[1980-04-18-AJPW] Abdullah The Butcher vs Terry Funk

[SAMS]

1980-04-18
AJPW
Abdullah The Butcher vs. Terry Funk
Champion Carnival 1980 Match
Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan
Card
★★

Can’t say this was good but it definitely was a spectacle. Both guys were pouring blood by the end of it. There was no messing around and they got right to it off the bat. Abby can barely sell a thing but with Terry shrieking like a banshee throughout it was never less than compelling viewing. After the inevitable double count out they even had to cut away because the ensuing attack on Terry was too violent to be shown. This is exactly what you would expect a Funk vs Abby match to be and it was a whole lot of fun, if you don’t mind a bit of blood.
I thought Terry Funk was great, as usual, but Abby here was a bit too static to give any real sense of threat or drama, so in a sense it did feel a little bit like two guys getting together to bleed in a ring.
 

[tcg91]

Terry was so great in this. Even before the match, as he wanted to jump on Abdullah and the referee had to desperately restrain him. His forehead was taped and, of course, this quickly led to him bleeding all over the place after just a few minutes. No offence to Abdullah, but this was pretty much a broomstick match, Abdullah couldn't or didn't want to move too much and Terry had to do it all for him. The crowd got excited when the heel started bleeding as well, Funk had a great comeback and some of his ideas were ahead of their time. I liked way Terry worked on his opponent's legs, but it went nowhere because of the usual non-finish. This was better than it had any right to be.
***