"FUNK COUNTRY: Blood & Barbwire in Amarillo 🤠"

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:27):
In nineteen forty eight, aspiring pro wrestler Dornce Funk, Dorry
to his friends and family, moved his wife and two
young sons from Hammond, Indiana to Amarillo, Texas.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Over the next fifty years.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
The name Funk would become synonymous with pro wrestling from
the Texas Panhandle to Tokyo, Japan. In a city of
hard riding cowboys and hard living farmers, Dory Funk would
gain a reputation as the toughest man in Texas. In
a sport filled with street fighters and shady promoters, he
would become known as one of the most honest and
influential men ever to set.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Foot in a ring or own a territory.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
The business he helped build as the main event star
and later the owner and promoter, would fill West Texas
arenas for three decades, launch the careers of countless pro
wrestling superstars, innovate matches and promotional tactics still in use today,
and leave a legacy that lasts well.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Into the twenty first century.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
His two sons, Dory Junior and Terry, would grow up
to become the only brother combination ever to achieve the
pinnacle of pro wrestling.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
The NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Their careers would last more than half a century as well,
influencing the stars of today in more ways than their
father could have ever dreamt of. The dozens of men trained, mentored,
and broken in by Dory Funk Senior and the Amarillo
Territory would become some of the biggest box office attractions,
prolific bookers, and pre eminent promoters in the sport. Outside

(01:49):
the ring, generations of Texans would come to view Funk
as a father figure due to his support of and
contributions to charitable causes such as the Boys Ranch. Entire
our world of pro wrestling today would be radically different
if not for the.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Presence of Dorifunk Senior.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
But it all started in Amarillo, a geographically isolated, art
scrabbled Texas town that would become famous in every corner
of the globe in large parts due to his efforts.
The story of Amarillo Wrestling begins with the story of
Dorifunk Senior, and therein begins our tastes. Hello again, everybody,

(02:35):
and welcome to another thrill packed episode of Back to
the Territories. Here for k Fabe commentaries, I'm Jim Cornett,
and tonight we have jumped back into the Dolorean.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
We have roared back to another.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Great wrestling territory of the past, this time a very unique,
a very overlooked territory, Amarillo, Texas and joining us to
talk about that very subject, a man uniquely qualified to
discuss Amarillo, Texas and wrestling in general, the term texting
himself Terry Funk and Terry, I appreciate you taking a ride.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
You're being here as you're being here and want to
take a ride with you.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, there you go, and of the past, because I'll
tell you what.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
It's always loved my daddy and I always love the
Funk family whenever they were all together and we were
ram rotting things throughout the country, and it was a
wonderful time.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
The Funk family. Blessed time, a blessed time.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
The Funk family did not start with your father, Dory Senior,
because your grandfather Adam was a pretty notorious bad guy
to deal with for the he was in law enforcement,
but for the for the al Capone gang on the
South side of Chicago, Hammond, right across the border from Chicago,
and in the roaring twenties, he had some run ins

(03:47):
with people. Did he He actually had a number of
killed in the line of duties, didn't.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
He, Yes, he did. He I don't know about killed.
But he shot eleven people, and that's a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, and if his aim was any good, he had
to get one well, I.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Think maybe one or two. But he went ahead and
he shot, you know, eleven people. And then one of
the persons that he shot was a guy that was uh,
he was a farmer that went nuts, you know, and
he got up in a sido back in in all
of Indiana. I don't know if you've seen the silos
back here or not. They were just they hold grain,

(04:23):
and they hold grain for their cattle and stuff and
and but they had an area up in the top
where you could go up, you know, yeah, kind of
uh an area that you could look.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Around at the offing loft.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Type of thing. And this one farmer went nuts and
he started shooting people out of there, kind of like
some of the things that we hear in this day
and age. But it was way back here, and he
shot like eleven people, and uh, I don't know how
many of them died, but some of them died, and
some of them didn't. My grandfather was told him. He

(04:57):
was a police officer at the time, and he told
him to take the patty wagon. You know, that's the
wagon that you'd pile them all into it. Yeah, you're
seeing the movies and stuff and everything, and opened the
back doors on it, got in there, and he said
back the paddy wagon right up to the hot you know,
to the silo. And he meant when ahead, and jumped

(05:18):
out of this out of the paddy wagon and went
up the stairs in the silo, on up the top.
And the other guy was coming down, and the other
guy had my grandfather had a shotgun and they had pistols.
And he went ahead, and you know, the guy had firearms,
and he was coming down and my grandfather was going

(05:41):
up and came around the corner, and my grandfather went
ahead and shot first and shot the top of his
head off. And uh. But but what was very wonderful
about that, it's uh, you know, it was it was
he saved a lot of people. That guy that was
a toss. He caused a lot of damage to a

(06:02):
lot of families in in in that area.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
That was a tough time to be in law enforcement
in the Chicago area twenties when they're literally the birth
of organized crime.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
It was the birth of organized crime, and my father
was part of it because he would go into the
Uh Call you Met was between Hammond and and Chicago,
you know, and it's kind of right on the border there,
you know, and my father would go over there and
they had slot machines and call you met city, you know,
And so he'd go ahead and call you met, go

(06:35):
over to there, and he'd play the slot machines and
if you play him back, then they had where you
put in your quarters and it would show you the quarters,
you know. But he was using slugs in there, and then, uh,
you know, it was an illegal thing to do in
the first place, but they went ahead and caught on

(06:56):
to my father doing that, and my father had to
leave town, you know. So he left town on the
freight train and he left all summer long. And my
grandfather couldn't figure out why he's gone, you know, he
has gone because those guys were looking for it.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
How did your dad first get involved in wrestling? Because
he started as an amateur, didn't he.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Oh, he was a great amateur, he really was. As
he went ahead and he was one of the very
very few few four time state champions in high school
and he was a state champion for Indiana all four
years freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. Then he went to
Indiana University and he met my mother and they got married.

(07:46):
And then, you know, they didn't have anything like that
during World War two, where you know you're married or
you're not married or anything like that. They just ship
your butt off, you know. And so my father went
ahead and uh, instead of World War II came along
and instead of of of getting drafted, he could have

(08:11):
to go to the army or whatever, he wanted to
go to the Navy. So he enlisted in the Navy
at that time and spent four years in the Navy.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
And then was it when he got out of the
service that he first turned pro because at the time,
Chicago was a it was hotbed.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
It was a hot bed, and he tried to get
into business up there, and they didn't want him to
get in. So they went ahead and they had some
very tough shooters at the time, and my father went
through one of them, went through two of them, and
then they I can't remember the ones name, but they
brought him in there and my father went in and

(08:49):
broke his leg, and they went ahead and they decided
they better go ahead and smarten him up.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well, that's in.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Those days you had to to prove yourself first. And
your dad, well he wasn't a heavyweight, right, he was
more of a light Well.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
You know. That's the funny thing about it, though, is
because back then nobody was a heavyweight. The heavyweights were
all looked down at. They were all big, fat slobs,
you know, and they were all junior heavyweights a time.
That was in the two oh five and less, yeah,
you know. But then a long time, about nineteen early
nineteen fifties, along came the heavyweights. You know. My father

(09:29):
moved up with them then, you know, but junior heavyweight
was a big thing in the country at that time.
The heavyweights were considered fat, big slobs. You know. That
was that was like over two hundred and ten pounds.
That's how this world has changed. That's how people have changed.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
There weren't there wasn't how much.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Better were eating?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah yeah, or there wasn't more eating there were, yeah,
there was.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Fred Kohler was the Boston Chicago He was the ones
that started the network TV on the Dumont network.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
He controlled Chicago in.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
I think Dumont and UH, and he controlled the whole area.
And your dad started out under him, but he had
to branch out and went to a few different territories.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
How did he.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
That's where he went ahead, seas, that's where he went ahead,
and they they started him. He came up, I want
to be a wrestler. So what do they do? They
booked him on the card. So what do they book
him against? They booked him against a tough guy supposed
to be able to beat him. And so my father
went ahead and went in a ring on the first

(10:34):
the first time, and he beat the guy. You know.
They went second time, third time, fourth time, and on
down the road.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Darren.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Finally they decided to better smarten him up. So they
went ahead and smartened him up. And that was the
story of my father. You know, it's amazing to me
that the UH, the the likeness or the A, what
the MMA is and what wrestling was back then. What

(11:05):
the amazing thing is is that. And believe me, I'm
not saying anything bad about MMA or anything else, but
they they are a form of wrestling, and all of
your MMA guys and everything used to be in our profession,

(11:28):
all of the guys that were all of the guys
that were extremely rugged and tough and everything else. And
I'm not saying and we're not still rugged and tough,
but you know what I'm.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Saying, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
That was us.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Well, we were talking on the phone last week and
we've said that the UFC now is like the first
forty years of pro wrestling, but it's only taken UFC
ten because with the worldwide Internet communication we're on speed
starts now. Took honestly about forty years to really get
to the showbiz point with television, et cetera. UFC now

(12:06):
is already starting to blur the lines. Brocks going back,
UFC to me, Dana White's most successful wrestling promoter in.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
The world today.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
I agree with you one. I think that's so true,
you know, and I think I think we're looking at
the same thing repeating itself, and it's going to repeat
itself again.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Except gotcha, gotcha h double cross hacking Schmidt. Next time,
it might be, it might be it might be brought
double crosses. Anyway, Let's go back to your dad, you know,
But it.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Was, it was, it was, it was a tough, tough
you know, I don't want to use it. Well, it's
a tough son of a gun.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
We we can we can say these things here because
Sean Oliver. Just pay the FCC fine and we'll be fine,
all right. How did he pick Amarilla.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Well, he've got he picked Ambrella because of cal Farley.
Cal Farley was an old time wrestler. Uh. There was
a guy that was a wrestler that was up in
Ohio that was up there with my father and I
can't quite remember his name, but he was up there
in Ohio and my father was up in Ohio just

(13:14):
started into the business, had about a year under his belt,
and we were living up there in a trader you know,
a small trader house trader that he and my mother
had bought. And he told my father said, hey, he
and up in Ohio was going to become heavyweights, which

(13:39):
was above two hundred and five pounds. And my father thought, well,
you know, hey, I need to go somewhere, but not
up here where it's all heavyweights, you know, I want
to get somewhere. And he asked I can't think of
the guy's name right now, but he asked him and

(14:00):
he told my father. He says, well, down there in
the Panandle of Texas, there's a guy by the name
of of cal Farley, and he's got a place down there,
and they got a business down there, and you go
down there and get into the wrestling business. Cal Farley
and Dory Detton. So my father went, which is ironic.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
The previous promoter in Amarillo is named Dory Detton. And
how many Dories do you know these days? Not very many,
not very many. I know, I know a brother and
that was was That was even before the days of
Doc Sarpolis, right, he'd come along right afterwards, took over
from there.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
But yeah, my father took over from from Starpolis whenever
he passed away.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
So when you got there, I guess nineteen forty eight,
Dory was what like seven, and you were.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Oh, I was just I was well, I was four.
My brother was around eight years old. I was four
whenever I got out the boys Ranch, and there was
an idiot.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, your dad worked at the boys Ranch, which is
kind of where Eddie Graham got the idea for the
Florida Boys and.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Boys exactly where he got the idea for the Boy's Ranch,
because he was. He loved my father so much that
he just idolized him and what he had done, and
he followed everything that he did, and he took it
down to Florida and tried to make a replica of it.
And he did make a replica of the Boys Ranch

(15:22):
down there, and it's still there now, I assume just
ask cal Farley's Boys Ranch is in Ambrella. Still there, kids,
still there, everything. And my father brought wrestling to the Panhandle,
amateur wrestling, and he started it at Boys Ranch, and

(15:44):
they had some great teams come out of there, you know,
and just did very well with it. The kids loved it,
loved the sport.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
But now he's not only running the Boy's Ranch, he's
also wrestling. You guys are starting to grow up and
the tales in your book, by the way, find publication
more than Hardcore by Terry Funk.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Pick it up at your local bookshop.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
You mentioned that you had some of the great wrestlers
in the world coming in and you would sneak down
and listen to your dad tell stories and they would
be cutting up and.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Oh, you know, the guys listen.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
One two o'clock, one two o'clock in the morning, they
come back from well back then it would be Ablin
and Odessa and all of those southern towns and Herford
when they get closer, and my mom would go ahead
and she'd cook up those wonderful steakes and wonderful meals
and everything at twelve thirty one thirty at night and everything,

(16:43):
you know, and I'd come into there and it was
just wonderful. It was what a what a way to
grow up to listen to their stories and especially you know,
one of your hearing stories about World War two and
all of these different things that happened to them and everything,
you know, wonderful. And then their experiences in the business

(17:03):
itself were so interesting too.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Who were some of the guys that you liked when
you were a kid, that the wrestlers that you either
liked to watch or listen to or both.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Well, we had a we had a place in our garage,
but you know those guys that come by. But what
it would always do would always break down, you know,
and they'd be in the kitchen, you know, and talking.
Whether it was in the afternoon or two o'clock in
the morning, it didn't matter, you know. But if they'd
all get in there and I mean you get those
guys together, get a few, get a few beers there,

(17:35):
and move that furniture back, and pretty soon there they'd
go right to the floor, you know, and see who's
the best. You know, that was It was amazing times
for me and for my family.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
How old were you when when your dad smartens you
up to the business.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
You know, as that was I was in the seventh grade,
seventh twelve, thirteen thirteen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
He didn't want to insult either myself or my brother's intelligence.
And uh he also uh taught us to respect the
profession too. At the same time, you know.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
He waited till you were old enough where you wouldn't
just tell the kids because you know well that you
were little. But at the same time he didn't want
you to go off.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Over the area. Yeah, and uh, you know, but so
many things happened though it's whenever, you know, I'll never
forget this. My father was a very tough man and
lived a very tough life. He really did, you know,
And he was he was as tough as there there
was in the whole Amberill area. And he was one

(18:48):
of the great of the of the very very good
shooters in the business. Uh because you know, as uh
he was going to Indiana University whenever he like I said,
as he four time state champion, he is going to
Indiana University and wrestling at the Indiana University when he

(19:11):
got drafted. So he was a great athlete, you know,
in a great amateur whenever he you know.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
So.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
He would just he really did protect his profession at
that time, and people did protect it. You know. I
can remember to this day that being setting in a
restaurant in Amrella, Texas, whenever I was oh, probably seven

(19:44):
eight years old, you know, and this guy came into
the restaurant. My mom and father and a couple of
their friends were in a booth in the back room,
kind of in a room separate, not that far away
from one another in a restaurant, normal type of thing,
you have. My brother and I were any other one

(20:05):
and he recognized us and he said, down by me.
And he says, oh, says, well, don't she tell me
all of that wrestling is fake, isn't it. It's all
a bunch of bullshit, you know. And my brother heard that.
I said, I don't think it is. I said, I
think it's real. And he said well, you know, it's
not real, it's all phony, it's all a bunch of

(20:27):
crap and guard. Well, my brother took off, told my
father and he came around the corner and that was
one of the first times I've ever seen anybody just
beat the living shit out of somebody. And it was
my father just beat his ass up right there in
the restaurant.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
You know, I've never understood the wisdom my father beat
a lot of people, regardless of whether you know guys
Freddie Faker or not. When when somebody that's that physically
intimidating you just walk up and said, I think you're well,
that's to me that that's never.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Been insulting wisdom.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
It's insulting.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
It's insulting. But uh, did did we handle it right? Yes?
He handled it right. And have I handled it right
at times? Yes, But it was my livelihood and I
have to protect my livelihood.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, during the fifties, your dad, this was here.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
I am sitting down here and talking, well, talking to
the people out there, and it's really Uh.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
That horse has left the barn though Terry a long
time ago. We can't do anything about it.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
As much I loved, I love I love to go
out and rope him and bring him back.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
I would your your dad before he ever owned the territory.
He was the top baby face through the fifties. He
was you know, he was establishing.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
The real Gorgeous George. I got pictures of him.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
And that's what I was going to say.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
When when you're watching your dad, you're you're entering your
teams here and.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
Tell you, you know how many people Andrew, We'll tell you
what you think wrestling is big in this day and age.
We're going to talk about New York drawing big crowds
and everything else. You know. Well, back then, my father
wrestled Gorgeous George in the football stadium in Amarillo, Texas,

(22:23):
And with the football stadium held like eighty five hundred
people and the ring side held another thousand, and there
was like sixty two thousand people in the city. So

(22:43):
you were drawing about twenty percent of the population. Well,
they don't draw that anymore to any type of sports.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
They did that in New York could be one point
three million people or whatever.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
At this point, Boy, you're quite a mathematic.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Well I just come completely out of my ass with it.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
It did you just did it amazing.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Of course that's a completely both close. Who who were
the guys that you like?

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Because I know when I was a teenager and you
were one of them, I've stolen things.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Hey hey hey hey now ye am I that old
what no?

Speaker 2 (23:18):
What you?

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:21):
But who were who were the guys you like to
watch that you stole something from when you got into
business later on, either in the ring or as.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
A promoge I loved them all. I loved them all.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I loved Johnny Valentine. Uh. I thought he was a
great n ring performer. He would go into the ring
and uh he was so solid and so wonderful in
the ring that he would go into a territory he
really would back in and all of the boys would

(23:56):
look at him. You know, he could go into any territory,
no matter how out of shape it was in and
he could bring it up and all the boys would
watch him and they would all start emulating him. Yeah,
and it would just entirely rearrange the territory to where
you have a territory that's not doing that well. I
saw him do it to territory after territory after territory

(24:19):
and just explode him by just being that solid and
change the style. Change change the style into a into
believability and suspension of disbelief.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
The reason I asked you who you might have taken.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
That, I's not only many others too, Rapid Ricky Ramero.
Why did I love racket Rapid Ricky Rameril Because we
go to all of those little towns where they pick cotton,
you know, like Littlefield in Hereford, Texas, you know, and
I go over there. I love to be on the
card with Ricky because there'd just be oodles and oodles

(24:55):
of the Spanish population would come out to see him,
and I would get on that card. I'd make more
money there you go. And then but what else you'd
do is he'd give me an education whenever I was
driving down there and driving back. And that's what these
guys don't get in this day and age is we
had the automobile, you know, And what was the automobile. Well,
if you as a young wrestler, you got shoved into

(25:18):
the back seat with a couple of other young wrestlers,
and the old wrestlers would be up in the front
with a seat shoved all the way back going down
the road, lecturing you about what you did right and
what you did wrong in your match and what and
it was a great education and a wonderful way to
travel and a wonderful way to live.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
All you had to do was sit back and listen,
and you would learn more in the car than you
would sometimes.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
In the ring.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Absolutely, Ricky Romero was the biggest baby face in Amarillo
not named Funk.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Uh, you're the father of the young bloods. J Hart
and Chris great guys. But you know then you got
dbassies and you got you got so.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Many nights, Teddy's father right all the time.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
You know, you got you got a lot of guys,
and you got the guys who came out of the
football you know, the West Texas football mersaid Slee. Uh,
Dick Murdoch, who was amazing, because Dick Murdoch was uh,
you know, West Texas had some great football players, Dwayne Thomas, Mercury,
Morris myself.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
But I did I did play, but Stan Hansen and
Bobby Duncombe and Bobby West Texas State.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
But Murdoch was not a Murdoch was so good, he
was so slick.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
He even convinced he played in the alumni games for
West Texas State. Never never played, never went to West
Texas State, but he convinced people after the fact he did.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
He was convinced people at West Texas Yes, and he
actually went out there and never played down the football
at all, the gods honest truth, went out there.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Until he got an alumni game and played.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Middle linebacker and did a hell of it.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
He could do anything.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, you know, as I saw him and John Ayres,
John Ayres was my good friend to another guy that
actually wrestled in the business and refereed some and John
was a wonderful, wonderful football player for the San Francisco
forty nine ers whenever they were winning Super Bowls a
year after year, you know. And uh, Dick Murdoch I

(27:24):
saw him say, John, I want to race you across
you know, I'll run you a race, John, where do
you want to run? This and that? And they decided
they're going to run across a football field, you know,
not lengthwise, but fifty five yards across. And John beat
him by about three yards, but Murdoch stayed right up
with him. I mean, it was just amazing. And Airs

(27:45):
ran I don't know how fast he ran, but he
was he was great fast. But Dick Murdoch with that
big beer belly and everything and went that far behind
him that time, Murdoch, I did. We were in Atlanta,
Dick and I were, you know, and I went ahead
and after Atlanta and been wrestling and everything else, and

(28:10):
we both went out, said let's go have some beers.
So we went out to this bar at this shopping
It was a shopping mall, but it was an outside mall,
you know what I mean. It was like, yeah, you
outside to go. You want to get the drug store
and this store and that store and everything else, you know.

(28:30):
And then they had this bar in there, you know,
and it always had a lot of people in there
and everything else. So Murdock and I was decided, I
was going to go get a beer, you know. So
we went up there. And when we went up there,
it was next to this grocery store. Well, they had
all of these carts out there, you know. It was

(28:50):
that you have in the grocery store that you carry
your groceries in. Can you take them outside, you know,
and you put your groceries in your car and you
leave them out there in the parking lot. So it
was out there and the bar was there, and we'd
been in there for several hours, and I said to Dick,
you know, it's going back out the car. And I
got in the car and I said, Dick, I said,

(29:12):
you know, and there was one of those carts you know,
turn on the lights, and there was a cart right
in front of the car. And I said, Dick, he
would be really really funny. He said, what's that? I said,
if if you would go ahead, if you get in
that cart, and I'll get behind you in the car
and I'll push you by the front of the bar

(29:35):
o O, Budrow, that'd be funny. That's what murdocks see.
You bet, Budrow, that'd be funny. So he went ahead
and gotten that damn he got the grocery cart, you know,
and he was in there hanging out on every side.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Oh you know.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
So I got him going up there, you know. I
got behind him, got him headed right straight towards it.
That bar are up there, you know, and I got
him going about. But then all of a sudden I
raced up the car and got of going about twenty
five or thirty, and he's hollering, whoa, Budrow, whoa, whoa,
whoa whoa saw down budrow, you know, and I just

(30:15):
slammed on the brakes let that he kept on going there.
He didn't go through the front door or anything, but
he had a good lesson that night.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
His father was a wrestler too, Frankie Hill Murdoch, and
I come in tons of matches with your dad and
you guys.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Oh he did what if them.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Was a sports arena that we're not always Yeah we're
crowd right, well, no, we go ahead and get up
in the ring afterwards, you know. And I'd always go
ahead and beat the crap out of him all the time.
I could then though, because I was four years older
than him. See, he was just a little bitty ship.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
When when did TV wrestling come in? In all?

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Oh, it was been there forever, you know. It's uh,
you know you've heard of Zales Jewelers and the amazing
Burrel amazing Burl Bullock. Have you ever heard of.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Amazing I've heard of Sales Jewelers.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Bullock made gazillions of dollars. Zales Jewelers came out of Amberillo, Texas.
He's the one that started and masterminded Zale's Jewelers. And
he would how he became. How he was able to
start into the jewelry business was that he sponsored the

(31:31):
wrestling show back here and on Thursday night they had
a live show before they like, you know, the matches
start at eight thirty. Well they'd start the live show
at seven thirty on television because they didn't have, uh
the video capabilities of taping it at that time. So

(31:51):
they go ahead and they come on and they do
the live show out there from the wrestling arena.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Who was it?

Speaker 5 (31:58):
Was?

Speaker 2 (31:58):
It always the naser Steve Stacker? Was there an announcer
before that?

Speaker 3 (32:02):
You know, I couldn't there. There was announcers before Steve,
but Steve went way back. Steve was a great announcer,
very good.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
So your dad, like I said, started in Texas at
forty eight. You Dorry was a couple of years ahead
of you. So he started as pro in what sixty three.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Sixty two, sixty three sixty two, and then the UK
sixty five, maybe you broke.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
In sixty five sixty six.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
What was it like when when Dorry had had had
gotten the head start first, and now you're you're having
to feel not only not pheel, but follow your dad's shoes.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
And now Dory's. Was there a lot of extra pressure.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Because the name Funk at that time, like Ambilla was
still such a small town and you got everybody knew.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Is I really really loved the wrestling world. I just
loved it. I mean I did, I, you know, whenever
I was a kid. So I don't think it was pressure.
I think it was I was elated because like whenever
I was whenever I was a little kid, you know,

(33:12):
as most kids wanted to grow up to be uh whatever,
you know that they might wanna wanna be, you know,
when I want you know, cowboys or Indians or something
like thats you know what I mean. They play cowboys
and Indians, And I was uh different. I wanted to
be a wrestler. I never wanted to be anything but

(33:35):
a wrestler. I never had any desire to do anything
else other than that, you know, So whenever I was
a little kid, I didn't hell I wanted to play
wrestler or whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
You know, when your dad had thought I was a whole.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Lot tougher than what I was too.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Uh I if you thought you were to add it,
I won't go there. Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Your dad had a lot of powerful friends in the
business because he had, yeah, he had already had by
that point, broken in and trained some guys and helped
some guys, and one of them was Eddie Graham, who
early in his career worked down there as the original
rip rogers.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Right, that's exactly right. Yeah. And and Eddie and my father,
they they were they they loved each other, they really did,
you know. But Eddie had this thing about him where
he always wanted to go ahead and uh just kind
of try my father and get the best of him,

(34:35):
because he knew that that would be the epitome of
everything for him to go ahead and beat up my father,
you know. But I mean it never happened, you know,
And I'll never forget. One time we were in Florida,
you know, and we were down there on Eddie had
his boat, you know, which was a huge boat at
the time, and it was just a gorgeous, wonderful yacht

(34:58):
or if you want to call it that. It was
forty five foot fishing boat, you know, and at that
time that was a monstrous fishing boat for somebody to own,
you know. And uh, he went ahead and uh was
coming up. We we we were in rusking with my
father's parents, which is a place, small town outside of Tampa,

(35:23):
and but it was on the on the water on
the ocean, and I had a dog here and everything.
And Eddie went ahead and brought us up here, and
we got out of the boat and we were all
running up here to the place we were staying. And
my brother ran up here, and my mom got out,
and my and I got out and everything, and we

(35:43):
came up here, and Eddie got out, and Mike Graham
got out, and and uh, we were all going up
here to where my grandfather's place was. And Eddie was, uh,
just this was Eddie.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
He'd get to drink and he'd get a little goof
you know, he had one eye that was kind of
looking that way or something, you know like that, you know,
and he he gets these crazy ideas when he got
to drinking, you know, and he just knew that he
could go ahead and get the best of my dad.
You know, it's one time, you know, And so he

(36:19):
went ahead and he kind of followed my father along there,
and all of a sudden he went ahead and he
just he just caught him with a he blindsided big one,
you know, and just bamn, right bam as hard as
he could, and my father went ahead and he kind
of went down to his knee and then he got

(36:41):
back up. I remember watching it. And then he beat
the shit out Eddie.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
And they were friends, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
They were friends. And he did the same thing. And
then Eddie one time in Ambrella. It's all crazy, you know, Eddie.
One time in Ambrella, they were in the dressing room,
you know, and Eddie decided he's going to go ahead
do that with my father again and Amilla, you know.
And my father went ahead and took him down and

(37:08):
got him underneath the dressing room table and beat the
ship out of him then too, you know. But Eddie
just never did learn, you know that you can't, you know,
it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Whenever we do one of these things and anybody mentioned,
well that we're.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
So him, you know. But you know who loved him,
My daddy. Yeah, he loved him. He loved him, and
I loved him.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Whenever anybody mentions Eddie, it's always it's almost like the
heavens open up and the light comes down and that you.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Hear the Hallelujah chorus.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Because he was a genius booker, and he drew some
great promoter, drew so much money, taught Bill Watson, Dusty
Roads how to book groom, Jack Briscoe, blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
No wait a minute, let me say something about Dusty.
Now you know where you know where Dusty came from Texas,
You know where he watched, You know where he watched
you know where all of those guys began a Mailla
Thursday nights. They all went there from West Texas as
football players. They'd watch those matches every Thursday night.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
So well that I've noticed that sometimes what you think,
if you trace things back, what you think somebody invented,
you can always take it back a little farther.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
I want to take it back further if I can
claim credits. Go ahead to Dusty Rope. I know I
don't want to explain.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Because he's an air fucking dog.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
I know he is. I can't claim Dusty.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I always loved that you and Dorry would do that
nobody else that I've ever seen do. At that time,
the guy backs you up in the ropes, he's peppering you,
and all of a sudden you grab him by the
back of the head and you throw your leg in
between his legs and you hop up on the top
rope and you flip backwards and monkey flips. A guy
right of the top rope slickered and come on a
gold tooth.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
And I always loved that move. And but then all
of a sudden.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
I don't know about how slick that is, trust me,
it's it's a slick.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
But then I saw an old stop last you don't
want to say that.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
I saw an old piece of footage of the grand
Brothers from Capitol Wrestling Show in the early sixties, Eddie
and My and Jerry Graham, and Eddie Graham does the
same thing. I said, well, that's wait a minute, is
that where the funkstole? And then I realized that Eddie
Graham was rip Rogers at Amarillo. And I bet your
dad invented that, did he not?

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Well, I don't know if he invented it or not,
but I know that Eddie Graham was in there years
and years and years ago, you.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Know, and it was it was too if I love
I'm a wrestling nerd, folks, I love going back there.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
This guy, this guy does go back on you.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
So anyway, Dorry breaks in.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Uh, your dad, But when did your dad buy into
the office finally, Well, that was just well it.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Uh, I would say it was probably fifty fifty eight,
so before maybe sixty, you know, because he was you know,
he bought into it. And then whenever Doc passed away,
well then it would just you know, it was just

(40:13):
a matter of I think he paid losar Pullus some
money for it, you know. But that was a valuable
thing back then. It's very a valuable What was.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
The shape of the territory.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
What was it like when when you guys broke in
in the early sixties, you and Dorry the schedule of
the town's.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Weekly with was the TV? Like who was booking things
like that?

Speaker 3 (40:33):
What was well, sha the uh, the shape of it
was uh at that time, it was Albuquerque on Sunday,
Monday was El Paso, Tuesday, Odessa Wednesday, love A Thursday,
Ambrella Friday. Uh, spots showed down to San Angelo, you know, Saturday,

(40:54):
back you're up in Pueblo, Uh, Colorado or Hereford, Texas
one of the other Sunday Albuquerque or Clovis, and back
to Monday, El Paso again. You just keep on going forever.
It was the forever cycle.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
But what was that it was?

Speaker 1 (41:10):
But it was wonder a week because those are some
that Albuquerque is a head of a trip, wasn't it?

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Well, you know, but it wasn't. It wasn't because Albuquerque
it's not like here. It was the heck of a trip.
And we took here today, which which was from where
to where.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
We're in New Jersey folks.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
You can almost smell it through your TV screen. But well, here,
sixty miles is three hours there, you know, you know,
three hundred miles is you know, Well, if you roll
a bowling ball from Amarillo to Lovebook, can't.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
You on downhill? Yeah, that's downhill, that's right. But yeah,
it's uh, it's not any population between the towns. So
you just take off and go. You know, I mean,
Albuquerque's too eighty. So you get up and you know,
I mean you leave at four o'clock, be there at eight. Seriously.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, there was an overnight episode because you used to
have to do an Albuquerque TV that was different from
the Amarillo.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Yeah, we did, well, we would take we'd take off
an ambrella and go to Albuquerque. But we get up
in the morning, drive Cukham Carrey, fill up with gas,
Toukham carry and drive on in to Albuquerque, and that
was two hundred and eighty miles and you'd be there. Oh,
you get up at about eight and we had a
twelve o'clock TV show over there, and we make live

(42:36):
TV for over there. That's the only one we did,
and it was a phenomenal town. It was Uh we
do fifty five hundred in there on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
But that's not dollars, that's people, right, people.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, And then we go to al Passo the next night,
which is about two something from from Albuquerque.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
And uh, Gory Guerrero's town back then, was he the
local promoter? Uh, Shavo's dad is And we do.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
You know, twenty eight three three three thousand people sometimes
and less than that too. I mean, I'm not trying
to but I'm talking to the upper in there. I'm
putting everything over. And then we work Odessa and that
was an oil town and everything on a Tuesday. And
then we go to Lubbock and those were all wonderful towns.

(43:29):
But here's the thing is, uh, what's the difference between
us any other towns. Those towns we'd have our boys
on them and we would that we didn't have the
big town we didn't have any really big towns like

(43:52):
New York or Saint Louis or Dallas or Atlanta, r California.
Our u up in Oregon, are you know.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I mean it was smaller markets, but it was steady
and it was weekly.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yes, but we had to definitely pay, honestly in order
to maintain the talent that we had because we were
a smaller territory and we had to compete with the
bigger ones.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
And you guys didn't get any publicity in the national
magazines were based out of New York, and later later
on with the Texas death matches came and the chain matches,
et cetera. But as far as in terms of the
bigger territories that were on bigger television in Los Angeles, Chicago,
New York, you were geographically isolated there and the TVs

(44:48):
didn't cross over. So I noticed a lot of times
guys in other territories that do an injury angle the
broken leg be out for six weeks. They'd be over
in Amarillo. Nobody knew they were there because there was
no internet, so it was a place where guys could go.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
And saw corny. How did we get control of the
entire National Wrestling Lines.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Well, that was due to your dad having trained or
influenced almost everybody in it, and they would call him
advice when they got stuck, right when they were up
shit Greek, we need to call Dory, And later on
it was called Eddy Graham, but Eddie Graham was calling Dory.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
That's the amazing part about this thing, I think is
that from that once again small market area, geographically isolated.
It wasn't Madison Square Garden, it wasn't Chicago International Amphitheater.
But one of the most powerful men in the NWA,
and a guy who everybody asked for his advice and
everybody wanted his input, was the Boss and his influence

(45:48):
was felt in more ways.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Than just territory that he ran.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
So what happened, Well, we're going to get to that
in the next hour and however long. So that was
talked about your dad's influence, some of the matches that
he invented.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
The Texas Death Match, yeah, was your hands inventtion.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, and explain to the people who don't maybe understand
because you've seen Texas Deathmatch New York, get them. Texas
Death Match is a no DQ match. It's one fall
or whatever the rules of a Texas Death Match and
also explain how they were promoted. Your dad got him
over to the point where the people realized it might
go two hours. That was the only match that was
advertised on the card he did.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
He and Mike Dbiosi did four hours and ten minutes.
They did four hours and thirty two falls. I think
it was in one Texas Death Match, which was and
the people just went nuts about it. And then they
went ahead and they cut it off at two in
the morning because it was too late. What a finish
Jesus Christ. Isn't that a great.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
And wasn't it?

Speaker 1 (46:52):
That was one of the things that did get on
the magazine cover. He and Cyclone Negro forty two falls.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
An hour and forty four minutes.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
They both went to the hospital for three days because
of blood loss. Yeah, I mean the people in Texas
were not easy to fool. They if it was if
it was some kind of ballet dance, they were going
to fart in it. You know it was, it was legitimate,
and that established the Texas Death Match the point where
it wasn't done every week, and it wasn't overdone.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
But whien they booked it was. It was not done
at all.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Over Over, would you have a standby match and they
didn't get in the ring. Sometimes the card would be
the Texas Death Match.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
That well, that's one of the one of the great
deals was my father and Mike Dibiassi went four hours
and ten minutes and then they went ahead and it
was like eight months later they brought the return back
and uh, all they booked on the return was, uh,

(47:50):
there was an opening match with two guys, and then
there was a Texas Death Match, and then there was
a match in case it did it didn't expand that long,
and they had a stand by a match at the
end there and they went ahead and that was like

(48:11):
only six people got paid on the car. But I mean,
wasn't that a brilliant thing to do? Yeah? Yeah it was.
It was really a great way to do it, you
know what? Over, Yeah, what a wonderful way to do it.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Tell them the rules. You know the rules by heart,
don't you?

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Oh no, I know you do. Though, thirty seconds between
the falls. Falls did not count, no stopping because of blood,
no what else.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
No time limit, no disqualification, no time, no disqualification, and
the match continues, can.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Be taken anywhere in the arena, and the.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Match continues until one man can't answer the bell.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah, and I have to ignore that the match continues
after a fall. You have thirty seconds in a ten
count to get to your feet for the bell, and
if you can't get to your feet, well that was over.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
And didn't you do the finish? I know somebody did
finish somewhere. They probably stole it from you, but I
thought it was just neat in its simplicity.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
The babyface the heel won because the heel had fallen
on top of the baby face, and when the baby
face got to his feet, the heel was still on
his back and the heel was up first, even though
he was still unconscious.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Did you guys do that?

Speaker 3 (49:25):
I don't. I think that sounds like Jerry Lawler.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
It might have been taller, it might have been lower.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
It probably was probably probably.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Was in your book you.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Well, let's let's start if we talked about matches with
Dick Murdoch, who you had a budge with when you
guys broke up or broke in, both in and out
of the ring, but also a guy that was an
influence on you early was sput Nick Monroe, who was
another one of the characters you guys had characters.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Down Sunny Monroe was one of the first guys that's
had my first match with him. It was amazing. Let
me tell you what we did. Wrestled him his second
match actually, as I had a warm up match and
nobody knew about. It was in Clovis, New Mexico, and
it was myself and uh and I'm trying to think

(50:14):
of her name, but it's Kane Noble and Jack Caine
against myself and a little bitty short girl at wrestled
all the time. I can't remember what her name was.
She's out of Kansas City.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
We'll come up with it.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah, we'll come up.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
We'll put it in on a graphic folk.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
But anyhow, that is anyhow, that was my first match,
but it was just to get me used to the
crowd and and everything, just because it was a small town.
But then I had two nights later a match in Ambrilla.
My my first match here, you know, it was against
Sputnick Monroe, and that was my advertised first match was

(50:58):
against Sputneck and I was in the ring.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Who was completely insane. Oh, in his own lovely way.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, and he go ahead and he is telling me
in the ring here you know, it's uh uh, you're
doing good, kid, Just lay there, a kid, stay down, kid,
just a little bit longer, kid. I was in a
ten minute match, you know, and now the minutes are
running by, you know, so now it's about six or

(51:25):
seven minutes going by, and I've looked like a I
don't know, I looked pretty bad. You know. I wasn't
doing a damn thing, but just laying there like you
stay there, a kid, you're doing.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Did you ever get back up? Did you ever get
back up? Oh?

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Yeah, I sure did. Do you know when I got
back up?

Speaker 2 (51:46):
When you beat him?

Speaker 3 (51:47):
No? No, Well my old man came down there, and
he guy came down of the ring and he hollered
at me, God, damn it, get up off your.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Ash now you make the family looked bad.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, I bought my I fired, I fired up and
went like a maniac for the last two minutes. You know.
But that was the true story there about him.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
And there there were we you talked about Ricky Romero,
there were some other guys that were in those days, sixties,
early seventies. Amarillo mainstays Gordon Nelson, great wrestler.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Yeah, great, great guy, great wrestler. Forget who it was.
It was Less Thornton. Gordon Nelson was out there at
the ranch, and so was a bunch of other guys,
and that's where my father passed away. And what it
was is Less Thornton was there too, and he said
that nobody can hold me down front face lock, you know.

(52:47):
So my father got down on you know, So my
father front face locked him and uh on a you know,
they were in the kitchen, you know, when he got
down on top of him and slapped the front face
lock on him, and they went all over the kitchen
and Wess Thornton couldn't get away, you know, and father

(53:10):
kind of choked him out, you know. And uh, and
he went and came back over there where I was
and sat down by me and my brother. He said
it wasn't bad for an old man, was it. I said, no,
it wasn't. And then he walked out on a front
porch and my wife is out there, and my wife

(53:31):
is smoking a cigarette on a front porch at ranch,
you know, and he says, uh, go back in there
and tell Terry that I think I'm having a heart attack. So, uh,
my wife came in here and told me that, and
I went out there and we got him the canyon
right quick. And it was a small town, had a

(53:56):
very small community at the time, and I had one
doctor in town.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
There and.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
He was a good doctor, but he wasn't, you know,
a small town doctor. And he said, you need to
uh row with a dori and we're gonna get you
at Ambrella. So they called an ambulance. It took about
thirty minutes s get there, which is more time and
more time.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
And then so we got in the ambulance with him,
and my brother was in the front seat and I
was in the back with my dad. And he said,
how much further we gotta go, Terry. So he was
about a mile and a half from the hospital in Ambrella,
and I said about a mile and a half. Dad,
He says, I can't make it. He says, I'm going

(54:46):
just like that, and he is gone.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
He was fifty three.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
It's time, was he not fifty four?

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Fifty four eight?

Speaker 3 (54:53):
That's a young man.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
My dad had his heart attack just like the week
before his fifty fourth birthday.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Did he pass Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:01):
And he just he wasn't shooting on the kitchen floor. Here.
He was out out in the woods a bird watching trip.
That's calm, fall fall day.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
And suddenly, you know, you never don't know what happened
out there and what's going on. You know, seriously, I'm
being very serious with you. I mean there's uh, you know,
it's pretty uh it is devastating, you know.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Well, let's get back to the to the staff here,
the roster. What I was where I was going with
that was there was some good some great wrestlers, but
also there was some great characters. Because also one guy
that you knew well that spent a lot of time
that a killer, Carl Cox had Ray Stevens, who was
a character.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Tell me tell me a Cox story that sounds sounds wrong.
Wait a minute, tell me a story about killer Carl Cox.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Cox was not. So let's see as I'm trying to
think of one. I'm trying to think of one down wad.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Because he influenced Murdoch a lot. Murdoch loved him and
hero worshiped him and oh took the brainbuster and the
straight right punch and the hold nine yards.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
Yeah, I tell you Murdoch story. There Murdoch story. Benny
Trudell's story. I'm gonna tell the story of my father
and Benny Trudell. Okay, you'll love this story. This is
a good story I picked out. I just blew into
my mind. Writer. Who's Benny Trudell. He was a wrestler
from one hundred thousand years ago. He was a little

(56:37):
French wrestler. He was Frenchman out of Canada, Canadian French,
you know. And he says, you know, so my father
he thought, my father everything that my father did was funny,
you know. So they were going down the road, you know,
and my father go ahead, you know, and he haunk
a hitchhikers, you know, and the hitchhikers go ahead.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
He pull off the road for the hitchhikers, you know,
and they come running up her, you know. And it
was just as they get there, my father drive off,
you know, and Benny say, oh, Dorry, Oh, Dorry, that
is so funny, Dorry, that is so funny. Please Dorry,
Oh you are such a funny guy, you know. So,

(57:21):
and he did it a few times along the road
on certain parts. So he pulled up this one guy though,
you know, and and uh, he said to Bennie. He says, Benny,
you know what would be really funny is if you
pull down your pants, just tick your ass out the
window with the guy. Oh oh, Dorry, that would be funny.
I am going to do it, Dorry, I will, I

(57:43):
will do it. So my father goes ahead and he
pulls down there, you know, and Benny goes ahead and
he sticks his ass out the window, you know, pulls
that pants. Whenever the guy starts coming up her. You know,
my father would run off, you know, drive ahead of
him a little bit, make him run, drive ahead and
make him run. And Benny always thought that was funny.

(58:05):
So my father goes there this one time, he goes
up here and says to Bennie, he said, all right,
now pull down your pants and stick your butt out
the window with that guy just as he comes running
up here. Okay, Dorry. So he sticks his butt out
the window, pulls down his pants, and he says, and
the guy's running up here, and then my father and
Benny says to my father, he says, okay, Dorry, he

(58:28):
is getting closer. Dorry. Okay, Dorry, it's time to go.
Let's go, Dorry, Let's go, dorry. My father just turned
and he just grabbed him by the shoulders and held
him in that window, you know. And that guy that
was come run up there and everything, he just started
punching him with both of his fifts. Yeah, isn't funny.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
That's funny to be.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Was that funny to you guys? They liked it.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
They're they're asleep. You wouldn't believe what time we're shooting this, folks.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yes, I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Yeah, we're all slappy.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Another guy that was a character, and I've talked to
Stan Hansen for the series here and he was talking
about him, was the promoter from Albuquerque, Mike London.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Oh yeah, Mike, did he have have heard the rumor?

Speaker 1 (59:24):
And some of it was printed in this once again
fine publication.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Every once in a while, when you'd have.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
A good house in Albuquerque, somehow the box office would
be robbed.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, he had the box office robbed.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Did anybody ever witness this? Or he would come in
just all.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Come in scuffed up and things like that. You know
that was Mike Lemon. He do that, Oh we had.
He wouldn't do it too.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Often though, just every once in a while. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
Well, he was. He was very smart about it, you
know about maybe once or twice a year, you know,
he was.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
You would have thought he would have hired extra security
after the first three or four times.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Oh yeah, but he did. He never did.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
True or false.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Now, I've always wondered, but I never have asked you
about this, but I've heard about it secondhand.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Detroit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
You and Dorry go in work program with a Sikh
and Abdullah territories on its ass.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
You get it up.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
They have the big house for the big blowoff match.
Sheik's son, Captain Ed George comes in.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
True or false.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
You're not gonna believe this, daddy, Daddy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
We've been robbed.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
We've been robbed, Daddy. There's been a cat No, this
is what he said, this honest god truth, Daddy, Daddy.
We have had a catastrophe at the box office. We
have had a catastrophe at the box And that's the
way you would say it was like it was is

(01:00:47):
written out. I'm sure it was, you know. Yeah, he
practices lines, you know before he came into daddy, Daddy,
we had a catastrophe at the box office.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
But Buddy Fuller Rope ended up Springfield, Ohio, outside of
Cincinnati for Jarrett. One time got the TV on up
there and Jared sent Dundee up to check the house
out because he wasn't sure he was getting the right count.
And Dundee called back and said, no, there had to
be ony twelve hundred people there, and Buddy Fuller turning
a couple of grand and he's, well, Jared, damn it.

(01:01:20):
I think some we forgot to watch the back door.
So seven hundred people snuck in the back door.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
It was just nobody. Nobody noticed.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
But there's another story that was in your book, and
I had never heard this before, but you knew a
guy when you were younger named Billy Thornton, and you
ran into him later on in absolutely, but when you
first knew him, he was just he was was he
he's your brother in law.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Or Vill Thornton. And what it was is I was
never supposed to, you know, I was. Billy Thornton was
a nutty kid. He was because I would go to
their house and Jack Thornton was he was he was

(01:02:12):
an assistant booker to my father and our brother in law,
you know. But Jack Thornton would go ahead and Billy
Thornton was his adopted child and Jack Thornton. We would
have booking meetings over there at their house, Jack and
Barbara Thornton's, and Billy Thornton was the was their child.

(01:02:37):
And I knew he was nuts, you know, and I
just but one time I was over there, you know,
and I had I had to go to the restroom
and we were doing a booking session over there in
the house. And I went from the office in the house,
which wasn't that big of a house at the time,

(01:02:57):
to the bathroom, and his eyes. Going to the bathroom,
I went by Billy and his name was uh uh yeah.
So Billy was in the bedroom and he says, hey, Terry, Terry, Terry,
look at this. And I looked over there, and he

(01:03:20):
was whacking off the dogs, whacking off the dog.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Now tell the people, no, no, I'm telling you, okay,
the truth.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
He was. He was whacking off the dog. Hey, Terry.
I thought, damn, Billy, you know, hey, hey, look at this,
look at this. You know. But uh, but who do
you think Billy was? Nobody, nobody, nobody knows who Billy was. Billy,

(01:03:56):
Bob Thornton, that was him.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
We're talking to the studio audience, in Las Dulman.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
When you go you finally you get in the movie business,
you go out for the acting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
Neil, and you were up for a part and it was.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
I was up there for Billy Bob Thornton movie. I
was up there for a part. I said, well, who's
making the movie? And they said Billy Bob Thornton. I said,
oh my god, you got to be kidding me. That's
my that's my nephew in law. The dog whacker, the

(01:04:37):
dog whacker. That's what I said. He's the dog whacker.
He's a dog whicker. I didn't get that part. That
was it. I didn't get the part at all.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
There's another guy in the territory that there's a story about.
I want to hear if you were there firsthand, or
at least you were closer. I've heard it from a
number of different sources. But the app he was the
app promoter, right Don the lawman.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Slatter Don because he was a wrestler.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
In that territory, but he also had a bailbond's business.
Since the lawman was Donan, was he really the NWA
World Heavyweight Champion? For about five minutes after he wrestled
Harley Race one night in Abilene.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Oh, yeah, he was, he was, and he went ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
How did it tell it? How did it happen?

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
I can't I can't remember. I don't even remember. But
he fasted. I can't remember what it was that he did.
But he doubled cross hard Yeah, and ran out of
the ring with a belt. And then he said, oh, Harley,
you know I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Did he think he was going to get away with it?

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Because story I heard was Harley just walked back to
the locker room and kicked the door open and slapped
him around, took his belt back and carried it back out.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Yeah, that's what Harley did.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Yeah, how did he think he was going to get
away with that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Well, well he did. He did get away with it.
Well he did, because five minutes, but he didn't. Harley
really didn't slap him what he did. Hardy went back
here and he tried to Blue say, oh, Harley, Harley,
you know that I would never do that to you.
I would never do it to you. Harley. You know

(01:06:09):
I wouldn't any He bade his way out of it.
That's the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
What about your friend? And he was made famous in
the Beyond the Matt movie, Dennis Stamp. Oh Dennis isn't
he worked there forever? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
I love him? I love him. I love Dennis. Yeah,
Dennis has been around there forever, still is still is?
What is Dennis doing now? I don't know. He's a
tree man.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Yeah, you've been like trimming trees.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
And now you know he became famous off of that
one movie.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Yes, and probably.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
The most famous guy from that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Got more bookings than he ever had when he was
actually in the business.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
And he's still getting movies bookings off of it. For
to come and talk to this stuff and all of
this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Did you really leave Dick marred in the trunk of
the car all the way from Abilene Odessa one time
when he asked you for a ride, I sure did.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
No. I told him to get back here because it
was k fate.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Babyface, right, so you couldn't be seen, he.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Couldn't be seen together. So we left the arena like that,
you know, as Dick get in the trunk because we're
out at the back of the arena because people will
see us going out of here. And I locked him
in the trunk at the car And when I drove
him one hundred and sixty miles from Abilene Old Deessa, Texas.
And he was in a trunk bagging on it all

(01:07:34):
the day.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
I hear, fuck, God, damn it, let me out.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
I didn't put him in there with a half acase beer.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Another guy that worked the territory in the sixties was
one of the most famous and infamous guys in the
history of wrestling business, doctor Jerry Graham.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
Oh Lord, have mercy. He was a nut.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Tell me anything about doctor je Tell the story about
when he stole his mother's body.

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
Oh, that was a horrible thing. That was terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
He was first of all, he had a drinking issue,
and secondly he had he did have mental problems.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
He definitely had mental problems. And he was in Phoenix, Arizona,
and down there and he went to the hospital and
uh was in the hospital and his mother was in
the hospital and she had passed away in the hospital.
He was distraught and he was just shot up with her.
So he picked her up and he carries her down

(01:08:34):
the stairs and walked to the elevator and down the
elevator and then out to the front and all the
way out to.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
The and they're chasing him right trying to get that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Yeah, and then there they go ahead and and uh
try to get him to put her down, and he
wouldn't put her down because it was his mother, you know,
and he was distraught over the whole thing. And he
finally fought his way to the car, you know, but
he just finally ran out of gas and everything, and
he body slammed his mother on the hood of the car.

(01:09:11):
That's terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
I can't stop thinking about that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
You know, only you would think something like that was funny.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
It's in your book too. I've heard the story before.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
But I didn't laugh at it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
But you didn't laugh at it. You just reported the
facts that you actually laughed at. It. Just can't stop.
I'm into necrophilia, among my many other vices.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
What is that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
That's uh, that's you feel. That's people who like to
feel the others.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Yeah, I feel you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Let's get up that corn Yeah, well.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Why wouldn't it be corny? Exactly? That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Here's here's another true or false for you while we're
telling stories. Explain the origin of the brisco Funk family.
He eat stems from the fact that Dorry had been
scheduled to drop the n w A title at one
point to Jack Briscoe, but he had a pickup truck

(01:10:11):
accident on the ranch in m r Illo and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
And legitimate and legitimate accident.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Jack didn't see it that way at one point.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
He never has, he never did. He never did see it.
Neither did Gerald. Both of them. Both of them did well.
Not Jack Jack Jack passed away, but Gerald, Uh, and
what a great guy, and what a great performer into
the ring, and what a great amateur athlete, and just

(01:10:39):
what a great person. I love Jack Briscoe and uh, yeah,
it's uh, he passed away and Gerald is uh. You know,
to this day, they they think they thought that we
had done something in but that's really the truth. By
my brother's injury.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Dory Funk Junior and Jack Briscoe's n W.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
Are you are you going to be uh what's his
name from England? The uh what the hell is a
guy's name? Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Oh, well, I'm trying to get to the bottom of
this because inquiring minds want to know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
But like Sherlock Holmes, but no, it's the brisco find out.
I'm getting ready to get it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Don't don't stand up. I'll have to run. But the
brisco Funk match.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
For the world title for four years? Was the match
in the n w A. It was the old standard.
It was the flare steamboat of its day. Or and
do you think it was?

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
It was it Eddie Graham who was upset maybe and
gotten Jack's ear? Did Jack come up with this on
his on his own, the thought that he was somehow
getting pushed back, not getting he got it eventually? Uh
where do where do.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
You think it came from? That he just he wouldn't
have believed it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
Well, they just thought that, uh, that the Funks were
trying to hang on to the belt for a matter
of more time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Did it in the long run?

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Did it probably help your guys because your guys angle
and your few because the brisco Funk tag match was
just as big around the country as the brisco Funk
title match. Yeah, that little extra kind of ribbon on
a square, a little real emotion.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Did that help the proceedings?

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
But people believe the guys hated each other plus Texas Oklahoma.

Speaker 3 (01:12:28):
Yeah, well they do hate us, but in a loving way.
Jack and Gerald do hate hate us. No, Jack is
a great guy and so was Gerald. Both of them
great athletes. Do it brought out the best in both
of us, in all of you got and I think
it helped. It certainly helped. It didn't hurt a damn thing,

(01:12:50):
did It.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
Didn't hurt anything. Everybody still got there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
Yeah, that was it. Everybody still got there. That's what
it was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
Did How did your father get involved with the when
Baba formed All Japan and your father was the first
guy to be able to supply him with American talent,
How did that relationship come about to the point where
Baba had sent Jumbo down to train in West, had
some of the other young Japanese boys, and he he

(01:13:20):
and then later on you guys continued booking the top
American stars from the NWA over to Japan.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
How did the whole thing get started.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Well, I'll tell you what it was. It was because
we were so strong in the National Wrestling Alliance, very
very powerful then, and we were the controlling family of
the Alliance at the time, and Baba wanted to be
with us because we had that power at that time.
And he actually came to our ranch, to my house,

(01:13:59):
not to our ranch, to my house outside of Amarilla,
which was on about twenty acres, you know, but that
had nothing to do with anything other than twenty acres.
But but Barba came here and hush, so so Baba came.

(01:14:21):
He came to the ranch and uh, we talked to him.

Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
And.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
He brought my father over there. My father still thought
he was in World War two because he hated all
of the fans. He hated everybody in Japan because see
he went up on the beaches over there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Yeah, he had been there, right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:48):
Oh. He hated everything about him. He hated every Jap
or was and he thought they were dirty Japs and everything,
you know, and he never ceased battling them.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
You know, if he had live to see you be
the most popular American to work in Japan, he would
have he would have freaked, would he not?

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
I think he would have, but I think he would
have been you know. But he and Baba did become friends.
But the Japanese people could feel that with him over there,
because he'd go over there with with Junior and I,
you know, and he'd walk around the ring with us
and manage this, you know, somewhat manage you know. But
they'd throw every damn kind of thing you could think

(01:15:28):
of at him, you know, and everything they and he'd
throw it back at them, you know, and they he
had an automatic war with all Japanese, all Japanese people.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
I looked back at a lot of the records and
I see either uh Dori defending the world title for
he had it from sixty nine to seventy three, and
you and your dad in a tag team match, and
in it might be Atlanta, or it might be Florida,
or it might be in California.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
You guys were everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
Who was mined in the store back in Amarillo? Who
was running the business day to day while you guys
were on the road.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
Always somebody always always has uh had herman there, my
my uh uncle d Yeah, and he was uh, he
was good. But we were there most of the time.
We didn't we we would space it. One of us
was always there, okay. My father was always back at

(01:16:24):
home minding the business, or I was, or later on
Junior was, you know, so we pretty much handled it.
And then my father's brother was there too.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
You guys were in demand though. From the time you
had been in the business, what two three years you
were you were starting to fly around the country. And yeah,
it pretty much any n W a territory of you know,
you guys went in at least a few times a year.

Speaker 3 (01:16:54):
Yeah, we went to almost every Yeah, we were on
the road lock and not only myself, not not only
my brother but me and over the period that he'd
had to build, you know, and just it made for
a real good storyline. It really did. Is uh. I'd

(01:17:15):
go in there and be the clean up man that's
going to go ahead and wipe out all of the
guys that were in line for a championship.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
Man the wrestling magazine headline, I'm my brother's policeman.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
The Sheikh would come into Amarillo every once while work
with your dad, right, which which once again had to
be another It was kind of a foreshadowing because you
had the You and Dory had the long run against
Sheik and Abbey in Japan. But when you were just
starting out, just break it in. You're still a teenager.
What did you think of the Sheik? Because he was different,

(01:17:53):
he was definitely you know, he was crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:55):
He was nuts. I was scared of death of him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Everybody was scared.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
Of Yeah, absolutely, as I was. I was always scared
of death of him. It didn't matter when it was
or when you were working with him last time, right,
last time I worked with him, I was running from him,
still running for five That's the truth. He was a
scary scary man, wasn't he.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
I ran I ran from you too, I ran from
a stiff breeze.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
But what was it about? It was in something in
the water. In Texas?

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
Over in the Dallas side, you had Fritz and he
was he was, had his sons. The family was a
family business. Over at Amarillo, Dori had you guys, it
was a family business. Down in San Antonio had Joe Blanchard,
his son Tully became a family business. What about the Guerreros, Well,

(01:18:52):
I was about say over at El Paso there you've
got Gory and he had Mondo and Hector and Chavo
and and who am I leaving?

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
And Eddie finally and then Jabo Junior. What is it
about Texas?

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Every corner of the state had a family wrestling empire.
You know what was the difference between you guys, your
operation and your modus operande and the van Ericks.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
I can think of several thousand differences, but give.

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
Me you you know they they they could, They ran
a very good business. It just said, I don't know
how you know, you got to go ahead, and you
got to get into families and things, and you know,
I mean, if you start that, I don't know it. Uh,

(01:19:38):
that was a They were in a very populated area,
much more population we had. You know, they did great
business down there too, you know. And uh, Fritz was
a great in ring performer. And the kids were too,
They really were. And then they just kind of exploded

(01:19:59):
and said destructed and and uh, you know, I hate
to say this happened or that happened, or how do
I know her? How do you know? We don't really
know what the circumstances were.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
The boys came along after you guys did. But was
there ever any thought I don't remember ever seeing any
Dorifunk senior Fritz van Eric showdown when he was a
tough scown one side of state and Dora was toughscown
in on the other side of state. Was there ever
any thought about meeting in the middle and try to
put together some kind of interpromotional thing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Oh they didn't. No, Fritz had come up here to Amarella.
My father was very instrumental in helping him get that
territory down there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Okay, because and Maclamore and those guys, the original Exportatorium
promoters who were started doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Was it passed by the wayside.

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
But passed by the wayside. Fritz got ahold of it,
and my father was very instrumental in helping him out
at that time.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
After Dorry had his run with the NWA title, finally
went eventually to Harley, then to Jack and then Jack.
Like everybody else, everybody melted down with that schedule because
I mean, it was the biggest money spot in wrestling
pretty much at that time, but it was well scheduled.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
It was insane.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
Yeah, that same way with me as I did the
same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
When you were up for it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Half of the promoters wanted you and half wanted Harley,
and Fritz ended up being the tiebreaker. And that's right,
Fritz picked your Did.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
You thank him or later on did you curse him
for that? Once you got.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
Well, you know, uh couldn't help it from thanking him
because it was a It was the best position in
wrestling at the time, the very best, and it was
the guy that had that title was making the most
money of any of the wrestlers in the country.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
You had it about fourteen months December seventy five February
seventy seven.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
And that's approximately what did.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
You make in that time period in nineteen seventy five
and seventy six, that kind.

Speaker 3 (01:22:04):
Of mone it was a long time ago I made.
Uh oh, I probably made over half a million dollars.
That's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
Then, that's a lot of money today. Yeah, there's more
money than Sean Oliver's paying me. Here, folks, I'll just
tell you no, I kid, I kid.

Speaker 1 (01:22:21):
But you had to get out of it because you
were you were everybody would either get burnt or they'd
have problems at home.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
You were never home. Your body would break down.

Speaker 3 (01:22:30):
I was never at home in the time, see that
I had that belt. I don't know if you know
this or not, but my wife and I were separated
while we were divorced at the time, you know, and
then we got back together. And whenever we got back together,
that's whenever I decided to escape.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
Were they were the the NWA Were they like with
you like they were with a lot of guys. Oh,
just hang on, just hang on because they didn't want
to go through the whole process again, or they say okay,
Were they easy to well.

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):
And see, but once you had back then unless you
had guys that wanted that belt, and of course they
wanted that belt, you know, and you had uh you know,
I mean Harley, he certainly wanted the belt, and there
was uh oh, you know, there was a lot of
guys Flair did he want.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
I think it is fair.

Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
I think Flair is the only guy who ever didn't
ask police to even thez at one point finally said
take it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
I can't take it anymore. Flair's the only one that
never did take it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:34):
Keep it forever. He'd still be wearing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
It after your your dad died. That meant there was
one less of you that was able to take care
of the business name Rillo and you guys were still
once again, uh yeah, and guys were still on top.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
And so many different places did what what at that point?

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
How was business doing in the territory? Because it was.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
Your death made business covers and on front page newspapers,
but it didn't hurt the wrestling business.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
Business was great, you know, But I mean it didn't,
you know, And it's amazing that business was as good
as it was in all who were the.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Guys you relied on when you when you were not
able to both be on the cards to draw the
money and carry.

Speaker 3 (01:24:19):
The Absolutely, you could rely on Ricky Ricky Romeri, you
could rely on him and all of your Spanish towns
and that's what that was El Paso, Odessa in the summertime,
you know, Lubbock and uh, all of your small towns
around Amrella that would draw so well in the summer

(01:24:40):
whenever they had you know, cotton gins and stuff going.
That was that was a great area.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Then you know, did you bring in bookers or did
you everybody did it in the house, uh, or did
you bring in anybody from outside?

Speaker 3 (01:24:54):
At that point, we we never had a booker in Ambrilla, Texas.
We were booking ourselves. We always did everything ourselves, and
the television was you know, we did everything from the
TV everything from every week, week after week.

Speaker 1 (01:25:11):
When you dropped that belt to Harley on February sixth,
nineteen seventy seven in Toronto, and I remember that was
the first time I'd seen in NWA world title change
on television. Yeah, because they they taped the match and
this was when videotape was new for wrestling at that point,
and sent it to all the every NWA Territory carried

(01:25:35):
it on their television show and I was just struck.
But I had not had a chance to see you
in person at that point, and was just about to
see Harley in person. But it just y'all's work was
a level above to me. It just it was just cleaner,
it was crisper. It just it looked better and that
match that, at least the part that they showed to me,

(01:25:57):
would still hold up today.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
It was a heck of a deal.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
It was easy finished the old Indian deathlock thing you
had had knees that, you know, people recognized. That was
it made people believe it. But after that, that's it happened.
What was it like working with Harley in those days?
Because he I would love to see video of him in.

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
The sixties wearing himself out.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
He was so good in the seventies and he'd already
had injuries and he was getting a little bit older.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
In the sixties, he was a bumping machine. I've seen
the pictures, but.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Everything was a little higher, a little harder, and had
a little more emphasis to it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
That was it, and that was U. His punches, his everything,
you know, is his He gave a great deal in
every match he gave too much. Now she wouldn't be
in a shape that he is now physically. And he'll
tell you that too. Oh what I've said.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
We were on a show with him in Greensborough one
time and he was kind of rubbing his knees and
Hardley as you knee, Boddy said feel that and like
I was squeezing a bean bag. His kneecap was just pieces. Yeah,
and he went out and had a made a match
that night.

Speaker 3 (01:27:07):
Oh yeah, I did the same thing and did it again,
you know, And that's just the way Harley was, you know,
and he and again you know, that was that commitment
from these guys there was you know, I like I
would like to be and like to think that I
gave that kind of I committed myself that much to

(01:27:33):
my profession and I hope that I did it. On occasions.
I know I did. And we all know we have
had nights that we've done better than other nights.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
Sometimes the cake doesn't quite rise.

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
But you know, I mean I always wanted to be
known as that guy, you know, like Harley that but
you know, and he paid. But Harley paid a tremendous sacrifice.
He sacrificed a lot, He sacrificed his hips, he sacrificed

(01:28:08):
his back. I've never seen a guy that used to
go ahead and those rings were hard back, and it
would go ahead and come off that top rope as
high as he would come off, and you know, do
that belly splash on on, do the ring apron or
floor he takes back on the concrete backdrops, on the

(01:28:30):
concrete everything, Harley, Harley, he gave himself. He gave his
body to the people. He did seriously, you know. And uh, there's.

Speaker 2 (01:28:43):
You know a little bit something about that yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:28:46):
And well I think that you know and and and
I can always remember too is uh my father tell
him telling me and Harley both, you know, when he
was working around Ambrella every night, you know, and you
know the territory and uh he tell us, you two guys,
don't do all the goofy crap. You're gonna be You're

(01:29:08):
gonna regret it someday, you know. And uh he was right,
he was right to an extent.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
When did you start regretting it last week? I haven't
seen you go back on anything.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):
Well, I think you have. I just don't think you
did as well. As you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):
You do the same things, it just may be a
little bit slower than.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
You used to, maybe slower and lower.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
You and Dorry as as a team. And then and
then later on.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
You in that mid late seventies period, that's when you
really got heated up in Japan as as baby faces,
because they.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Started to just you became.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
You went there so often, you became almost like a
native that they couldn't deny the effort and the talent
you put in.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
And how did it?

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
How did it go from your dad hating him and
then throwing things at him and him being and you
ask corners, all of a sudden they love you so much.
They're throwing the streamers and they're pulling you off the
ring apron to hug you when you're trying to get
in the ring. How did that transition happen in that decade?

Speaker 3 (01:30:12):
I think it was just a common love compassion that
developed over a period of time for us, for the
people and them for us. I mean just by you know,
I mean I really did. I mean they were just
a great, great people that I love them this day.
And did I get cards every week from Japanese people

(01:30:34):
and ride them by, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (01:30:38):
I just love the caricatures that they would do in
the in the magazines and the newspapers of you with
the big grin and the hair and the cowboy hat,
and there'd be Dory with that one squeakly hair on
his head, and the Funk family and the and it.
I mean, you guys were everywhere you run, new stands
and covers of magazines, newspapers, and you couldn't get away

(01:30:59):
from Funk a main in for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
Yeah, well it's for a long time. It was for
a long long time. Thearon it was a great run.
Had some great runs in this business, you know, Japan
was one of them. It was about a fifteen year run.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
You know, it was I guess what we did the
if you haven't seen it already, as Nickcholas would say,
you will see the back to the territories on Georgia
Championship Wrestling. It was round about seventy seven that TBS
or TCG seventeen in Atlanta started being broadcast to the
cable systems, and all of a sudden, the world, the

(01:31:43):
country wasn't so you know, isolated anymore. Even Amarillo, you
were one of the first people. It's been recognized to
see cable TV. Here's what's going to do to our business.
And you guys were running the territory down there, you'd
had no outside TV interfering, and you could bring talent
in and use them the way you wanted because they

(01:32:04):
were clean slates. And all of a sudden, you've got
a cable TV show from Atlanta being beamed into your
territory along with everybody else's.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Did you know that eventually the jig was going to
be up?

Speaker 3 (01:32:14):
Right off the I know the jig was up whenever
I went to tokumb Carry, New Mexico, and I think
it was myself and I'm trying to figure out who
else it was, but a couple of the other guys
that were riding with me, you know, and we go
to tukuam Carry, we go to Albuquerque, but we stopped
in tucum Carry for breakfast. So we stopped in there

(01:32:34):
for breakfast, and it was me and and uh, I'm
trying to think of what the guys it was me
and oh it was uh, who is a guy that
was over so well? Then Tommy Rich Tommy Rich, so
Tommy Wildfire.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
Somebody said something about firing up that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
Tommy Wildfire Rich was in the car with us, and
he just came in for that week and he was
in Albuquerque. But we drove from Ambula to Albuquerque, but
we stopped in Tucum Carry, so we were going to
go ahead and needed this little restaurant that we ate
there every week. So we stopped there, and along came

(01:33:21):
this car load of high school girls. I don't know
where they came from, but they were all screaming, hollering,
going crazy everything. Whenever we got out of the car
there and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm really looking good.
You know, we ran right by me and right up

(01:33:42):
to Tommy Rich. And I knew then the TV was
going to make a big difference in the world of wrestling.
And it sure did too. And that's that's true story,
and it really really did. Tommy Rich was probably just
huge all over the entire United States.

Speaker 1 (01:34:02):
But you guys had been there in that territory and
went through that same town every week for the previous
eighteen years, and all of a sudden, here's before.

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):
But yeah, on national TV. And it was the only
national TV at that time, and that's what really made
that different. And they could go anywhere. And you know
Jim Burnett was you know, he was very generous guy
because he could have done that. He wasn't He wasn't

(01:34:32):
an idiot. But what did Jim do. He would go
ahead and he would would put these people out and
you'd say, well, hey, I want to book Tommy Rich, Well, okay,
you can have me. Jim had no desire to do
what Vince did later, which was take over the entire country.

(01:34:53):
But he was Jim Barnett could have taken over the
entire country at that time.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
He wanted to take back over Michigan and Ohio and
West Virginia because the Chic and Bruiser had stolen it
from him fifteen years beforehand.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
He just wanted to get it back since they weren't
using it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Tell me a Jim Barnett's Tell me any kind of
Jim Barnett story.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
My Bonjim, I remember gim Z.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
I'll look at my beautiful stars.

Speaker 3 (01:35:23):
See, Jim Z was crazy. Cherry.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
You have to tell me you messed with Jim Barnett
at some point.

Speaker 3 (01:35:31):
You had to. Really, I'm trying to think of one
of them. Good I did. I did some strange stuff
to him.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):
Well, now, don't say it like that.

Speaker 3 (01:35:38):
No, I'm not going to say it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
It's going to be released. I don't even know.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
At this point, we went to uh where'd we go with? As?
I was coming from Saint Louis one time, and uh,
where was I supposed to be in? Uh? Atlanta? The
next day? You know? I wound up going ahead. I
flew from Saint Louis. But I'd been out to the

(01:36:04):
gas light square there in Saint Louis, you know, and
drank about six beers and got a six my eye
about sixteen, and it was went out to the airport
to catch a you know, a red eye out about
one in the morning. It was, you know, it was
late flights to Atlanta, you know, and went ahead and

(01:36:26):
uh got into the plane, you know, and I was
drunk from her a little bit earlier that night, and
they went ahead and took off, you know, and from
so they just went ahead and what the hell did
they overfly? Overflew something? But I wound up in Florida.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
That's right, you you and sleep forgot to get off
at your stop, and they didn't. They didn't drunk, they
didn't didn't forget.

Speaker 3 (01:36:51):
I was asleep.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
I was, that's right, and so they didn't you just
you ended up.

Speaker 3 (01:36:58):
That was one hundred years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
There don't anything to do with Jim Barnette though. Did
you deal with Jim Barnett when you were champion? Was
he booking the champion still at that point?

Speaker 3 (01:37:07):
What was the guy's name before Jim Barnett?

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):
That was there, Samnick?

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
No, but the one guy who was the guy? My gosh,
he got on the plane. What was his name? Cornette?

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Tell me, I don't know. I wasn't on the plane
with you.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Oh oh, you got on the plane. And we got
off the plane and he was on the plane. And
I went ahead and I caught him both off the plane.
And he had gone ahead and put a video tape
in Odessa, Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
Said, oh, I remember that story of Pedro Martinez.

Speaker 3 (01:37:36):
Pedro Martinez, Yes, yeah, yeah, you son of a bitch.
And I went ahead and said, don't you ever put
a video of wrestling tape into the Amborella territory, you
son of a bitch. I'll break your leg, you know.
So he ran away, you know, and I thought, boy,

(01:37:56):
that was real good.

Speaker 5 (01:37:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:37:58):
Dussy was there, I said, did you he had see, yeah,
I thought that. So we went ahead and went walking
out of there, you know, and they had security by
the doors. And and then when I had and they
was waiting for me at the security up there, and
they said, you know, and what what what Pedro Martinez

(01:38:20):
did is he tore his shirt, tore everything up and
went up there and said that I I had whipped him,
you know, beat him up. So he went ahead and
told all of those policemen up there. That night they
grabbed me and they said, are you terry funk? I
said yes, sir, and they said come with us, and

(01:38:41):
they went ahead and they took me to the jailhouse,
put me in jail.

Speaker 2 (01:38:45):
For and did he did? He filed a lawsuit. Also
did it with.

Speaker 3 (01:38:49):
A picture eighteen eighteen million dollars. And he had a
picture of uh what was it? It was something you remember.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
That he found a picture of somebody's ruptured hcle And
I told him you kicked him in the balls, had
a fake ball picture.

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):
He had a hydra cell that was that big a
round he did. He had a hydro cell is what
it's called.

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
Why do you know that?

Speaker 3 (01:39:14):
Because he had to god damn picture right up in
front of me there.

Speaker 6 (01:39:18):
You know what it's called though, because that was that
was That was a nice name. But to call it
that is better at ball, then there's not a ruptured ball.

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
That's not the right way to say. It's the hydrous cell.

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
Well, it wasn't his bam ball anyway, it wasn't. He
took somebody else's ball and dread took the.

Speaker 3 (01:39:41):
Picture that the picture he had a picture of somebody else's.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
Ball, wondering.

Speaker 3 (01:39:50):
Can I even have I've got such a stupid life.
Nobody's had that crap. Nobody's had that stuff done to them,
have they? I'm just an idiot.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
Oh man, Amarillo, What did I do?

Speaker 3 (01:40:08):
What did I do? Was that?

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
I don't know why I'm even looking at it. But
Amarillo was a heat territory. It was like Puerto Rico.
You worked there a lot. It was like Southeastern out
of Knoxville. When you work for the Fullers, you go
up in eastern Kentucky. They liked having heat on the
heels because the people liked being mad and they liked
seeing the baby faces make them happy.

Speaker 2 (01:40:27):
And true or false.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
After you did that deal in East Tennessee with that
promo on the fullers and everything. They had seventeen guns.
They pulled off of the fans going into Hazard, Kentucky.

Speaker 2 (01:40:40):
True coming to see you, True, that's us. Did that
ever make you nervous at all?

Speaker 3 (01:40:46):
Well? It sure did whenever I left the building, because
there was about two or three cars behind me with
their bright lights on and they had guns hanging out
to wind.

Speaker 1 (01:40:55):
Yeah, that I would tend to make they had they
had nervous.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
No, they had guns out the window and everything. You know,
they was running around there and am.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
How did you get by with do? I've seen you
do it. I don't know how anybody would get away
with it. Back in the days when grown men would
believe what was going on and fight the guys, you
would walk up and get writing those to those in
their face and tell them what you thought of them.
And they wouldn't touch you most of the time, but

(01:41:30):
you would back them down.

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
I've seen you do it. And was it the look
in your eye? Just the way you were able to
make them convinced that you were because I'm crazy as
a rainbow trout in the car.

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
Because I am crazy as a rainbow out the car works.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
And I don't know how crazy that is what what's
some of your better riot stories?

Speaker 3 (01:41:50):
Just just I don't know the one out there eyes
out of Tennessee anyway, when it had followed me out
of town, had the guns out and all of that
stuff and poking them, you know, out their windows and
gonna shoot me and all that. My wife was with me,
and she tried to put her head into in the
glove compartment trying to get away from us. Was I

(01:42:15):
was just just idiotic stuff like that, you know, fools.

Speaker 1 (01:42:21):
How often did you have in West Texas? You had
to have some people hitting the ring fairly regularly.

Speaker 3 (01:42:25):
Well as I had them pretty much pretty regular in
a lot of places San Antonio.

Speaker 2 (01:42:31):
By face out there, but I mean fans on in.

Speaker 3 (01:42:34):
South Texas it was pretty you know, knives were a
pretty big thing. A lot of knives. I've got a
lot of knives left. I got about six of them
in a drawer. I had one of them stuck in
my leg. Looked down there and there was a knife
in my leg, you know. I had one of them
stuck in my neck. I got a scar here somewhere
that I but anyhow, there it's part but put your office,

(01:43:01):
this one guy through it. You know, I was down
there in San Antonio and he threw the knife and
it stuck right in my neck, you know, And it
had one broken blade on it. The big one was broken,
and I had a little blade on it. It's about
that long. It was just stuck right in my neck.
So I want ahead, you know. I felt something to
hit me whenever I was going back to the dress room,

(01:43:24):
you know, and I so I want ahead, and thought, damn,
what in the hell is that?

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:43:29):
And I reached up there and felt around. I thought,
what the world could that be?

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):
So then I went ahead and went to the dressing
room and looked and it was a knife that was
just stucking in with a blade inside my neck, fairly
close to your very close, the very close, very close.
I said, you know, but I said, you think you know,
I don't know. I was out there and I turned
around to those people. I said, look here there, I said,

(01:43:57):
that's tough. You idiots, you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:59):
Know were you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:03):
You had a trick at you had and you used
it on me one time, even though I wasn't trying
to attack you.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
You were trying to attack me.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
I remember you telling me the reason you developed that
is because when you pants a guy, if if a
fan hit the ring, you could grab your you grab
his pockets, sold dress pants away, and that it wasn't
jeans in those days. A lot of times it did
boom and the guy'd be standing there in his underwear,
and then he didn't want to fight anymore because he's
standing there in front five thousand people with no pants
on and off.

Speaker 2 (01:44:31):
On live Memphis television. And I didn't know it was coming,
and he did.

Speaker 1 (01:44:35):
Not bother to ask whether I was wearing underwear free balling,
and the Lawler booked me in that match as a
rib Jesse I was managing Jesse Barr, and Jesse Barr
thought they were trying to run him out of the
territory because it was Jesse Barr and two masked job
guys against you and Lawler and Coco. Where when we
show up on TV one day you had after your
long rivalry with Lawler. It was a Super Bowl Sunday

(01:44:57):
eighty three and hard to put together and no, I
just I saw you. I was used to running from
you when I was a photographer and you did the
promo on Jimmy Hard I hate us, Sissy, And then
I come out and Jesse thinks, well jobbing me out
and I'm just happy to be on TV and Lance
I think I see a sissy. I'm like, oh shit,

(01:45:19):
this can't end well, and out of the studio and
you beat up the job guys. You hit Jesse with
a chair, and as I snuck back in the you
beat him in. And here we go, and you're around the
ring with me, and I'm thinking I'm staying in and
there's Coco blocking me off. You can see the sheer
panic on my face. There's Coco, there's you. I try
to dive in the ring. Jesse's got my arms and

(01:45:42):
you both hands in the pockets and here came the
pants and it was the only pair of pants I had.
I had to go back and find duct tape and
tape the pants back around my legs so I could
come back out and do the show closing interview.

Speaker 2 (01:45:54):
And I screamed fuck. The people at the TV station
thought I said fuck, and they almost kicked me off
the air.

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):
You nearly ended my career before it started, Terry.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
But it was it was all a rib blaller with me,
and you could.

Speaker 3 (01:46:09):
Do that might it might have been a blessing.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
But he knew that this is going to be entertainment
for the life room, nothing else, because I you know,
I idolized you.

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
Oh my god. All right, So anyway, you saw.

Speaker 1 (01:46:27):
The writing on the on the mat, so to speak,
when cable TV was coming in, and yeah, he decided
to sell the territory. It was still doing well, but
you guys were traveling a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
You wanted to get out while the getting was good.
And the pigeons, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:46:43):
The purchasers were Blackjack Mulligan and Dick Murdock.

Speaker 3 (01:46:48):
Right, did you know how much we sold that to
him for.

Speaker 1 (01:46:51):
I'll let you tell, well, I read your book, which
was a pittance.

Speaker 2 (01:46:59):
A pittance dropping a bucket a mere bag of shells.

Speaker 3 (01:47:02):
Yeah, and that was for twenty and then but and
that was what we sold it for him to him
for and then we just.

Speaker 1 (01:47:13):
Was it just because you knew they probably couldn't afford anymore,
and you were.

Speaker 3 (01:47:15):
Just exactly do it exactly because they wanted to buy it. Yeah,
so we said twenty thousand dollars and I think they
put five thousand down a piece. And then, uh, it
didn't make it, which you know, I wanted it to
make it. They wanted it to make it, but it's
it was a rough It was a rough time to

(01:47:36):
go into the business.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
I don't know about black jack. I didn't get to
spend a lot of time arounding. But I can't see
him Murdock running a business. I just don't see Murdock
as a guy running I see him working main event,
drawing money, but I don't see him running the business.

Speaker 3 (01:47:50):
How about having less as.

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
It was brewery?

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
How about a chicken farm?

Speaker 1 (01:47:54):
Well, unless there were some drunken chickens. You know, I
remember what with Murdoch cars.

Speaker 3 (01:48:01):
I feel sorry for the hens.

Speaker 1 (01:48:02):
Well he called me a Knoxville he said, Corny, I'm
living in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:48:05):
I've got a job with cors. I said, what do
you do? And he said, I go around and drink
cores and talk people in the drinking house. He did.

Speaker 3 (01:48:11):
That's what he did.

Speaker 2 (01:48:12):
Fuck Dick. You know, it was perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:48:14):
That's what he did. That's what he did. He actually
did that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:16):
He was a spokesman. They were paying, they.

Speaker 3 (01:48:19):
Were painting him tremendous money.

Speaker 2 (01:48:22):
To drink beer and have other people drink it with him.

Speaker 3 (01:48:24):
And then you know what he did, fucked it up?
Oh he did. He did what did he do? He
did something with his He did something with his car.
I don't know, I can't remember. He got something and
he got a free paint job on the damn thing
from Cours. Take it up the Cours and said, paint this,
you know, because they had a big they have the

(01:48:47):
trucks and everything else, you know, So they painted his
car for him for nothing, you know. And then Murdoc
could go around to the bars and drink, you know,
seventeen cases of beer and give him everybody a free one.

Speaker 2 (01:49:03):
And he sent that.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):
He came in for me smoking Mountain right after you did.
One time, and it was winter time, and he sent
me a promo from Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:49:13):
He said what he called me, He said, when you
get the promo, watch he tell me what you think.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
He's sitting out on his porch in shorts and flip flops,
no shirt, drinking a beer, cutting the promo on Bob Armstrong.
There's a foot of snow on the ground and it's
snowing as he's talking, and he's outside and.

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
Four minutes and there's something wrong with Dick. But he
was a lovely man. He was.

Speaker 3 (01:49:38):
He was nuts. He was totally nuts and and.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
You weren't real.

Speaker 3 (01:49:41):
You weren't balanced either with Dusty.

Speaker 1 (01:49:45):
He told me one time in Chicago we were complaining
about we got in late and had to check in
his cheap hotel. He said, ah, having done, I slept
like a like a ball of shit or what. I
don't know what. It's late, I'm slappy, but he said.
I remember one night, me and Me and Rhodes, we
stayed in the hotel. I woke up the next morning
at six inches of snow on my chest. He got

(01:50:06):
drunk and was hanging his head out the window and
went sleep that way. It wasn't the room's fault. He
was halfway and halfway out of you had just done.
This was the month after you did your first moon
salt against Bob Armstrong in Knoxville.

Speaker 3 (01:50:19):
Yeah, that was quite a day.

Speaker 2 (01:50:21):
And why did you do that? That was because nobody
knew you were going to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:50:24):
I don't think that anybody was doing moon salt.

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
Then if I'd say, like Budha, that's where you got
it from. Probably, But remember what you piled all the chairs.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
Up and put Bob on top of Yeah, you're climbing up.
I'm like, what is he doing? It. You did the
moon salt at fifty three.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
But what was what was so stupid was putting all
of those steel chairs on there. Yeah, trying to go
ahead and make it myself a patty there when they
were all steel chairs. That was the dumbest thing in
the world.

Speaker 2 (01:50:55):
Well, I leaned it, I said, Terry, what are you doing?
You looked at him, said idle, No.

Speaker 3 (01:51:00):
Corny, that's exactly it looked.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
It looked vicious, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 3 (01:51:06):
But anyway, but Bob Armstrong was under the chairs, yes,
and he never felt he never felt. He was just
completely covered up by the chairs. And I flew off
of there on top of me. That was that would
be a classic thing to do. Now, somebody ought to
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:51:24):
You don't look at me.

Speaker 3 (01:51:25):
You want to do that, Corny?

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):
Shut up over there. Hey, Okay. After you sold Amarillo,
you traveled all over the world.

Speaker 3 (01:51:32):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:51:32):
You were Florida, Tennessee, Japan, and Georgia, everywhere. I know
some of my favorite matches that you had, favorite opponents
programs or whatever. In Memphis it was Lawlor In Japan,
it was you guys. In chic and Abbey and Florida,
obviously it was the Briscoes, who were your favorite guys
to work with, favorite programs that you had that you
you'd like to to work with.

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
Those draw money Briscoes were fun.

Speaker 3 (01:51:55):
It was a fun deal to work with the Briscoes,
both of them. Both of them were right in ring performers,
both of them. They they were wonderful, wonderful baby faces
that they just had total trust in you too. You know,
they really did. You know, you get you go in

(01:52:17):
the ring and you can tell if somebody trusts you.

Speaker 2 (01:52:19):
Or because even if there was heat, they knew you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):
Guys were pros and there was you know, and in
the matches were magic.

Speaker 3 (01:52:24):
They were they were just loved every minute of it
because they were so so so damn over at the time.
You know, Lawlor, I loved going ahead and going in
the ring with the Lawler. I loved going in a
ring with with you know, honestly and seriously, you know,
as I used Harley, what a what a great guy

(01:52:45):
he was going to ring with and just everybody you know,
from from guys like Jumbo, Seruto, uh Tito Santana, on
and on and on.

Speaker 2 (01:53:01):
The match with Lawler. Lawler, that eighty one programmer was
just wonderful. Well it just you guys just laid off
each other so well.

Speaker 3 (01:53:10):
But loved I loved. I love working with everybody, you
know I loved. I loved you know who I loved
working with the most. You know who I loved the
ones that I made the most money with.

Speaker 1 (01:53:24):
I used to take the tape of the match you
had with Lawler when you did the eighty one program
before you did the Empty Colisseum match and and you know,
stretching it out the first match that night March third,
twenty third, nineteen eighty one, Memphis Mid South Coliseum.

Speaker 2 (01:53:41):
I'm down there to shoot picture because if.

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
You're going to be working with Lawler, I had to
be there. You cost me a fortune and gas money.
That's that's bringing summer. But that was the single most
exciting fight that I've ever seen live in wrestling. That
I used to take that tape and show it to
the guys OVW the training classes. I'd give them notes

(01:54:02):
on it. I know I wasn't there in the locker
room at night. I was ringing side taking pictures. I
guarantee you, knowing you and knowing Lawler, you spent less
than three minutes talking about anything that you were gonna do.

Speaker 2 (01:54:13):
Well, we didn't, probably probably less Nacus.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
Lawler was playing cards, you know, zero with h and
it was just it was insane. And the best part
I liked about it was you tweaked the pattern that
Lawler was getting into at that point just enough where
he dropped the strap to make the comeback in the
middle of the match, and instead of just making the
comeback and you flying right there and going home, he
drops the strap and you go, okay, let's go, and

(01:54:38):
he's rubbing his fist together and he makes the comeback slowly,
and finally you're rocking and rocking, and you take the
big bump and then just as you think there's the finished,
heart distracts him and you lower the boom and you
go the second half of the match, and then you
go for the leg and tear the tights off, and
there's the blood and you're screaming pig and he's wearing white.
And that's where I coined the term the babies in

(01:55:00):
the air, because finally, when he got the second comeback,
the people you see him, they're literally throwing babies in
the air and he's beating you with the chair on
the floor, and all the girls in the front row
that had seen everything, and I do mean everything.

Speaker 2 (01:55:15):
That related to the boys they'd said.

Speaker 1 (01:55:17):
They're climbing up backwards over the chairs with horrified looks,
and you can see them and they're running and they're
scared because they were into that thing.

Speaker 3 (01:55:24):
It was.

Speaker 2 (01:55:25):
It was a riot and it was just you know,
it was just right there.

Speaker 3 (01:55:31):
It's just a matter of again, you know, is that
do we even understand in this day and age? You know,
is what we are supposed to do as professional performers,
whether it be you know, I mean, whether it be

(01:55:53):
a movie, or whether it be a play, or whether
it be wrestling, or whether whatever it might be, you know,
is it's the story that you tell, and it's the
suspension that you put into it that you have to have.

(01:56:15):
It's a necessity more than anything else. Is believability. If
you do not believe, it does not work, it doesn't
have the stardust on it. You've got to be able
to and anymore. It is Jerry Lawler. He's got to look,

(01:56:39):
he's got a presence, he's got a weigh Everything that
he does is Jerry Lawler, and it's what he believes
and he has suspended himself. He is not only is
there a suspension of disbelief to the fans, he has

(01:57:02):
to suspend his own disbelief.

Speaker 2 (01:57:05):
He's got to believe himself.

Speaker 3 (01:57:06):
He's going to believe that he is doing it. And
I am. I am suspending belief too, and myself, I am.
Everything that I am doing, I am truly doing to you.
And everything that Jerry is doing to me, or whatever
you are doing to me, you are truly doing to me.

(01:57:28):
That's what really makes the performer, and the performer has
to do that. It's just like whenever I was on
Vince's television the other day and he said to me,
not him, but they said to me, you have to
do these lines. They weren't my lines, oh you know.

(01:57:50):
But so then I said, could I please do these?
And they said yes, and they were my life. So
it worked. But that's the same way. You have to
go ahead and you have to have that that feel
and that that that you are who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):
Is that why it was so easy for you?

Speaker 1 (01:58:12):
Why in the movie, but in the movies also because
and we were having conversation off the air where I
always hated when one of the boys would play some
goofy cartoon wrestler for it of a little side cameo
role on some comedy show or whatever. When you were
in Roadhoun, You're basically playing Terry Funk as a bouncer.
It wasn't that far, but once again, you projected on

(01:58:34):
the screen. Is that why it was easy for you
to adapt to stuff like that? Because you were basically
making it an extension if you instead of a wrestler,
you were a bouncer, if instead of that you were
it was you in that particular occupation.

Speaker 3 (01:58:47):
Why sure. And sometimes as I go too far, No,
I really do. I mean, I'm very serious, you know,
as I really believe that that's who I am, you know,
in those roles and.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
Stuff, and that can't lead to trouble.

Speaker 3 (01:59:02):
And it personally, it did lead a little bit of
trouble just by being an idiot. And sometimes you just
go too far, you know, and I can't stop myself.

Speaker 2 (01:59:16):
You know, Olivit.

Speaker 1 (01:59:17):
You mentioned that Mulligan and Murdock it did didn't work out,
and I can see that. But at that point Amarillo
and Lubbock, that had had regular weekly wrestling for over
thirty years, World Class expanded out there by the time
that we got to work for Fritz. We'd go every
couple or three Sundays do maybe Amarillo in the afternoon

(01:59:39):
and Lubook that night, or vice versa.

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):
Lebban the Afne and Amoral that night. It wasn't the same.

Speaker 1 (01:59:44):
The people that were there liked the matches, but there
weren't a lot of them. Usually it wasn't big money
out of towns anymore. Did the people get turned off
like a lot Like when Stark left Greensboro, people were
mad when the local promotions left. The people had lost
faith and it lost interest when to do something else.
Was that kind of what happened to West Texas.

Speaker 2 (02:00:07):
They just they.

Speaker 1 (02:00:08):
Wanted their own local thing and they didn't want to
even though it was from Dallas.

Speaker 3 (02:00:11):
No, you know, No, it's a matter of manipulation. It's
a matter of who is running territory. It's a matter
of programming. It's a matter of of whenever you have
an area, like at a small area, you've got to
be able to capture.

Speaker 2 (02:00:29):
The audience real quickly.

Speaker 1 (02:00:32):
I want to talk about two events in Amarillo that
kind of brought the old days back, especially after World
Class had folded up. WCW or WWF might come once
or twice a year, but the first one October twenty eighth,
nineteen ninety three, the High Country Chevy Free for All.
Remember all the High Country Chevy dealerships sponsored it. It

(02:00:53):
was a benefit for John Ayres at the time they
had diagnosed his cancer. And the two main events, Uh,
you guys were in the main event, you and.

Speaker 2 (02:01:02):
At Eddie Gilbert in a Texas death match that you
had asked for.

Speaker 3 (02:01:05):
And work with Eddie.

Speaker 1 (02:01:09):
Because the tag team match underneath it was me and
the Heavenly Bodies with me in the corner against Dory
and Murdoch. And I remember because we flew out from
Smoky Mountain and I was flabbergasted and honored to get
to work with at least one of the funks. You
had to steal the main event work with Eddie. You
couldn't make the tag We could have that thrill. But

(02:01:30):
Tom's well, No, Tom was from West Texas before he
moved to Houston.

Speaker 2 (02:01:34):
He grew up.

Speaker 1 (02:01:35):
When he was a kid, he watched you guys on
TV and he was over the moon. And I'm working
with Dory Funk Junior and Dick Murdoch and Amarillo and
the crowd of the Civic Center was pretty much sold
out at the big building there, So what was that
six seven thousand people and they were dynamite and they
were ready to see that that show and that was
so much fun. And then three year, four years later,

(02:01:57):
September eleventh, nineteen ninety seven, the fifty Years of Funk Show,
I didn't get to go. I was stuck in Connecticut.
But that's where you wrestled Brett Hard and you had
called me in the office in Stamford to get through
to Brett and make sure the oka was Brett said
he would be honored to work with you, and that
was your last match in Amarillo, and those two shows

(02:02:19):
it showed by selling out the people were still there.

Speaker 2 (02:02:23):
If you gave him something they wanted to see them
come out for it.

Speaker 1 (02:02:26):
Yes, and your name identity after well fifty years after
your father moved in, thirty five years after your Dori's debut, they.

Speaker 2 (02:02:36):
Would still come to see the Funks at Amarillo, and.

Speaker 1 (02:02:40):
The WWF could come and not draw that WCW all
the big stars, current stars, but you put those names
together in those matches and promoted it locally and you
could fill the buildings in Amarillo.

Speaker 3 (02:02:53):
I think you can fill. I agree with you, But
I also think that a lot of the buildings can
be field that aren't being filled because of that was
also due to very good promotion at that time, yea,
and promoting very well and very hard and.

Speaker 2 (02:03:10):
With great and they don't know it, but with.

Speaker 3 (02:03:14):
Great, great talent. You got it exactly right on the
nose right there. They have to know it, and we
let our people know it. And I think that's, uh,
that's a mistake in this day and age. I think
it is.

Speaker 1 (02:03:26):
I think they think, if you just put it out
on the internet, we're gonna have wrestling that everybody automatically knows.

Speaker 5 (02:03:30):
All.

Speaker 1 (02:03:30):
We got to drop everything we're doing and just change
our lives. And they think, if you're on create a
sense of urgence.

Speaker 3 (02:03:36):
On this television station that nobody's ever heard of, and
or four of them in one week, you know, and
you've got Channel one, seven, three, and thirty two and
Channel fourteen the Firm Network and the FIRNOM Network. Yeah,
that's exactly right, you know. And we think it's supposed

(02:03:58):
to be that's supposed to means up. You know, it's
lack of promotion has a lot to do with it,
but the people, the talent, it's everything. You roll it
all together, You roll it all together in one hell
of a damn big ball of just.

Speaker 4 (02:04:17):
Shove it up that candy at No, pull it out,
pull that bullshit out.

Speaker 1 (02:04:22):
Give me, give me two bonus stories again, if we
got enough tape left, I want to hear the story
about was it was it Kozak and the fake Deer.

Speaker 2 (02:04:32):
Tell me that one. Come on, come.

Speaker 3 (02:04:35):
On, no, no, no, that was. That was a good
one though, But Kozaki, I forget what the hell even
happened on that one. Give me another one.

Speaker 1 (02:04:42):
How about in that case when you left New York
and left Vince the note about your veterinary problem or
Survivor series ninety three.

Speaker 3 (02:04:51):
That was? That was? That wasn't a good one. I
always tell that one somehow, I always get to telling
that one.

Speaker 1 (02:04:59):
I remember I was there when he came in and
reported it, So that's my to me. I was at
the production meeting the next morning when he came in
with the note.

Speaker 3 (02:05:09):
Said, Terry Funcus, what the hell did I say on there?

Speaker 1 (02:05:12):
Well, they wanted you to be it was Lawler's Nights.
You were going to be under a mask for some reason.
They were going to beat you guys, and then they
were going to take the mask off of you. And
I guess they were gonna pissed your mouth while you
were down there.

Speaker 3 (02:05:24):
That's exactly what they were going to and you you
found out what was Yeah. Yeah, and so I want
to head. Yeah, that's what they're going to do. They're
gonna unmask me. Then they were gonna beat me and
beat me again. Yeah. And I was supposed to go
for it, you know. So I want to add I
snuck out of town, yeah, and I want to had
and I said, I left a note said my horse

(02:05:44):
is sick. I think he's dead.

Speaker 2 (02:05:45):
You have to go home and take care of my zick.

Speaker 3 (02:05:47):
Yeah, my horse is sick. I think he's dying. I
gotta go home and take care of my sick horse.

Speaker 1 (02:05:53):
For a while, anytime anybody wanted to get away from Vince,
they would iggy each other, like I got a sick horse,
you know.

Speaker 3 (02:05:59):
You know, you know want The four worst part about
it was I saw events about a year ago. He said,
how's your horse? I swear to god he did. What
about the night? That's what That's what he says to
me every time I see, how's your horse? He knows,
he knows. That's exactly what you've got it.

Speaker 1 (02:06:22):
You got hope he's doing well with the Night of
Helen Cell with Mick and Taker, because you had to
run out there and call the audible, because you knew
that things were rapidly disintegrating, because Mick was almost killed,
definitely knocked out.

Speaker 2 (02:06:35):
Yeah, the choke slam in your shoes.

Speaker 3 (02:06:39):
I choke slamming right out of my damned shoes. The
Undertaker did, Where's the Undertaker? What's the Undertaker doing? What's
the Undertaker doing? Is he just doing dead people?

Speaker 2 (02:06:49):
Now?

Speaker 3 (02:06:50):
I think he's uh, he's doing He's doing.

Speaker 2 (02:06:53):
One Undertaker's dark side.

Speaker 3 (02:06:54):
Yes, he's doing one undert the you know what? You know,
he's he he's the smartest one of us all. He's out.

Speaker 2 (02:07:02):
He shows up once a year. He has a giant
payhoff and I don't see him again. He got out
of it and he's not on Twitter on Twitter, on Twitter.
Do you know?

Speaker 1 (02:07:10):
Now here's the thing that I love about the fucking
boys in the business.

Speaker 2 (02:07:13):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:07:14):
Versus used to used to when the guys would have
heat with each other, they'd hit each other over the
head with a tire iron, or cut each other in
the locker room with a razor blade or whatever. Now
they block each other on Twitter. On Twitter, block each
other on Twitter? Grown adult men?

Speaker 3 (02:07:27):
They block each other?

Speaker 2 (02:07:29):
Yes, that mean are you not on Twitter? What the
hell's the matter with you?

Speaker 3 (02:07:33):
I don't even know what Twitter is.

Speaker 1 (02:07:34):
Well, see if if somebody says something you don't like
on Twitter, you press the thing and block them and
you can't see what they say anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:07:39):
So they can still say.

Speaker 1 (02:07:40):
It, but you don't have to look at it, and
they can't see what you say about them on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (02:07:48):
Twitter sounds like something dirty or something.

Speaker 2 (02:07:51):
It's actually it's a lot more Twitter than it is Twitter.

Speaker 1 (02:07:54):
What's the legacy of Ambillo Wrestling and the Funk family
in West Texas?

Speaker 2 (02:07:58):
After now seventy years since your father.

Speaker 3 (02:08:01):
First after seventy years of my father first moving there,
I think it's been longer than that, forty four I'll do.

Speaker 2 (02:08:12):
Anybody have a calculator, it's very late.

Speaker 3 (02:08:14):
Forty four is fifty six years.

Speaker 2 (02:08:16):
It's been a long damn time.

Speaker 3 (02:08:18):
Six seventy seventy five years. Seventy seventy five years.

Speaker 1 (02:08:22):
Well, are you going to do the seventy five years
of funk at the Ambillo Civic Center.

Speaker 2 (02:08:25):
I will work for free.

Speaker 3 (02:08:28):
Well, I guess I'm going to keep on funking if
I'm seventy five years into it or not.

Speaker 2 (02:08:35):
Have you had your last match? Can we put that
on record?

Speaker 3 (02:08:37):
Or is there absolutely? I'm gonna yeah, But then you.

Speaker 2 (02:08:42):
Know, was that Jackson last year? No?

Speaker 3 (02:08:44):
I want to have No.

Speaker 5 (02:08:45):
I want to have my real, real, real, real, real, real, real, real, real, real, real, real.

Speaker 3 (02:08:57):
Last match with you, Cornett. I'd like the book at somewhere.

Speaker 2 (02:09:02):
I would be honored.

Speaker 1 (02:09:03):
If you await maybe five or ten more years, I
might be able to take you, because by then you
have to be in an iron lung, as Jay Strongbow
would say, And I could.

Speaker 2 (02:09:13):
Just pull the plug and you put me over.

Speaker 3 (02:09:17):
How do you how do you think? How do you
think that you? You act like you're some kind of
a a young punk kid or something compared to an
old man here. Well, hey, let me spring chicken yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:09:33):
When I was in school, they didn't have history. That's
how old I am. My sole security number is one.
My mother charged the light Brigade when I was When
I was a kid, the Dead Sea was still sick,
but you're as youthful as everton.

Speaker 3 (02:09:54):
Yeah, I do, I do. I change change I changed.

Speaker 1 (02:09:58):
What what if you look back on your career, whether
it be the Amarillo Territory or everywhere you've ever been,
all the experiences you've had.

Speaker 2 (02:10:05):
What I know you wouldn't change a thing. But what
was the happiest, the most satisfying, what fulfilled you the most?
What was your your favorite thing about being in the
wrestling business your entire life.

Speaker 3 (02:10:20):
Favorite thing about being in a wrestling business. You know,
it's not one thing, It didn't it really, it's everything
it is. I just I've loved everything about the business.
I've loved everything that i've from coming in my father,

(02:10:45):
coming in with other wrestlers late at night, and getting
up out of bed whenever I was seven, eight years old,
five or six years old, I don't know, and coming
in there and listening to the stories being told, to
driving down the road in the car with my mom
and dad and being in the back seat laying down

(02:11:07):
on a seat, sleeping in my brother in there too,
you know, and just just those things are my favorite
things to remember about the business. Going to the matches
with my father and just being special, you know, because

(02:11:28):
he was my father, and I really love that. I
love that being special myself and having the people say, hey,
that's a little Terry funk here, that's a little Terry funk.
You know, look at he grew, Look at him, look
at him now, look at him.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
There, Terry On behalf of every rent saying in the world,
you are special.

Speaker 3 (02:11:48):
I don't know. I hope I am. I hope I am.

Speaker 5 (02:11:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:11:52):
I mean that's I'd like to be remembered as being special.
We had a hell of a time here.

Speaker 2 (02:11:58):
Didn't we As long as you remember it.

Speaker 5 (02:12:00):
We.

Speaker 3 (02:12:01):
Had the hell of a time.

Speaker 2 (02:12:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:12:03):
Whenever it's over, it's over, and nothing there's nothing wrong
with that. When it's over, it's over.

Speaker 2 (02:12:09):
By golly, that may be a cue. It may be over. Terry.
Thank you for joining us on this.

Speaker 1 (02:12:15):
Thank you for being my friend all these years, and
help you've given me in more ways that I can
thank you for.

Speaker 3 (02:12:21):
Oh God, I just I've enjoyed. You know, this sounds
like some kind of gud damn love affair.

Speaker 1 (02:12:32):
Well, I'm the one told you to tell me stories
about cocks.

Speaker 3 (02:12:35):
Let's get the hell out of here.

Speaker 1 (02:12:37):
I got a room folks join us for the next installment,
if there indeed is one, and that is up for
debate at this very point. Back to the territories from
k FAPE commentaries. I'm Jim Cornett. He's a crazy Texan,
a drop kicking, pile driving son of a son of us.

Speaker 2 (02:12:53):
He cook and.

Speaker 3 (02:12:55):
Driving, neck breaking, back breaking, bear hugging, red stocking, need dropping,
toe holding, son of a son of a gun, Meaner
than a rattlesnake, tougher than shoe leather, more dangerous in
a hollow eyed coore pine middle eggs, and crazy crazy
like a fox.

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