk eventually reverses it for some payback. Terry’s selling is awesome as he gets beat on by both Road Warriors. Hawk manages to tag out and Animal comes in for a house of fire. Work to the finish includes a half doomsday device on Dory (they just held him up instead of putting him on Animals’ shoulder, presumably because they didn’t want to kill him) before Terry comes in with a chair for a DQ. This was probably more fun to read than the actual match. I love the Funk Bros team in spite of Dory and I generally really like the Roadies in this era. This was like the worst possible version of that matchup in PR at this time. Terry brought some good shit as always. Otherwise this was disappointing. Dory is a terrible opponent for the Road Warriors. And they weren’t exactly busting their ass to begin with. Terry always tries god bless him.

[AJS]

I'm not a big fan of the Road Warriors but I love the Funks so I was hoping it would be good. I thought what we got was fairly decent but nothing more than that. As usual I was focused more on Terry than the other three and he looked good as always, selling and bumping nicely. Hawk hitting Dory with the chair was pretty lively too. Apart from that nothing majorly stood out for me really.

[KB8]

Funk was in total crackpot mode again here, him and Dory coming out to the ring to 'Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys' (fucking amazing), swinging his chaps and picking fights with fans, being absolutely HAMMERED with trash from all angles. His crazy Puerto Rico run is honest to god one of my favourite things ever in wrestling. He's just completely out of control any time he shows up and doesn't give a shit about anything. I don't think he could get away with it anywhere else. This feels like a pretty big dream match on paper, but other than Terry I didn't think anybody was particularly good in it. Hawk wasn't quite sandbagging folk, but he wasn't really in any mood to be selling. That actually led to a few cool bit where he got super pissed off and just started DRILLING Dory with chair shots. I mean Dory is lying there like a wee old homeless man and Hawk is trying to snuff him. The Roadies aren't too hip to Terry's shtick either and don't play off it very well. Terry will go upside down in the corner and Hawk will stand there waiting for something to happen, when Terry clearly wants Hawk to go over and MAKE something happen. Terry gets his clock cleaned and stumbles punch-drunkenly into the Roadies corner waiting to be dinged by Animal, but Animal doesn't really want to play ball so Terry has to go find someone else to play with. Post-match Hawk is swinging a chair around like a lunatic and there is no way I'd want to be anywhere near him while he does that. I'll take every second of Terry in Puerto Rico I can get, but this was pretty disappointing.

[JerryvonKramer]

My set is still not here, but I've seen this match already. Funks have a MUCH better match than this with Roadies in AJPW in 86, for my money the best Road Warriors match ever.

 

 

My review of the AJ match from Learning to Love Dory:

 

Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk vs. The Road Warriors (10/20/86)

 

From that same run in All Japan in 86. Another dream match.

 

Heel Terry with his moustache. He starts out with Hawk but quickly winds up Animal with some cheap shots. Gorilla Press from Hawk. Tags in Animal. Big clubbing blows. Irish whip into the turnbuckle produces a Flair flip from Terry. Big bodyslam by Animal. Bearhug on Terry who has hurt his back. They stay in this for some time. Terry breaks it with a single leg takedown and tries the spinning toehold. Dory in with Hawk now. Dory has a goatee here and is looking extremely non-plussed at the clownish figure in front of him. Double clothesline by The Funks. Piledriver by Terry on Hawk who nosells it and pops straight up. Japanese crowds "wows" at that. Piledriver by Hawk now. AMAZING scenes now as Terry pops back up and makes Hawk-like faces, mocking him. But this is hilarious because the piledriver has clearly taken its toll so Terry is jelly-legged. Dory in and Hawk reverses a wristlock to hit a clothesline and a fistdrop. Animal in. Dory manages to get a belly-to-back suplex in. Animal floors him with a clothesline. Terry in and eats a big scoop powerslam by Animal. Cover gets two. Hawk comes from the top with a chop. Flying shoulder press. Both men down. Gutwrench suplex by Hawk. Neckbreaker by Terry. Piledriver attempt reversed into a backdrop which sends Terry outside. Suplex by Animal back in. Dory in with uppercuts. Running forearm smash. Suplex. Cover gets two and kickout with authority. Flying shoulder press by Animal now. Hawk in. Double elbow smash. Cover by Hawk gets two. Slam. Terry in with a slam. Comes off the top into knees. Hawk catches Terry for a spinebuster thing. Dropkick by Dory sends Hawk outside. Dory is caught by Animal for the Doomsday Device, but the ref won't count it for some reason -- because Terry was the legal man? All four men outside now, and this is obviously heading for a double countout. Bell goes but brawling continues and they are using chairs in the crowd. They start throwing tables and chair at each other with reckless abandon. It's just occured to me that we haven't seen The Funks eat a SINGLE pin yet, unless there's one I'm not remembering. They never lose.

 

Another match that I think would have been nice to see on the All Japan set. The Funks seem like they were really under-represented there. I wonder if anyone on the committee who is reading this could comment? Seems very strange with Will being such a big Terry fan and all. There was surely space to include a match like this in place of the 32nd iteration of some of those endless Tenryu and Hara tags from 1988. Just my feeling.

 

Anyway, this is surely one of the best ever Road Warriors matches isn't it. They worked more like The Steiner Brothers than the typical Road Warriors style and the bombs were flying everywhere here. I don't recall Hawk doing so many suplex variations before. I thought this was a really good "big team vs. big team" match. Some snobbier fans might not like this sort of thing, but this was perfectly worked for what it was aiming for, and I loved the big bombs. I can't think of another Road Warriors match that I've liked as much as this one.

 

****

 

 

Review of this match:

 

 

Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk vs. The Road Warriors (9/30/87)

 

This is from Puerto Rico. Terry is in crazed mode jawing at fans and picking fights with people in the front row. Road Warriors have their Iron Madain theme. Chairs and rubbish are flying already. Road Warriors clear house to start. Announcer introduces them as "Terry and Hoss Funk".

 

This ring seems both small and really high up. Gorilla Press slam by Hawk on Dory. Five big chops by Hawk on Terry who sends him into the turnbuckle for a Flair flip. Headbutt sends Terry out for the 10-foot drop to the floor. Dory and Animal now. Three uppercuts met by a flying shoulder press. Back to Hawk and Terry. Hawk misses a move from the top and Terry goes to a front facelock. Funks work over Hawk now. Dory hits a spike piledriver. Double forearm smash. Terry has the tag rope now and is choking out Hawk. We get a five minute call. Hawk hammers Funk into the turnbuckle and we get some cartoon wobbly legs now and a flop. Dory in and eats a flying shoulder block. Double clothesline on Dory. Doomsday device, but Terry breaks the cover with a chairshot, for an instant DQ. Animal sends the Funks packing with the chair.

 

Nowhere near as good as the All Japan bout. Too short and seemed to lack heat.

 

**

 

[El Boricua]

For those that have not read it, here is a story from Dory Funk Jr. about what happened that night prior to the match:

 

http://www.dory-funk.com/heropic.html

[KB8]

That is absolutely awesome. "He was a raving terror" is the PERFECT description of Terry in Puerto Rico. Perfect. You can just imagine him doing all of his crazy shit and Dory is following him around the place like "aw for fuck's sake, Terry, not this again!"

[Edwin]

This is far from a great match and it's mostly just a Terry Funk nutcase show. Terry comes very, very close to creating a riot and Hugo had to address the crowd to calm down because it was starting to get out of hand because of Terry picking fights with fans.

 

This is an odd pairing. The Road Warriors don't really work in a territory like WWC and Dory is just there to protect Terry. Terry however is ideal for the territory and he's the only one who truly is a highlight in this match. You can replace the Road Warriors with any other face tag team and you get this match.

 

Unless you're a fan of Terry and want to see him come close to watching a riot, I would say skip this.

[AstroBoy]

This didn't really do a lot for me. Terry Funk was fun here stooging and milking everything he could out of certain moments but nobody else offered much of anything. The match itself never really formed into much either, though it was something else to see Hawk just wasting Dory with the chair outside the ring. More of a fun side spectacle than a satisfying match.