Loss Posted June 13, 2007 Report Share Posted June 13, 2007 Talk about it here when you get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted June 20, 2007 Report Share Posted June 20, 2007 I really enjoyed this angle. I know Sting and Funk worked the houseshow circuit together in 89. I remember seeing clips of them on Entertainment Tonight haveing a match. They seem like they could have a good match with each other. Too bad we didn't get one @ a Clash or something. Overall just a great piece of bussiness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2007 Funk taking those rapid fire bumps off of Sting's clotheslines is just really great. I also thought it was funny that they beeped out Funk saying that Flair was starting to show his age, and Jim Ross's indignant reaction was great without seeming like bad acting like it often does with Gene Okerlund. "You're talking about the world champion of the NWA!" The key here was also that they didn't tease this like Flair really was coming. They were skeptical to begin with. That really places the promotion in a better light than setting up a parody angle where they hype that the real guy is coming out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 21, 2007 Report Share Posted June 21, 2007 I admit, when I saw this on the listing I was like "WTF is this, and why its it on here?" but once I watched it I instantly remembered it and how awesome it was. It's easy to forget how subtle JR could be in selling indignity, or anything else, without his usual 100 decibel style he does on RAW now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHawk Posted June 21, 2007 Report Share Posted June 21, 2007 I remember hating this as a ten-year old kid, but I guess that was the point. Upon second viewing almost 20 years later, this was awesome. Terry Funk at his best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 22, 2007 Report Share Posted June 22, 2007 Also it was a good example of how Terry Funk makes everyone he faces look like a million bucks. Sure, Terry's faced some of the best ever but he's also had some less-than-stellar opponents and he's made them all look like champions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 22, 2007 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2007 Terry Funk is a guy I really want to find a way to focus on more in the future. Funk obviously has some great matches against other great wrestlers, but I'm always more intrigued by his matches against guys that aren't considered that great, just because it's so much fun to watch him go into overdrive. Expect the best JYD match I can find from their series in the WWF at some point in the future. Even if you watch the tag with Dory against Hogan and JYD from SNME, Funk is taking absolutely ridiculous bumps on the new NBC-approved mat with no bounce, and I've seen matches from their series in Mapleleaf Gardens where Funk is going through ringside tables (a decade before that became a standard WWF main event spot) and just really creating chaos. Funk/Mike Rotunda around 1987 from Florida is also great fun. Rotunda is extremely green and can't do much, and Funk will call for the same spot 8 or 10 times in a row then sell being completely punch drunk and unable to stand up straight afterward. He really is one of the greatest of all time. I don't know if "underrated" is the right word to describe him, but Funk is one of the least discussed great workers there is. This period -- summer of 1989 -- is probably the highlight of his career, just because it was the only time a national company really built around him for any length of time as a top heel. I've always been curious how far in advance he knew he was getting this run, because he showed up in great shape and worked a full schedule after not having done so for a few years. Perhaps he thought at that time it would be his last chance to make big money and work in front of larger crowds, so he made the most of it. The Flair/Funk feud was really the epitome of the new vision under Turner (that didn't last long). Flair was the top guy for many years under Crockett, but they weren't actively seeking out big stars that weren't already with them to give Flair fresh opponents. He ended up against Sting, Luger, Dusty, Windham and Ron Garvin over and over and over for years. Sometimes they drew well (usually when the feud was fresh) and sometimes, they didn't. When Flair turned babyface, it was really the first time in a long time that not only was he being treated like a big deal, but you really felt like the company he was working for appreciated and respected him in that spot. Doing things like closing the Saturday night show with Flair's big return interview and seeking out guys like Steamboat and Funk to give him fresh programs showed more faith in him than had been invested in him in years before when he was being blamed for all of Crockett's woes internally. The Flair/Funk feud is pretty great on its own, but what made it more than just a great feud and also a good piece of business was two things: (1) They both took great effort to get each other over. When it was time for payback, Funk gave Flair the biggest, most dramatic payback he possibly could. When it was time to re-establish Funk with the audience, the company stepped up and lined up lots of undercard guys whose biggest strengths were in selling and eating offense. You saw at least two months of squashes where he was piledriving guys on the floor, and the Bash '89 match showed how much that did to establish that move as a killer. The piledriver meant more in the NWA in 1989 than it has anywhere else probably ever outside of Memphis. They also did really dramatic and heated angles, like Flair getting Funk's branding iron and destroying him and new henchman Dick Slater with it, or Funk attempting to suffocate Flair with the plastic bag, leading to Brian Pillman giving him CPR to close out a really hot Clash of the Champions. (2) The feud didn't exist in its own universe. The Flair/Funk feud both directly and indirectly elevated Sting and the Great Muta, gave Gary Hart a chance to be the top manager for a while and even catapulted Lex Luger's heel turn, which I think can still be looked back at as the best year of his career. They used it to introduce new guys like Brian Pillman and they used it to try to re-establish older guys like Dick Slater. There were a few misses along the way, but I think what made the feud draw money was that it spilled over and helped a lot of other guys refocus, either guys that had been somewhat damaged by careless booking in 1988 (Flair, Luger) or fresh faces that wouldn't have been pushed this hard 12 months earlier (Pillman, Muta, Funk). The story of WCW for the next decade was started with the end of this feud, when you started seeing changes in direction with new top guys on average every six months or so, to a point where by 2000, the company would be focusing on Hall and Nash as top stars for two months, then on Flair and Hogan, then on Sting and Luger, then on Nash and DDP, then on Goldberg and Steiner, without any commitment to any core group for any length of time. Funk being relegated to the announce booth after such a successful feud had to hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted June 23, 2007 Report Share Posted June 23, 2007 I've been extolling the virtues of Funk for years, as I think he was always good. That Rotundo match is one that I have cited in the past as a great example of Funk excelling and putting a young guy over, even though it is obvious that the kid he's working with is really green and really isn't a "wrestler" in the full sense of the term yet. Funk in WWF run was really underrated. Lots of fun tags. I watched a match with him an Morales a few weeks ago and was amazed at how unbeliveably insane Funk was, willing to do just ridiculous shit to get the match over and the crowd hyped. I have said before that I think Flair and Funk are the two best pro wrestlers of all time. Really I think the gap after those two is pretty big as to me they are on their own plane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted June 25, 2007 Report Share Posted June 25, 2007 Loss touched on this, but Ross is really, really awesome in this..when Flaire comes out "OH GAWD!"..and his indigant "you are talkin about the world champion of the NWA" is pretty great. Also, there is no one who makes better use of the security rail for bumping effect than Funk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordi Posted September 7, 2007 Report Share Posted September 7, 2007 I've been extolling the virtues of Funk for years, as I think he was always good. That Rotundo match is one that I have cited in the past as a great example of Funk excelling and putting a young guy over, even though it is obvious that the kid he's working with is really green and really isn't a "wrestler" in the full sense of the term yet. Funk in WWF run was really underrated. Lots of fun tags. I watched a match with him an Morales a few weeks ago and was amazed at how unbeliveably insane Funk was, willing to do just ridiculous shit to get the match over and the crowd hyped. I have said before that I think Flair and Funk are the two best pro wrestlers of all time. Really I think the gap after those two is pretty big as to me they are on their own plane. We may not have the same taste in announcers, DW, but we do agree about a lot of wrestlers... Funk included. This angle points out one of Funks great strengths: It leaves me wanting to see a match between Funk and Sting, and a tag with Flair and Sting vs. Funk and a partner (Muta you say? Sure! I'll watch that!)... Funk and Piper were the absolute masters of cutting promos and setting up angles that made you want to see the ensuing matches. With Funk, there's the added bonus that the match itself will almost always be very good or better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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