You know, good for nothing, egg sucking dumb. We did it our
way because we love it that way. We love it that way. I
have this wonderful gun feeling, and I've had it all my life. When
it's time to go, I think it's now, there's time to go.
TLF stands for the Lapsed Funk. TLF stands for the lessons of Funk,
and perhaps nowhere else in Terry Funk's storied wrestling career can we learn more lessons
about what made Terry Funk Terry Funk and what makes pro wrestling pro wrestling than
the feud with Jerry the King Lawler? Boss? Are you ready to go?
Mt? Arena? I know, I guess I know nothing about this
feud and whatsoever. That's remarkable because it's quintessential Funk and it illustrates all the
things the Dusty Rhodes feud we talked about last week did in terms of Georgia
and Florida. This time we're talking, of course Memphis and to some degree
Florida as well, because of just how hot this program got. This is
early eighties Terry, you know, transitioning out of you know, his full
time duties in Japan, looking at a US career that's a bit more sporadic
in terms of here for a little while, here for another little while post
selling the Emerald Territory to Dick murnauth and black Jack Mulligan and yet another all
time wrestling legend, a touchstone figure, you know, a giant of a
territory, a giant of a generation. And Jerry Lawler, who will tell
you without a hesitation that Terry Funk among the greatest, if not the greatest,
he ever did business with. And that's starting to echo, is it
not, Boss, I would say, yes, lessons of Funk from his
book. I hate to admit it, but I really didn't think Dusty is
a slob. Yeah, heates to admit that, for sure. It's hard
for me to do. It hurts me to write this, but I really
like him, and that's a horrible thing to admit. I sure wouldn't want
to be married to him, though, the fat asshole. Seriously, it
worked because A border lined on him, I repeat, Boss, A border
lined on him, order aligned on him? The fuck does that even mean?
And he borderlined me right back. He'd rip on my family right walk
up to the borderline. Oh, I see my athletic background. Everything borderlining
is cutting a promo and just coming as hard as you can at the other
guy. When I cut a promo and Dusty, I would say things that
were true to make people look at him and think, God, that's got
to bother him. And the same thing with the things he said about me.
That was key to being successful in our business. You know, it's
a combination of believing and the suspension of disbelief for fans, and we have
to say things that they can suspend their disbelief on. You'd have to say
things that are cutting, and you have to be clever about it too.
That way, you get not only the fans who were going to buy into
what you're saying and believe it, but the ones who view it differently,
who can think, you know, that's some sharp shit they're doing there,
mm hmm. And talk about a creative promo man. Dusty Rhodes was sharp.
He was one of the truly great talkers. He could, as they
say, talk those fans right into those seats. And when I cut them
up verbally, he knew that it meant we were going to do some big
box office and believe me, he hit hard on me too. Our promos
and knocking each other bordered on being shoots from time to time, and I
think that's why ours was such a successful feud. For most of my career,
we had an assortment of people watching wrestling, from true believers to people
watching for an entertaining show, and we wanted to open up that whole audience
and grab up what we could. That was what I tried to do with
the cleverness of my promos, but it had to be with a grain of
truth, a grain of truth as it regards the King Oh Boy. August
two Kids, two thousand and four, in Memphis, Jerry Lawler and his
manager Jimmy Hart took on Terry Funk and Memphis wrestling announcer in local television personality
Corey Macklin in sort of a return to form for the Funk Lawler feud in
Memphis. This is, of course, post DCW collapse, post WCW collapse,
Jerry Lawler allowed to take independent dates despite working for WWE and going around
the country and doing just that by rekindling feuds with the likes of people like
Terry Funk that he had drawn houses with before. The damn thing drew five
thousand fans in two thousand and four, one of the biggest crowds for a
non WW show in years. And how did they do it? As Serry
said in the book, we had no exploding cars, no fancy fireworks shows,
no elaborate backstage SciTS. Hell, I wasn't even in Memphis until the
night of the show. How did we do it with a tape a mail
to Memphis containing four promos? We did it with carefully crafted promos, one
a week for a month of Memphis TV shows leading up to our big match.
Wow. And let's hear what he says about Lawler Boss in the spirit
of saying something cutting. Oh boy, oh hey, Jerry, I hate
your ever loving juts. I hate you with the passion Jerry Lawyer, I
hate you. I can't believe that a wrestling fan walked up to me out
in the middle of Texas and Marilla, Texas and he said to me,
do you know who my five favorite wrestling legends are? Terry Funk And I
said, no, who are they? And he said Hulk Hogan, Rick
Frere, McK foley, Dusty Rhodes. And I said, don't go any
further, don't go any further and me Terry funk and he said, why
no, Jerry the King Lawler, Jerry the King Lawler. I drew back
and I knocked his lights out. Old Cogan. I can understand him,
even though he's an ego maniac. I can understand Rick Frere being in that
group, even though he has a banana nose. I can understand Dusty Rhodes
even though he's an egg sucking dog. I can understand McK foley even though
he's a satchel ass. But I can't understand why he would put Jerry Lawler
in there. Does he know who he's talking about? Does he know that
boud Berker? Look? Does he know about the transparants? Does he know?
Jerry Lawler is a baby banger, a baby banger, old baby banger?
And do you know that his partner, Jimmy Hart is nothing but a
cheap thief. He was my manager in New York and he insisted that we
shared rooms. So I would share a room with him, and in the
middle of the night he would sneak into my pockets and steal my change.
Later on, he was Haulk Hogan's manager, and Hulk Hogan said he insisted
on staying with him, and in the middle of the night he would sneak
into his pockets and steal his change. And now he's back with you,
Jerry Lawler. And I'll tell you one thing for certain that I know and
that you know too. Jimmy Hart is sneaking up on you and putting his
hands in your pockets, your front pockets. But he's not looking for his
change. And what's worse than that, you know what he's looking for,
Laura. I've hated you all my life and I'm going to continue to hate
you until we have finlity. That's why I am bringing this. It's years
and I am giving it back to you at the Memphis Colisseum. That's right.
I'm going to give it back to you on August at twenty eight and
Cory mack Help is on the way. Help is on the way. I
think I've heard that somewhere before, shout out of the Double Cross Ranch and
then he just wanders out a frame after he says to himself, I think
I heard that somewhere before. That is spectacular, baby banger. That's horrifying
us. He says it three times. Do you think Jerry was okay with
that. Do you think Jerry thinks that's business. I'm gonna say no,
Terry Funk, the lessons of Funk don't stop until you've said something that they
can't react to because it's just too true. Yes, And when it comes
to Jerry Lawler from the hair transplants, looking like Bob Barker, due to
the facelifts and all the other things, he would go in on on the
king over the course of a basically a forty year feud between Terry Funk and
Jerry Lawler. We have all of the forty year feuds. Isn't it so
true? Now? Let me why would that be? Would that be because
he doesn't know how to get over and stay over? Or would that be
because once you work with Terry Funk, you can never undo that association because
it's money. Just about every single time I would say a little bit of
Colum a, a little bit of columbe, I would say a lot of
column A. And that's from a series of promos that again he referenced there
in his book that he sent via videotape over to Memphis to air on television.
Didn't even make any appearances in the territory before drawing that very impressive house
for two thousand and four against the King Jerry Lawler. All the years after
they had a famous feud, including the very first empty Arena match, which
of course we're going to get to on this edition of The Lapsed Fan.
These promos are uploaded to a YouTube account run by someone named Kim Walker,
and I'm not entirely sure if that's the originator of, you know, the
first uploader of the clips. But they are hard to find in terms of
like, you know, you're you're what you typically think to search for to
find them. But there it is, and there you have it, and
there you hear it. Boss, I think it's time to cut. I'm,
I'm, I'm please, I don't, I don't, I don't even
know. I'm ready cut me. We're gonna pay something in and I like
for you to pull up the video and toggle over to twelve thirty three.
This is also in there in terms of the the series of videos. So
you can see we're on the Double Cross Ranch. Yes, it's very rustic,
it's very you know, it's got wooden fences up and shit, and
there's a sign that says Funkers Texas. Yes, just In the promo we
just played, Terry Funk at one point makes reference to pulling something out and
saying, I'm gonna give this back to you. Did you hear that?
Yes, what he's referring to is a little spike of wood that Jerry Lawler
used to essentially gouge his eye Magnum tier Tully Blanchard style and the aforementioned nineteen
eighty one mt Arena match at the Mid South Colisium in Memphis. This is
before, by the way, the equip match in which a you know,
a shard of broken chair was used to render Tully Blanchard incapable of responding.
That was an eighty five in fact, so Terry played this up the entirety
of the rest of his interactions with Jerry Lawler. That you blinded me.
To this day, Jerry Lawler, I can't see well out of my right
eye, and I see double and I have days where I can't see it
all, and not a day goes by where I'm not reminded of how much
I hate you, Jerry Lawler, because you did this to my eye.
H And I just the reason I want you to see this is because he
decides to like take on the physicality of somebody who can't see with the eye
and what it's almost like he forgets unless he's cutting a promo and Jerry Lawler
that he's supposed to sell that his right eye doesn't work, okay, And
so this is a tight shot of Terry Funk's hilarious face in two thousand and
four selling the fact that his eye doesn't work. And I just I'm just
gonna lay out and let you react to it. Three two one play.
I look. I looked through my good eye and I see and I see
my lovely wife and family. And I look and I look through my bad
eye, and I see an ugly yellow and I look through my good eye
and my lovely dog, and I see the dog. I look through my
right eye and I see the old yellower and he's a goddamn jack allor come
come closer, Come closer, Jerry. I want you to see that hate
in the face. Don't get away? Yeah, yeah, m m M.
Do you see that? Do you see them hate? I can't.
I can't m hm tonight at the sad you know, I'll be in the
ring with you, La. Where can they have some finality to this we're
going to have some closing scene. We're going to close it out over and
I don't mind if I die closing it O. Fuck, what the fuck
is wrong? Out? That looks fuck fucking Walter mathout? He does so.
I you know obviously that people can't see it. But if you go
on YouTube and look up Terry Funk raw promo uploaded by Kim Walker and go
to the twelve thirty three mark, you can share with us in the joy.
But for those who don't, who can't see it obviously, and I
want to know what was so funny? I just would wish you describe it.
I mean, so he talks about, you know, it's going along
fine. As he's talking about his eye, I mean, Graham, he
can't he can't choose which eye is the one that actually is injured. It
keeps which but it's fine, you know, it's going along fine. Then
all of a sudden and he says to him, says, I'm gonna show
What does he say, I'm gonna show. I'm gonna show you the face
of hate, the hate in my eyes. And he just like he jerks
into it like a he pushes up his face like he's a like he's a
like he's a child trying to prove that he's angry or like, you know,
mad at his parents for taking away his fucking favorite toy. And he
just keeps doing different faces over and over again, and they are so goofy.
It's so ridiculous. I mean, he doesn't mean there's there, and
also there's no anger there either. It's just just look at my goofy facial
expressions. He went from like serious as a heart attack in the in the
eighties to embracing the fact that we're two old men sort of you know,
we still hate each other, but I'm just so nuts, but also kind
of so self aware of how old we are that I can have a little
fun with it too. Oh my god, what a trip. Just the
way he stays totally silent, and then just further, it's like he makes
a face like he ate a very sour piece of candy. Yeah, exactly
exactly, and he does it over and over again. He keeps jerking his
head, he keeps straining his neck veins and switching the fucking eye, like
which one he's gonna use as his uh as it's staying Oh, it's just
it's hilarious, So that building a twenty four meeting with the King in the
most Terry Funk way possible nice to get a first hand glimpse of just a
very limited frame, of course, of the double Cross ranch, which of
course has been somewhat of a character throughout the course of Lapsed Funk in its
own right. And after that match and several other matches in and around Tennessee
against Jerry the King Lawler, Jerry King Lawler starts up a podcast, of
course, and on one episode with a match coming up against Terry Funk in
North Carolina, which proved to be the final pair of meetings where Terry Funk
and Jerry Lawler shared a ring. The King gets a phone call, gets
a surprise phone call in twenty seventeen from the Funker. And if you don't
think Terry's ready to do business, if you don't think Terry's ready to immediately
revisit the place in which these two may very well hate each other, then
you do not know what the fuck you're talking about. Oh boy, he
really did, He's really calling You think that's him? It was supposed to
be our surprise guest, but everybody knows that He's a hardcore legend, a
man, Jerry, that you have battled with over the years for decades.
It's been a couple of years since you guys have been in the ring together.
But you'll be squaring off this weekend, and Jerry, I know you're
gonna be upset with me, but he is probably just up there when it
comes to guys that I enjoy watching, he is Terry Funk. Terry,
how are you today? Well, it depends on how I do on this
conversation with this asshole I'm talking to. Oh please, area, is that
the way you're gonna start this conversation like that? The only way to start.
You gotta hate in the world and wrestling man, oh man, And
the first of all, Glenn, Well, thank you. I guess I
could say thank you for being on our podcast. Terry. I understand you.
You don't do many podcasts, do you, Terry Phone? The only
thing wrong with your podcast? No, I don't is it stinks? Really?
Is that? I mean? Is that your opinion? Or have you
heard that it's got a god awful odor? Have you looked around and smelled
something dead? Jerry? I think that's you. Please wait a minute,
that's you Gary Lawler, it's your ass. That's okay, Okay, okay,
okay to ring to Lawler. Okay, you want to start jacking around
and talking about stuff that, Oh, what a great time we're gonna have.
What a great ass kicking you're gonna get? Okay, how do you
know? I like? I like it so far? It's you like you,
You're gonna get an ass kicking. Well, you're gonna get one.
Well, let's let me say, what do you want to talk about now?
Okay, I want to talk a little bit about what Glenn just said.
It's been you say, it's been a couple of years since he and
I were in the Funk and I were in the ring against each other.
Yes, swear it was. It was in Jackson, Tennessee. And it
seems to me like it was just like last week because I can remember it
so vividly. We had a huge crowd at the Omen Arena in Jackson,
Tennessee. Terry Funk and I squared off for the time and I don't know
how long, and it took about maybe. First of all, you came
out and you insulted probably the greatest ring announcer ever in the history, Lance
Russell, and you came out and said terrible things about Lance. What was
up with that? Mourn on to moron. That's why he deserves to be
exposed. That's the same way that you need to exposed as a chicken shit.
I guess is this language okay, Glenn? I mean, is he
going to be able to get away with this kind of language the home?
That's all I will not say an You know, a chicken shit is chicken
shit, wow, and your chicken shit. But you're you're saying that Lance
perfectly fine, Lances chicken ship on the podcast. It's perfectly fine. Ship
is not considered a bad word. If you want me to tell you another
word that begins with m F, I'll tell you that one. And that's
a bad word. You know what that word is. Of course you know,
of course you do, because that's what you are. You are an
m F e er. Think about that. But let me get back to
the fact that you call your praying. You're saying Lance, You're saying Lance
Russell is a moron. I just had I just had lunch with Lance a
couple of weeks ago at my restaurant here in Memphis. I didn't say I'm
not talking about Lance Russell. I'm talking about I'm not talking about Lance Russell.
I'm just Lance, your idiot announcer. You're idiot announcer that listens to
you and what you tell him to say about you, and that's all he
says. And that's the only reason he's your announcer. I'm not talking about
him. I'm talking about you. You got that right, Okay, Yeah,
well then let's talk about you and me. In that match in Jackson.
You say you're gonna give me an ass whipping in the Carolina's coming up
this weekend. What happened in that match of Jackson? If I can remember,
if I can remember, if it took about five minutes into the match
and you're going to the back, you're bringing out you're bringing out a garbage
can full of brooms and shovels and mops and all of this sort of stuff
to use his weapons, and still you got set on fire at the end
of the match. Do you remember that I was going to I was gonna
clean up after the murder, your goddamn murders. Oh right, God fucking
what I mean. If you're Jerry Lawler, like you've worked with this guy
dozens of times. I don't still think you can feel completely comfortable that he's
not this time shooting. Do you know what I mean? Right right,
You've heard the lines over and over again. You can kind of hear the
smirk in his voice on some of the things he says. But he goes
to the absolute extreme. It's like the second Tary Funk sens is that you're
not taking this as blood seriously as you should. Yeah, he will turn
the dial up higher than anyone else who's ever lived and breathed in the business,
short of perhaps like a Brian pillman, who in his own right still
had to work within certain parameters. But Terry Funk, by staying of Vagamond,
by staying untied to any let's say, set of HR policies throughout the
course of his wrestling career, could and did go where others could not un
promos. And when he calls him on a baby banger, and when he
says he brought all that shit to the ring to clean up after the murder
and I don't care if I die trying to avenge what you did to my
eye, Jerry Lawler, that's that's king shit. Because because he knows no
one else can go there, and he can go there because he's Terry Funk
and no one else is. Right, just thoughts there because it's so unique
to hear it in the format of like phoning into a podcast. You know,
it's almost like if Terry Funk were to ambush lawl or if he was
on like radio in the seventies or eighties or something. Right, just masterful.
I mean, the guy is just he's blabbering, he's meandering, he's
but he's also like he's also projecting danger. Like if someone talk to me
like that, I'd actually be a little worried, of course. I mean,
he just threatened to kill you know, he threatened to murder Jerry Lawley.
He said it's gonna happen. I I really, I don't know.
I mean that that's it's just that's that's incredible, absolutely incredible. Like the
the the the amount of dedication and the amount of it's the mindset, the
mindset you have to put yourself in, is that you know, at some
point you make the choice I'm not I'm you know what, I'm not gonna
let him think I'm fucking around, right, that's right? And then that's
that's really That's what's so amazing with him is that he'll get into that and
and that's it. It's game on and it's game over. True. Yeah,
yeah, two, your goddamn murder. It's gonna be your goddamn murder.
How did it ever get to this point between Terry Funk and Jerry the
King Lawler. We're gonna map it out, as you can imagine, on
this week's episode of The Lapsed Funk And of course we're proud to be chronicling
the most most remarkable career in the history of the business at the same time
that we ring in yet another Christmas season here at TLF Boss. It's festive
as fuck? Is it not? Fucking You can't even begin to talk about
fest It's fucking crazy. Els on. So, first of all, we've
now begun unloading on the Solar System, our series of twenty twenty three TLF
Christmas shows. It's the Unwrappening two as your co chairman, go gift by
gift, pod by pod stuffing that stalking on the daily heading into Christmas time.
What a thrill it was just to go back and listen to them.
We had so much fun recording it, yep, but just remembering, like
your reaction to the Jeff Hardy life size cutout thoughts, I'm it was miserable.
Miserable. Your misery was definitely the holiday joy of the solar system when
we put that picture up. Let me tell you, as it should be.
As it should be. I encourage, I encourage everyone to enjoy in
my pain. But my god, what a shit show. What an absolute
fucking uh Steve does it again? I can't. I'm looking at the picture
right now, I mean, for God's sake, like, look, I
look like I'm I'm about to just go insane. Look I'm about to go
insane. Where is that thing? By the way, it's still folded up.
I keep forgetting to burn it. You're really going to burn it.
I'm gonna burn it. I'm gonna film it too. I'll film it.
I'm gonna fucking say Christmas. Maybe maybe I'll just throw it in the fire.
Actually, when I build my next fire, it's all cardboard. That'd
be very festive of you. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. Let
a cardboard cut out of Jeff Hardy in two thousand and nine burn the house
down, Okay, please be a little careful. That's not to but watch
it's gonna happen. You know, if anything, Jeff Hardy's going to ruin
my life. As we sit a series of a GPT scripts sent to us
that was unbelievable, trained on tlf's unique view of the world. Those were
just so fun to readthrough for you. And we got that wonderful bobble from
that sort of Japanese children's top with Hulk Cogan's engraving on it. Just so
much and I'm sure by the time you listen to this, so much more
will have been unveiled, would have been unwrapped, and really again tremendously grateful
to the Solar System. We continue to record these things because, as discussed
in the past, the Peo box continues to get hit up, does it
not? It does? And we got more we have to well to record
another one. I got four more sitting here right now. Unbelievable, unbelievable.
The generosity knows no bounds, and that's why this all works because we
can count on you to give us reason to bring that level of joy to
the next level. And you do it because you know, not only does
it feel like the right thing to do, but because you can share in
the joy of us reacting to being bestowed such trinkets. So TLF Christmas s
is in extremely underway, especially now boss that we've checked a couple of under
the cinemat boxes that are non holiday the scary movie we did as well as
a tip of the cowboy hat to Terry Funk's nineteen eighties movies career as opposed
to the nineteen seventies which we covered with Paradise Alley, available now for under
the Cinemat patrons and above on Patreon. It's Roadhouse. It is Roadhouse.
And you know what a trip, what a trip that was in in learning
the the the inspiration for the movie from just the darkest depths of Hell,
learning about Patrick Swayzee and uh and just kind of the just the wild ride
of Terry Funk and uh and and and the making of that film. It
was. It was fun. It was fun, for sure. A movie
released weeks after Terry Funk attacks Ric Flair at Russel Wolredy nine, after Flair
makes all that to do about how Terry isn't a contender anymore because he's been
too busy in Hollywood. Well, this is what he's talking about. That
Terry Funk. I mean, and you know what, and I mean,
don't tell me that that that that that we opening weekend gross wasn't uh,
it wasn't as big as it was, you know, don't tell me that
it was not due to that moment at at Russell War. You know,
we're saying that that helped Celtic. Its absolutely, I'm sure people. I'm
sure people were all for it. Probably don't have the numbers at your fingertips,
but I remember it was a successful opening for Roadhouse. It was Yeah,
it will open number two. That I do. I do remember off
the top of my head it opened number two, and then you know it
did pretty well. Obviously you did better on TV. You know what else
is number two? You, Jerry Lawler, You're a big number two.
Could do this all day? Oh shit? So yeah, right exactly.
So a lot of fun there under the cinemat making sure that has the lapsed
Funk on folds here as twenty twenty three rounds third that we can pay tribute
to the more of a fuller breadth of Terry Funk's cinematic career. And we
also hit the nineties with beyond the mat, So I'd say one a decade
makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I agree. I think that that
that totally works. Definitely a part of Terry Funk's life that he was extremely
proud, proud of, and I'm sure if he had his druthers would have
defined his life in times just as much a big fan. I you know,
I'm in the sag and can I get you all get insurance? I
got that insurance. It's all in there. And then at the at the
rap party for Roadhouse, he gets up there and starts singing about pussy pussy.
Idiot Pat Patterson was gonna go to the movie, but you thought it
was called road Head. So now you gotta check this out. Because as
as we tip that cinematic cap to the Funker here one last time, we
are transitioning fully and solidly boss into our signature UTC Christmas movie season. That
is absolutely right. I'm very very excited. Three wonderful, wonderful Christmas movies.
And I will say that that the first two, I'm just gonna say
this, they'll all be surprises. But I'm gonna tell you this, the
first two are sequels. So we're we're heading in that direction. Jesus,
who will be sequels a lot to handle the main event. I can't wait.
Can't tell me either, I bet nope, oh fuck, no way.
I need that torture. I need that live reaction. I understand.
I remember when you started Under the Cinemat you didn't need that reaction and it
was quite nice. No, but after, after you get after you do
it a couple of times, you realize, you know what, this is
way better. It's the money, way better. Yep. So very much
looking forward to helping you ring in the season appropriately here at tlf HQ with
a little taste of Under the Cinemat Christmas Movie Edition. Very excited about that,
and do check out the roadhouse coverage just dropped on your feeds. And
when it comes to the lapsed fan in your life, what to get them
this holiday season or what to tell folks to get you as a member of
the Solar System this holiday season, it's not really that hard. We've got
Cameo and we've got pro wrestling teas, don't we, boss, we do?
We have we have Cameo. Cameo has been actually on fire lately.
They've been I just did one for the first time in years with you.
Yeah, yeah, I know, yep. It was a it was a
you know, you bring in Pat Patterson in there for you know, a
a multitude of of of character requests and and and it's a I don't mind
spoiling this. Vince killed Jesse Ventura in it. So and it just and
you know, it just that just happened on a whim. There was no
there was no like I didn't think about that, you know, I didn't
think about that at all. It was just like, you know what,
I think, Vince is gonna kill Jesse right now. You talk about a
one of a kind gift. So many people by cameos because oh, it's
that guy you like that movie. He's saying your name hi. Whereas if
you're a listener of a lapsed fan, you get a custom skit. You
get like, you know, you basically just puppeteer your favorite characters, the
Motley Crew, the Murderers Row and couldn't have been more happy to participate.
Cameo dot com slash lapsed fan or the lapsed fan just looking up on Google
to get straight there, and it'll be one of a kind gift. It'll
be give the gift of laughter. That's one thing we can promise. Yeah,
damn straight. I mean they just you know, they they give us
an you know, not that we don't have it anyway, but those things
give us an open forums as the characters to just go fucking nuts. Absolutely,
it's always and no shortage of holiday themed teasover progrestlts dot com. Slash
the Lapstrant. Absolutely, we get the die Hard one, we get the
home alone one, we got the Christmas Story one. We got Jolly Old
Saint Fritz. I mean you name, it's a it's a Schmorcas board of
holiday festive. You know, desires and needs. On the other end,
of course, I mean get shirts to position you appropriately for twenty twenty four.
In wrestling, we love to see the big pls and TLF shirts representative
things like the Rumble. Of course, WrestleMania coming hot and heavy to the
City of Brotherly Love. You want to be able to represent on the ground
in Philadelphia as well. Painia shirt, a wrestle painting a shirt. You
say, yeah, I have my wrestle painting. I have a wrestle painting
a shirt that I put out there. Absolutely tremendous, absolutely worth it,
absolutely uh necessary, So check the box for us. And if you've got
a person in your life this holiday season that's really trying to kick it into
gear from a workout and health perspective, there is a way to do that
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big fucking thumbs up from your co chairs in response. So gratifying to see
Spotify rapped season come around again this year. Boss, Yeah, I love
that. I love it. I love it, I love it. I
love it a lot. Where people listen to us on Spotify get sort of
a digestive download of the cumulative minutes they've spent in twenty twenty three listening to
their favorite podcasts. And you know, if you listen to this show,
I'm not saying everyone does, but if you do, we're probably number one
on your Spotify playlist. And it's just so amazing to see the tens of
thousands, in one case, almost one hundred thousand minutes from one member of
the Solar System reported choice so wild. I mean, I dare not do
the math because that basically means it's ambient sound in their entire lives except just
ridiculous. I'm fully accepting of that, and that's okay. And we put
as many up on x as we could on a retweet basis because we were
so blown away this year in particular. But by some of the totals,
the cumulative counts coming in from members of the Solar System. And of course
keep in mind, you know most don't listen on most I don't actually know
the percentages, but a lot don't listen on Spotify, so that's just even
a slice of the audience. Yeah, you know, non Apple if they
Spotify and Apple for instance, if they use Apple Podcasts or whatever the case
may be. So that that's really nice to see, and we were proud
to rebroadcast those sentiments and deep thanks to everybody. I mean, they are
simply too numerous to mention. I kind of started with this notion that will
give some shout outs, but it just kept going all fucking day to the
point that they're you know, there's no way I was going to collate all
those names. But you know who you are, and we love that you
listen as passionately as you do. And you know what everybody else knows,
even if they don't admit it, that when we jump on a rail,
you have to take the ride with us. It's it's unlike anything else that
you really don't have a choice. You might tell yourself that it's not for
me, you'll be back, and when you're back, that counts to Yes,
we're very much in the process of eating our vegetables here on the Lapsed
Funk. I'm not not unmindful of that. I know that a lot of
this stuff is not the comfort food that people expect when they think about tlf's
you know, sort of a signature show and signature approach and signature eras.
But god damn it, if we can't better understand why it used to be
better by taking on what Terry Funk allows us to take on, if we
passed up this opportunity, you shouldn't take us seriously as podcasters anyway, honestly
doing it. I mean, this is this? Is it? Like to
me? This has always been these things. And keep in mind too,
with a lot of these, like you know, non traditional lapsed things,
a lot of them have been my suggestion, and even I have found myself
suffering. But you know what, it gives you a greater appreciation of all
the fun stuff, yeah, and all those good moments because it's fun stuff
better because we can draw from right, you know, a richer, more
educated knowledge base because we know with even more fulsome extra what actually has worked
over the generations and pro wrestling across generations, not just what worked when we
were seven years old, feverishly unwrapping you know, any s eight bit video
game. Yep, yep, that's what we're here to do. We're here
to each each your vegetables and make you glad that vegetables have been served,
and knowing all the time that it's never you're never too far away from that
cheat meal, as the rockets say, Oh yes, fucking piece of ship
and big time cheap meal. That's I guess you could say very much.
In the In the Oven is TLFX twenty twenty four. It will be ten
years since we started this fucking thing candily or just brimming with ideas of how
to celebrate, and you can expect twelve months of content and programming and whatever
word you want to use to to to salute the day. Know that some
of the most passionate, mobilized and capable and industrial members of the Solar System
are also working behind the scenes to make sure that it feels like a ten
year anniversary around here in twenty twenty four. And before warned that we're going
to be turning to you quite soon for a very specific ask that is to
say, a day where basically you can, you know, collect your favorite
TLF fan favorite moments and help us in a mission to pull together the absolute
top moments as voted on. I guess you could say, by you the
Solar System. I mean, we always get we always hashtag them with the
TLFX on X. You know, great screenshots of some of our podcasts.
I mean, I don't know about you, boss, I never get sick
of just re listening to like a two minute clip that someone calls no.
I mean, because there's you know, I've said this a million times,
there's so much that happens that oftentimes I don't you know, I don't remember.
You know, we could have we could have five moments in any episode
that just make us go crazy absolutely laughter. And so at that point my
brain's gone and I don't and it's kind of goes in, It goes in
one ear out the other, so to speak. And so it's great to
hear people post stuff because I listen to it and I start laughing again and
wonder what the fuck were we doing? And like this is like it just
it makes me so it always gives me a laugh. I don't think there's
ever been a time that someone's posted one of those where I haven't had a
real, a real chuckle, a real fucking hearty, hearty laugh. To
be who you need us to be, we need to stay on the hamster
wheel. And a consequence of that is we can't spend a whole lot of
time just like, you know, basking in our own glow and you know,
like coming up with self congratulatory things to say and post. We can
barely keep up with rebroadcasting the praise that comes our way, which we feel
is the least we can do an appreciation for people taking the time to express
gratitude, let alone sit around be like, Hey, wasn't that great?
Wow, weren't we legends? Now, we're too fucking busy feeding the beast,
because in this country, if you're not feeding the beast, you're dying
as right, And we've learned that by the beast. In ten years doing
this, we've certainly been acquainted with that is podcast after podcast after podcast has
fallen by the wayside or become so diluted that it barely resembles what it was
in the beginning. It is a very very difficult tide to fight and you
know that your co chairman are uniquely prepared to do the best one possibly could
to stem that tide, and we appreciate you standing at our backs as we
do it. So do keep that in mind for twenty twenty four, maybe
over the holidays and you've got some time to yourself reflect a bit and say,
you know, what are the moments we talked we just did talked about
how you know, the funny moments are the ones that obviously surface most easily
and are the most fun to revisit. But I don't think Boss for TLFX
were necessarily just looking for laugh moments, not at all. That's just a
component of what we do. We are all things to all people. And
if there was a poignant moment, if there was a moment on the show
that really made you think, if there was a moment in the show that
really made you mad, if there was a moment in the show that really
made you reconsider something, I think those are valuable as well. I think
they're equally valuable. I think that they're they're also equally important. I think
that that a lot of stuff has been you know, the stuff that I
remember usually actually is is is not so much the funny stuff. It's the
stuff that makes me, makes me want to you know, makes me miserable,
miserable or at least, you know, kind of cognizant of the consequences
of being a wrestling fan, like to have them plainly stated. Yep,
yeah, I mean, in your wrestling fan you sign up to sometimes like
get invested in something that will absolutely break your heart. I mean I can't
even I mean the one that always comes to my mind is is the Mike
Van Eric thing, And yeah, just how how awful I felt inside and
and you know I'll be looking for that in the Iron Claw for sure.
People can never forget the heart of this whole thing TLF over ten years.
It came from those days where we would get together, when we first got
to know each other and first got to realize that we had a shared interest
in deep trivia of the business, not just you know, a surface level.
Do you remember Hulk Coogan? But actually it interest in saying you remember
that, Yeah, well here's the story behind that, right right, That's
where the fucking rub is. That's where the permanent bond comes from between any
wrestling fan, not just us. And this is just that over ten years.
This is just the boss Man and to me too, I mean,
I certainly didn't know anywhere near what I know about pro wrestling starting the lapsed
fan as I do now, but to take each other along for the ride,
as the boss Man has showed me the halls of Hollywood in ways I
never would have known to think about her or look for myself, and vice
versa. On the pro wrestling side. That's the that's what that's what's at
the heart of the engine, or even the weird bizarre things that you know,
we both remember from you know, I mean, I mean I didn't
think of it when you were talking. Is when we were uh that you
brought it up at when we were interviewing Knobs in LA in April and it
was getting to a weird point where because he was upset that were kept asking
about Hult Cogan. Yeah, and I brought it up something I don't even
know where I brought up so maybe seven rust many nine restmen no rest me
nine yeah, yeah, yeah, yah yeah, And I brought up yeah,
how I was excited for them to be tag team champions even though they
never were yep. And it was like, oh yeah, yeah, that
was a, that was a tough one, and then save my ass on
that one. But I'm trying to keep my own horn. I'm just trying
to think about those are the kind of moments where we can have these these
weird memories of of of wrestling that's stick in our minds. And that's what
one of the just in a you know, just compartmentalizing the part of my
life that is this wrestling thing. There's never going to be anything close to
that Silver Dumb Journey, No, never where we go to Pontiac and enter
the ruins of the Silver Dome and come to terms with what it means that
thirty years have passed and now it's not even there anymore. And how poetic
is that? I mean that that's kind of it That to me is is
the is the real significance is that it's all it's gone now And that is
the kind of shit that was willed into existence because of this, because of
tlf X, because of what the lapsed fan has become. And we can
celebrate that too, is my point. As we look back on signature moments,
you know, relevatory moments after which it can never be the same,
you know, things we came to realize that will be reference to time and
time and time again as the years ago, because it's just too consequential.
What we discovered and what we realized was just too the kind the ramifications of
it were just too far, far far read for us to just not mention
it again. It just keeps coming up. That's the kind of thing that
I think we're equally looking for in TLFX recollections is moments that keep reverberating as
we cast and as you think about wrestling, you know, through our lens.
So just very excited about what that can mean for twenty twenty four and
again, do give some thought this holiday season to what really are those one
or two precious moments, because you'll have an opportunity to submit them, I
think in some rather formal process as we determine, you know, what it
means to be lapsed once and for all ten years on from the beginning of
the experiment. What it means to be lapsed is to understand what Terry Funk
brought to wrestling. Yes, probably just to ruminate on the fact that it's
pretty much gone now. We talked about how Funk talked about how he brought
those weapons to the ring against Jerry Lawler to clean up after your goddamn murder.
Jesus, how did it get to that point? Well, let's take
you back to when Terry Funk was reigning NWA World Heavyweight Champion. When we
did our coverage of his title reign, we kind of decried the fact that
there's limited availability of footage of title defenses, not realizing, at least in
my case, not realizing that actually the title defenses that are on tape fit
more into our story of these feuds with the likes of Dusty Roads and Jumber
Sharuda really yes, and Jerry Lawler as a matter of fact than anything else.
We saw a title defense of Terry Funk's against Dusty Rhodes as he was
just beginning to break out as a babyface sensation under the tutelage of Eddy Graham
in Florida in seventy six, And it was much the same for Jerry the
King Lawler, who in his own right, then talent of nineteen seventy four,
having just recently broke into the business and feuded with the absolute legend of
Memphis wrestling, Jackie Fargo and working a program with him As a matter of
fact, Lawler turns babyface, abandoning his a stable of heels that he was
associated with managed by Sam Bass, who was a close friend of Jerry Lawlers
and in fact was killed in a tragic fiery car wreck. Well, making
the towns back in the old Memphis circuit. This is before Jerry Jarrett kind
of took the area by the horns, and Jarrett was sort of, you
know, via his mother, Christine Jarrett, you know, just a wrestler
but also kind of office but not really. Nick Goulis very much was the
guy cracking whip and running the Memphis territory at the time. And what happens
is is Lawler becomes this absolute sensation as he defeats Jackie flowergo to take the
title of the King of Memphis and becomes a baby face. Pretty soon he
is the franchise of Memphis Wrestling. Jerry Lawler is Memphis Wrestling, and he
and Jerry Jarrett leave Fargo, pardon not Fargo, leave Goulis and get a
very prominent television clearance in Memphis and Saturday mornings which would become the institutional Channel
five I think WMC, and take all the talent in the lance, Russell
gets involved and a lot of the key talent goes with him, a lot
of the people that were, you know, selling the tickets for Memphis Wrestling
at the time, and it's a full on it's it's warfare, it's it's
a classic seventies territorial breakup. Like like we talked about a uncle on the
Black Saturday thing, remember that whole saga I do after rag Uncle died,
that exact thing felt facing off against the Fullers, That's what we had here.
And of course in this case, Lawler and Jared are very much the
ones left standing. As Nicholas, who has had a reputation for being quite
a stingy motherfucker on the payoffs and not really caring if he kept friendships up
in the business, but would much rather underpay you than care if you never
talked to him again, eventually loses in this battle, and there are some
tough deals. The tales from the Territory's episode that wevice put together where there's
an incident where wrestler tries to race the ring and stab and attack Jerry Jarrett
and Jerry Lawler by the name of Mario Galento. You might remember that name.
That's an outgrowth of that promotional war that broke out in Memphis in the
mid seventies. And so all of it is a way of saying that by
the time Jerry Jarrett gets the territory set up, he cuts Jerry Lawler in
in the action, Lawler becomes part owners and not only is he making the
most money as talent, he's also getting paid on all the profits the company
makes at the gate and everything else. And that's the secret to why Jerry
Lawler stayed in Memphis as long as he did is because he had ownership in
the territory, just like Fritz and Dallas, just like Dorry Funk Senior in
Amarilla. When you become ownership and also the top star, doesn't make a
lot of sense for you to go anywhere else for any length of time,
right, because it's impossible to match the economics of getting paid on every single
ticket the whole promotion sells, as opposed to just the tickets that can be
attributed to you on the cards you work. So Lawler has now died in
the world Memphis. He couldn't hear his mister Memphis. And with that,
of course, you know what that means the NWA World champion comes through and
tries to make the local guy seem like somebody that one day could be world
champion, to keep the fans coming back in the respective area. And do
you think in nineteen seventy six, Boss, it was time for Terry Funk
to do that? For Jerry the King Lawler, would I would say yes,
I mean, that's remarkable. Let's open the link here. It's a
Lawler in studio with Lance Russell as you know, as was the custom back
then in the territorial days, and voicing over footage of a match that took
place at the Arenas and didn't err on television where Jerry Lawler challenges NWA World
Have you Been Champion? Terry Funk coming through the territory. One of the
many matches that we read off in the litany of NWA title defenses, we
did touch on him facing Lawler and here's what it looked like. And they
pulled an old Jack Brisco trick out in terms of while Funk's gonna leave Memphis
with the championship, he also leaves the Memphis fans with plenty of reason to
hope that one day Lawler can pull it off. So let's configure ourselves here,
give me one moment, yep, let's play the soccer in three two
one play. This from the YouTube account of the Jerry the King Lawler podcast.
By the way, oh wow, no kidding. Not sure if this
is footage King had or look at that? Look at that. Starts with
the screen grab of a poster for the Funk the Lawler Match two O three
falls Terry Funk versus Jerry King Waller, final seconds of their first battle.
Funk. There's Funk with a rolling reverse cradle on Lawler. They counter twice.
Lalla unds up on top. Two now he kicks out. Look at
Funk. They are so sixty Jerry Lawler is going fifty nine minutes with Terry
Funk in nineteen straps are down. Funk is absolutely obliterated on the canvas.
It rolls him over lateral press too fun sheer rad kicks Funk to his knees,
finding her way at the guy of Lawler. Right, big Irish whip.
Jerry Roller drops the champ with the back elbow and as Funk bumper does
he bump he bumps another elbow drop. Lawler scores this is it he's got
to cover one. Two. Oh boy, wow, what did he just
do? He put his foot on the ropes the last second, like Dory
did before him, like Jack did before him, and the bell sounds the
time limit has elapsed. But you'll see that, I love you know,
when you really, when you really kind of you look at it in a
different way and you see how important it is for the champion to make other
guys look good and look credible, you know. And the idea is he
just barely got away with it. Yes, you know, Like that's that's
where the money is. It's not looking strong, it's not being dominant,
it's not like killing guys. It's it's making it, making you, making
other people, making the fans feel that you could have lost it, but
you still savvy enough to not lose it. Absolutely, and that that is
the art of wrestling. That's what like, that's what you come to appreciate
most about wrestling when you watch it. Your whole life is those moments where
you actually realize this guy is making the other guy and it's being done in
the way the fans don't even realize. Here's Jerry Lawler talking about the state
of things heavyweight champion. Well, I did an interview with Terry Funk,
and it was a tough bout. It was one of those things that went
against you. But it was his toughest bout that he's ever had in his
wrestling career because it was the one where he finally lost the belt. He
lost a title. I'll let me rephrase that. Jesus looks like a purpose.
It's got that anchor goatee. Come on, Jerry, and you're just
claim him that you are the World's heavyweight champion. The belt we have?
Do you have the slide? I brought with you the picture that I had
made after the after the matches? There? Can you show that? And
this may wipe out any doubt in your mind? What is this now?
We haven't seen this one? Well, it's just an official photograph that I'm
gonna that will be disturbed all over the country. That's exactly what it is.
There it is. Can you can you get it down there and see
what belt that is I'm wearing. No, that was taken immediately after the
match Monday night, and around my waist is the World's Heavyweight Championship belt.
I left the ring with it. I had it around my waist. I
beat Terry Funk, and what more can you say? I am the World's
heavyweight Champion. So from now on, when you refer to me, you
say the King, the World's heavyweight Champion, and also the Southern Heavyweight Champion.
There you go, well, there you go. The fact of the
matter is that mister Lawler has just stated that he is the world heavyweight Champion,
and that makes him a claimant to the world heavyweight Champion. I would
remind the folks that that belt that you were talking about still remains in the
belt is merely a trinket, just exactly like this one right here, is
merely a symbol. The title is what is important, and that's what mister
Terry Funk lost. He lost the title of World's heavyweight champions. O,
guy, possess that. Now you possess that? Now? All right?
I know you possessed the NWAS Southern Heavyweight saman that. Yeah, we're doing
business here, you know that. That's why you made the big Bucks champion
because the NWA is saying you're good enough to go around and keep all of
our areas and all of our member promoters happy and healthy, right because you
know how to get into a building and leave there, creating enough of a
stern buzz that people have someone they can believe in and keep coming to the
arenas to see for years on end. It's not that hard, not at
all. It's hard to pull off, but it's not hard to conceive of
how to structure the whole thing. And Terry Funk was the man to do
that for so many Dusty Rhodes, Jerry Lawler and others included in nineteen seventy
six allowing Cherry Lawler to go on Memphis television as we just heard and lay
claimed the title. That was another thing. Not only do you do the
foot in the rope like he had him, you know, and he had
to push his foot his way out, Yeah, but also you do a
thing where like there's a false finish, the ref reverses where for a moment
those people get the jubilation of thinking the local boy actually won the title and
he hoists the belt and as Lawler was discussing one night and Monday night in
the Mid South Coliseum, he actually leaves the ring with the NWA World title
belt, the ten pounds of gold, and there were magazine photos and that
was a big game is can you get yourself photographed with the belt in that
moment before it's taken away? Right? Not unlike Ted Dibiassi in that Boston
Garden show with the WWF championship. Absolutely, and we obsess about that.
We obsess about it. We pbsess about pictures of Lex Luger with the winged
egle belt, remember that whole thing. Indeed, so Lawler gets that courtesy
of a Terry Funk as well as what appeared to be can't call it a
star making performance because Lawler was clearly already enough of a star in Memphis to
justify the world title, but definitely a star heightening performance, and Funk is
just doing this for generations of people that we would consider sort of like his
contemporaries. But the reality is he was ready to make them. He was
a generation before Dusty Rhads. He was a generation before Jumbo Sharudah and Jerry
the King Lawler and Hulk Cogan and Rick Flair in a lot of ways,
even he was ten years in when they were just becoming greenhorns in the business.
And you better fucking believe you better fucking believe that when they cross paths
with Terry Funk. In those early parts of their career, they emerged with
a sort of sense about them that they were actually top men in the business,
that they were actually hyper capable. And you put your finger on it,
you know, Luthas kind of set this notion of world champion. But
the art, again, Boss, is the ability to make people as you
go, and the ability to get people to invest in someone other than yourself
by knowing your own worth and knowing your personal ability to make them believe in
someone else. I mean, you're that's the thing. Like, the more
people you make look good, the more people you can make money with,
you know. And isn't that always what it's all about. It's about it's
about having a program that sells and makes money. And the only way you're
going to do that is if you make people credible contenders. That's right,
make people wonder, wait a minute, could this happen? Could the guy
you know? Could my guy win? Could my guy lose? That's it?
And how when I come back, can I work this match in such
a way that the people will come again? Even though the last time they
didn't get the title change they wanted, how do they not give up on
the person who will not come out the winner in this scenario. And I
and I know it's different now. I know that that's a very you know
that that's a very territory type mentality it is, is to think ahead and
stuff like that. But at the same time, you know, it doesn't
hurt, It wouldn't even hurt to do that occasionally in the modern day,
like make people seem like they can they could have won. I mean,
I think Roman does a pretty good job with that on occasion. You know,
like people, some guys get very very close, it seems I think
I think elle Knight could have gotten a little closer in my personal opinions.
But that's a good example right there. Elle Knight and that Crown Jewel match
was very similarly positioned in the card as Jerry Lawler was back in seventy six.
I mean, it might be an awkward sort of comparison, but because
you don't have that territorial setup, it's hard to say that, you know,
anybody could fill the exact shoes that Lawler was filling as part owner as
well back then. But still it's kind of like, you know, he's
on the calm, like he's doing so well so fast that you actually can
convince people that even at this young age, he could actually pull off the
big upset and win the belt right without a ton of tea. Isn't a
ton of false headfakes. So how do we, you know, utilize that
moment well? And the problem is in the modern structure. Yeah, you
can have someone come close, but the champion's still there. The champion doesn't
leave the area for a year. The champion doesn't you know what I mean.
It's not this fleeting opportunity. The champion is still the champion of the
same company, and you can't stop being reminded that he came up short.
And then the next guy comes along and then they get the attention. Whereas
in Memphis, you know, Lawler failed to win the world championship, Funk
left the territory and then it was you know, feuds against Memphis guys for
the Southern title, the local belt, or the Missouri title in the Saint
Louis territory for example, or the Texas Heavyweight championship down there. Yeah,
and that's what you're sort of left with when the champion is isn't here.
It isn't like the champion still here. Now there's another challenger, and we've
got somebody else to get excited about possibly beating the champion. There was really
only like two or three guys in a territory, really, just one probably
that you could credibly say, all right, this is our best local shot
at winning the championship. It's not like there are a whole lot of other
guys going after Terry Funk from Memphis for the title. At the time,
no one else would have seen anybody as capable or worthy of that of that
opportunity it was. It was such a great structure. Yeah, just because
it's not like that anymore doesn't mean this wasn't better. And just because you
couldn't do it like this again doesn't mean this isn't better. I think that's
a key thing we've been pointing out for years now. Yep, when we
say it was better, we're not saying that it's a mark against how people
do things today. We're saying the fact that they couldn't do things like that
today, even if they wanted to, is what means it used to be.
Is what makes it better in the past, because it's the whole conceit,
the whole structure of the whole notion of how to organize wrestling matches and
present them in the psychology of the whole thing. It's just a it's bygone.
It wouldn't work today, and it was superior to the way it does
work today. Yep, that's not I don't know what the problem is.
So let's pull up Disc six Boss okayout two feast On is what is regarded
as the very first match to ever receive five stars from Dave Meltzer. Aw
woh going and look at a March twenty three, nineteen eighty one clash between
Terry Funk and Jerry the King Lawler and the famous Mid South Colisseum in Memphis,
Tennessee. You'll recognize the building and the environs the second you see it.
It had a very unique look this building and again, Monday nights at
the Coliseum for years and years and years sold out houses. This is where
all the legend of Jerry Lawler and Memphis Wrestling was made and where the tickets
were sold. And this is after, of course, years after that world
title opportunity that slipped through Lawler's fingers. Funk comes back through, but he's
not world champion anymore. He's now just a hell raiser. Funk isn't here
to defend the glory and honor of the National Wrestling a Lines anymore. He's
in your town to burn the motherfucker down to the frame. Okay, he's
here to murder somebody. I think it's exactly correct. And if you get
us to one hour, forty minutes and fifty two seconds, we can enjoy
this no die qualification battle. As the feud, the tensions, the personal
animosity between Jerry the King Lawler and Terry Funk and Memphis reaches a boiling point
on the same level, if not even higher than the boiling points we observed
between Terry Funk and Dusty Roads and places like Georgia and Florida last week.
Are you ready, my friend? I am ready. There we go.
We will hit play hold on and said yep and three two one play any
week can here and you're like wind even Bumber and Valley, break Time Dime
and land Y y n Wow, And Jerry Lawler comes out to the rocky
music not really mhm. This is like the Hull Coca andheie the Tiger entrances
in early w WS, A somewhat edited down version of the match. Funk
is on the move cat and mouse game. Here comes Lawler closing into the
right and bright White is the King upside down taking the corner bump, hanging
by a thread. Funkers on the floor, swinging on the concrete to the
of the Mid South Coliseum's he trips over a fucking table, try to render
the ring and took a bump and out. Jerry Lawler giving chase on the
outside. Funk rolls in and out. Just the intensity of this battle,
man, Yeah, the only things slowed down after that opening yelling. She's
yelling something. I wish I had a microphone on her. Oh my god.
That the women at the Mid South Colosseum in these days, man,
Unlike any other fans in wrestling, Jim Cornett's talked about the baby throwing effect.
We're like, well, the baby face makes it come back. It
seems like babies are being tossed into the air. That's how jubilant. And
oh Lawler tasks tossed in a nasty angle through the ropes. Lawler never that
great at getting thrown through the ropes to the floor. Yeah, kicked over
the timekeeper's table. Oh and now Funkers going after him with See how rabid
Funk seems. Yeah, he's an animal. This is it like the All
Japan against a little butcher Terry in America. That woman in the front row
then and there the striped shirt. She's screaming, screaming at Lawler and Funk
off to the left corner. I think, Jim Cornett said one of the
fans. There were Sherry Martel really and now I wounded. Jerry Lawler re
enters the fray and Terry Funk is unloading with boxing at the corner. Get
that Holy shit, tell him what you're seeing. These are fucking like he
is jabbing him and it's like, I mean, wow, I mean,
big left hook. It looks like real contact as much. You know,
that's unbelievable, like real fucking potatoes going right to the head. To Jimmy
Hard at ringside, as a Funk's manager Sidestep, Funk tried to rain down
a fist and it was just it was about throwing fists in Memphis, man,
there were holes, but it was about fists. Here comes the king.
Look at that Funks swinging at Ghost. Just Lawler lands with big jabs
down the pike. Fu Funk's putting dukes up and he keeps getting rocked,
stumbles with the ropes to the floor. Oh my god, he took down
the fucking the you know, the very very thin, very very safe rope
around in the ring. Lawler getting chased. Now, Jimmy Hart just run
under the ring. Oh he went under the ring. What a bit sort
of little weasel. He was pretty new in the business back then. He
just fucking rolled under the under the ring. That was hilarious. One of
those fans of Sherry Martell, one of them. No ring apron there you
see that like this, you can see right under the ring. Yeah.
So Lawla brought Terry over to the timekeeper's table, rammed him into the table,
and I think Funk got color. Terry Funk convulsing with his shoulders on
his ass as Lawler lays into him on the arena floor. This is this
is chaos, This is getting come up and this is what Oh yeah,
this is The fans are gritting their teeth as the next heel comes through saying
he's going to be the one to put down Jerry Lawler, because they know
a moment like this is coming on a Monday night at the coliseum. Who
did commentary for this This would be Lance Russell, the voice of Memphis Wrestling.
He was also doing the ring announcing. As the Principles made their way
to the ring. It sounds like, uh, it sounds like rod tron
guard. Yeah, touch of that, touch of that. Oh see how
Funk fucking fell face first. He's humping the matin. Yeah, he's that
out. Lawler to the second rope. Oh, stumps the back of Funk's
head off the middle rope. Fist drop by the cane cover Terry Funk's lake
convulsing too. Oh wow, look at look at Jimmy Hart sneaks in with
a uh little runt a cane and Lawler gives chase. Got under the ring
again. Right back under the ring goes Jimmy Hart. It's where Jimmy Hart
became Jimmy Hart, by the way. Folks comes out the other end as
Jerry Lawla re enters the fray, taking the right hands back to the funker.
Funk goes to the gut. Head butt by the funker. Terry busted
open, crawling on all fours, now trying to regain his his senses.
The cream color canvas of the mid South Colisseum stage for this battle of wills.
Hey Funk with a jyd head button on all fours. That's tremendous.
I love that you noticed right away that this felt like shoot contact Yeah,
oh yeah, I mean there is an I don't know, I don't know.
You know, I know that some of these guys are fucking crazy and
are like, you know, just fucking hit me. But Terry Funk just
bit Jerry Lawler's forehead, which is now bleeding, and spit the blood into
the air. I don't see what the problem is. And when Adam Page
did that in the most recent AW pay per view, people were like,
oh my god, this is the craziest shit I've ever saw. Again twenty
twenty three and pro wrestling is just everybody rewatching Terry Funk stuff after he died
and then doing it again. Funk are going upside. Look at how Lawler
sells to bouncing around those ropes, trying his best to stay on his feet,
using anything he can to stay upright. Terry had Low with those lefts
and head butts. Jesus, this is a battle. This is what you
want to come to their readA to see. Oh fucking Mayhem. It's the
perfect fan base for it too. I mean, this isn't Saint Louis.
This is exactly what Memphis wrestling fans want. Fisticuffs, rabid hungry with a
voracious appetite. Yes, and the voracious Terry Funks staggering around the ring,
planting a double X handle on the bloody forehead of the King in the corner.
Of course, King wearing the white singlett shows that blood off beautifully.
I could funk just slapping him in the face for real in the corner,
yep, calling him a pig, no doubt, Jesus. And you got
to realize every single person in this building knows the comeback is coming. When
is the moment going to come when Lawler starts fighting back? Yep? Oh,
Jimmy Hart blind signs blind sides Lawler again with that cane on the outside
while the referee Jerry Calloun was distracted back in. Now left hand Lawler barely
able to stand up thanks to the ropes seated on the bottom strand. Now
is the funker with that tape left fist, looks to the people first and
then plants the left hand. Yes, fucking someone's selling peanuts over there.
Yeah, they would sell concessions during the matches back then, just like in
a baseball game. I mean like, I mean, hello, come on,
like people are going to eat during this one. This is the get
out of my fucking way man, Terry serving potatoes. I'll tell you that.
Here we go. Look at Lawler's lawyer's not responding. Look at these
people when they realize the comebacks coming. Look at them adults standing yep.
I mean also fucking the fact that Jerry Lawler also like that. He was
never like really, wow, here we go, like he's still got a
belly, like he's got a belly back then. Yeah they didn't. Yeah,
they had no. They wanted the guy to look like your local tough
guy, not like a bodybuilding What sense of that make? Here we go,
Wow, look at them fucking trade blows. Jesus, it's the lapsed
funk bitch fuck left his feet curd heading style on that right, turned inside
out on that big Ryan hand off the ropes and funk again, turned inside
out. Fucking woman right there, that grandma fucking standing up on her feet,
cheering it'll rope get rid of this fucking scoundrel. Drops the fist cover
this has gotta be it one two No Chippy Hard in with the chair,
but Loller cuts him off right hand down goes Jimmy. Jesus, the funk
has got the chair. Uh oh, Lawler working over Jimmy Hart in the
corner and from behind in a no DQ environment, Terry Funk jabs the knee
with the steel. Referee trying to take it from Funk refusing to relinquish the
steal. Did you say, is this no DQ? No DQ? Yes?
Okay, and Jerry Lawler just come off a very bad leg injury suffered
for real paint playing football. It totally derailed the Memphis Offices booking plans for
a while because he couldn't help him play like a intramural fucking football. So
yeah, the referee takes the chair away from Funk, but not before the
damage is done. Jim Cornett made a great point reviewing this match in his
podcast. He said, now the guy would hold the chair for three hours
and no one would do anything about it, and he would just personally decide
to stop using it. Terry Funk appearing now to try to tear at the
pant leg of Jerry Lawler to further expose that knee, No doubt, it's
rolling around on the ground like two fucking steam laughed. At this point,
Lance Russell, ladies and gentlemen trying to extract himself desperately from the clutches,
the pit bull like clutches of Terry Funk as Jerry Lawler back up. Now
is the Funker standing hovering over the king, cheering on at ringside as Jimmy
Hart. The fans saw the comeback, come and go from Lawler. That's
a new position to be in. Usually he takes it all the way to
the finish biting toe hold, and he's got a handful of the trunks too.
When twenty toe holds see Lawler's knee exposed there, Well, it's not
the first time he exposed something that's exactly correct. All are with his hand
to the sky trying to fight the paint off of the patented Funk family spinning
toe hold. Terry is really cranking on that bad wheel damaged by the steel
chair. Lawler throws off his back. Funk has to get rid of the
hold. Look at him stomping. Oh, look at Jimmy. Hearts giving
Funk the chair the chair again, that's right, Jesus as soon as Lalla
finds a way to free himself from the clutches of this what's the problem,
Oh, referee shoved down by the Funker. Nody Hugh comes a chair again.
No, Lawler moves out of the way. Here we go, get
ready, Cherry's got the chair. Listen to the people. Oh, look
at them fucking go nuts. Kurt headg bump off the back of the leg.
Now it's Jerry Lawler's term. Baby, all these people up on the
fur fucking feet alas Oh smashing the leg of Terry Funk with that chair.
It's so fair because he just did it to him. I want to,
you know, I really I would love to just be at a holiday get
together with some of these people who are going nuts, some of these like
normal looking people, and just see what their lives are like. These women
reacted debsolute horrors. Jerry Lawler wears out Funk right in front of them with
a chair on the floor. That one woman is horrified. That's like my
mom. I think the one of the blue top is Sherry. I think
I think it looks like it kind of looks like Sherry. So after four
or five cheer shots, Jerry Lawler covers Funk in the chair in the outside,
leaves him for count out though our count outs, and in fact,
that's lame. Jerry the King Lawler wins by count out and pause that just
for a moment. So, uh yeah, yeah, complicated. No,
it's never complicated, you know that. I know that it's always simple.
They just think that it needs to be complicated because they're telling stories in there,
stories that don't elicit anywhere near that kind of bloodlust from the crowd,
that kind of passion, that kind of Yeah, I don't want to get
depressed here, so I'll leave it at that. It's depressing ringside for that
match, not only with Sherry and Jimmy Hart and Lance Russell and others we
were talking about, but also Jim Cornett, because Jim Cornett was working the
country as a wrestling magazine photographer at this point in time in nineteen eighty one,
in fact, would break into the business in Memphis as a manager,
because he became known as I believe he certainly in Memphis. He definitely did
a tour in Memphis, and one time Terry Funk chased him around the television
studio without telling him he was going to do it on the air as well,
and I think ripped some of his clothes off. But Jim Cornett was
a big part of the reason that this match won so much acclaim it got
the rating it did for Meltzer. I mean, it's not like it was
easy to get your hands on a you know, you could not see this
match live as it happened on television anywhere, and to get tape wasn't the
easiest thing either. But were traveled fast. Traveled fast in large part because
Jim Cornett had, you know, an eagle's eye for great wrestling, and
he, by virtue of being a photographer, would have the ability to start
the buzz about a great match before the tape was well distributed. Even in
eighty one VCRs. You know, they certainly existed, but they weren't in
every household, that's for sure, not every close was the time when you
rented one, right and they loaded up on top probably yep. But Cornette
and Meltzer would communicate all the time about like, what are you seeing that's
like out of control? Like he'd say, you know what, when Terry
Funk and Jerry Lawler are going to mix it up, you simply have to
see it yourself, because the what it evokes and elicits out of the crowd
is on a different level than what you're accustomed to seeing and sort of workaday
pro wrestling and man absolute truth. So it earns the five star distinction from
the observer at a time when that was just so much more of like an
informal just thing you threw out there. It wasn't like anyone expected everybody to
rate every match because nobody could see every match. It was just a way
of like signposting to people that of all the matches that are happening all over
the world, a lot of people are talking about this one as something that
was a special nine in that building, you know, And there was no
frame by frame analysis. It was just when you came away from watching that
match in person, you knew you saw something extremely special just based on the
energy it created. And that's what these guys were out to do, and
that's what Harry Funk was an absolute expert at achieving. And so because Jim
Cornette was there, he was in a unique position to talk about a lot
of the color and the detail of the match and get a nice response from
Terry Funk when they sat down for the KFP commentaries Back to the Territory series
as Jim Cornett sat with Terry Funk. We've excerpted this interview several times so
far in the lapsed Funk talking about this match and the Lawlor feud. Let's
listen in the first match that night, March twenty third, nineteen eighty one,
Memphis, Smith South Coliseum. I'm down there to shoot picture because if
you're going to be working with Lawler, I had to be here. You
caused me a fortune in gas money. That's springing 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 in OVW the training classes.
I'd give them notes 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 known Lawler, you spent less than three minutes talking about
anything that you were gonna do. Well, we didn't, probably and probably
less snackus. Lawler was playing cards, you know, 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 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 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 that related to the boys, they said
they are 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. It
was it was a riot and it was just you know, it was just
right there. What's it a matter of Terry, 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 a movie,
or whether it be a play, or whether it be wrestling, or
whether whatever it might be, you know, is uh, it's the story
that you tell, and it's the uh suspension that you put into it that
you have to have. 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 and anymore it is Jerry
Lawer. He's gonna look, he's got a presence. He's got to 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 to suspend his own disbelieve he's got to believe himself.
He's gonna believe that he is doing it, and I am. I
am suspended 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. That's
what really makes the performer lessons of funk Boss. I'll say anything there that
other Funkers had to say that stood out to you or resonated, I mean,
all of it. Yeah, it's it's it's all, it's all just
amazing. I mean hearing him, you know, you you you hear him
break things down and you realize that's what wrestling is supposed to be. Yeah,
these aren't accidents that his stuff comes off like this, right you know,
and and that you know and that you are I mean, it all
comes you know, it all comes down to what did you see said he
was talking about kind of like what I was saying, and how you know,
the mindset just kicks in and you just start doing it and believing it.
And you know, if you believe you hate the guy, then you
can fucking hate the guy and convince others. Yeah, to the point that
they're not sure if you actually hate them or not. Right. I think
you put it really well when he said, you know, you have to
realize not only did Jerry Lawler need the people to suspend their disbelief, Jerry
Lawler had to suspend his own disbelief. Right. That's it. Yeah,
that's that's what I was talking about. That's it. Spend some time with
that, think about it. Like, you know, it's method acting in
a way. Right, It's kind of what he's saying. But the best
way to convince people that something is real is to convince yourself that you're really
doing it to this person. Yeah, and you better believe that means landing
hard. Yeah, It's like that's that's where wrestling is so unique. If
two actors step onto a movie set and tell themselves that we are embodying these
characters and we hate each other, and we're about to have a fight scene
and we are going to be those people. Still when they're fighting, they're
not fighting. They they lack the ability to to to go that much further
in perpetuating the myth between them, because you know, you simply just can't
land. There's no tolerance to be landing real blows in a film set.
As far as I know, I mean, I know, it's happened,
but it's almost always an accident. It's it or or it's it's rare too.
I mean, you know, I know, I know, like for
some of the some of the of the fights and in like the Rocky movies,
you know, Stallone wanted real contact to happen and stuff. But it's
a rarity. It's not it's not commonplace. It's certainly not the way to
do the job. It's not what's expected, or at least it's not considered
like the highest form of the art to to come close to hitting somebody that's
actually hitting somebody. But but here and wrestling you actually can not only suspend
your own disbelief and become the person that hates this other person who, if
they're doing their job, is become that person as well. But then you
can actually go in the ring and fight them like you would fight them if
you really hated them, with this sort of like very soft exception that you
don't expect return fire except within a certain cadence, because this is, after
all, the performance that we're doing. Yep, it's like this wild like
thing about pro wrestling, where yeah, at its absolute best, both guys
believe who they are and act that way and are good enough athletes to make
it look like a wild athletic spectacle or or a deeply engaging athletic exhibition,
but at the same time having just that foot light light enough on the gas,
yep, that when the time comes to give, just enough so that
the other guy can shine because the crowd's calling for it, you do that.
That's not what you would do, of course, if you were one
hundred percent in the shoes of someone that wanted to kill this motherfucker, there
would be no moment where you stepped just back a bit and let the other
guy take the lead. There would be no moment where you let him lead
the dance. You would just keep fucking fighting and you would be exhausted eventually
and left for dead, or you would leave the other You have the other
guy left for dead, dead to rights because you landed more punches or whatever
the case might be, you came ahead in the fight. But that's what's
so beautiful about pro wrestling is you can go three times further than you can
as an actor to get across hatred to get across contact, to get across
competition. But you also have that that instinct that's only drilled into the pro
wrestler. It's not drilled into boxers, that's for sure. It's not drilled
in actors in the same way to say, Okay, even though I've been
coming at you in a way where you can believe I'm Terry Funk, the
guy in the microphone trying to kill you for fifteen minutes, now you're starting
to get that moment of I'm giving to you mm hm. And that's wrestling
moment, that moment where you let up just a little bit on the facade
because it's in service to the people. Because the moment, now, that's
pro wrestling. Yep, agreed. The Funker gets it done here with Lawler,
who in his own right and master of psychology in that way. So
staying on Dick's disc six, Oh do where did you pause after the match?
YEA, one fifty fifty six? How long? I'm all right,
I'm there too. Now this is after the aforementioned no d Q battle in
early eighty one. This is Jerry Lawler now with Lance Russell as well as
they're gonna get get some words from the Funker as well. This is going
to further color in the landmark nineteen eighty one Memphis uit between Jerry Lawler and
Terry Funk. Here we go three two one play Listen, Jerry, I
was contacted by Terry Funk, and Funk wanted to have a little time.
Don't get that look on your face. Yeah, Terry Funk had a challenge
in some comments. We accommodated him, and if you would, I like
you to stand here and listen to this wild man, Terry Funk, World
heavyweight Champion. Terry Funk has something that he wants to explain about, and
we cowboy. First of all, I'd like to say that Jerry Lawler is
the son of a jackass. He's a lover of chickens. Yes, he
has a one track mine, the same way a hog does at supper time
or slop time. He's got a one track mind just as that hog does.
But he's not concerned about slop. I want to tell you Lance what
he's concerned about. The man is concerned about money, and money alone and
within this area right here, he has got the fans on his side.
And besides having the fans on him, Oh, my god. Wow,
he's got the police on his side. And besides the police being on his
side, he's got the officials on his side. And I would like to
say this, he's got you on his side. This is a completely one
sided thing where Jerry Lawler is involved. Now I am telling you people that
he has got one thing on his mind, and that's money. And I'm
going to prove to you Lance that he doesn't have any guts. And you
see right here is I have got a date, I have got a time,
and I have got a place. This is a personal invitation sealed right
here to Jerry Lawler to ask him to meet me by himself, with nobody
else involved at an area that I know he knows and you will know.
And I want you to bring the camera down there. But I don't want
a referee. I don't want the police, I don't want the fans.
I don't want money for this. What I want is I want to compete
against Jerry Lawler and I want to get him down and hold him down,
and I want to make him say to me personally, Terry funk you are
the better man. Terry funk Oh, Terry FUNKO, Please let me up
and let me go. That's what I want to make him holler. I
want to see if he's got the guts to come down here, the guts
like I don't think a lot of people have around here. And I'm talking
about the fans, Lance, I'm talking about you. I'm talking about a
lot of different people. But Lawler does not have this thinking guts to come
down there where no money is involved, where nothing is involved except personal pride,
and I do have Texas pride, believe me. Yeah, there it
is. Okay, I will take it and I will deliver it to Lawler
in there, no money, no fans. He's crying, Homer and all
that. Well, there's the challenge from Terry Funk to Jerry Lawler, and
we'll deliver it to him. Well that's what we're here today for it.
While he wants no fans, nobody else wishould take a look at it.
I've already looked for. Yeah, I look for the challenge, you know,
sharing the information. Right, then take a look at that from Terry
Funk. M Okay, I said no that. I just want a reaction
to it. What do you want me to say? Okay, yeah,
okay, Well okay, we'll be back in just a minute. Let's pause
after this funk music ends. Well, I think all the fucking you know,
all the all the kids come to the TV tapings, but not the
Bengo. All the kids come to TV tapings, but fucking grandma comes to
the arena shows. The kids could even be banned from right big show because
of violent it gets. So that's uh, that's how it all got set
down because you mentioned right, you had that sour reaction when Jerry Lawler wins
the account out. Yeah, Funk dives into this whole idea that like that
is just part and parcel of Jerry Lawler's home cooking advantage. When he comes
to Memphis, he's gone to the cops on his side, He's got the
officials on his side. Of course, he didn't say this in as many
words, but I interpolate, extrapolate rather that he means, of course,
the referee was as quick as lightning to count me out of the ring if
it meant Jerry Lawler could get his hand raised on that night, even if
it was bullshit. Yes, yes, yes, And so if everywhere I
go in the Memphis wrestling circuit, I'm surrounded by Jerry Lawler sick of fans
and people who are interested in keeping Jerry Lawler's pockets lined, which again is
Funk very much cutting close right, because that's something I don't think the fans
would necessarily think a flattering thing about the King, is that he's mister money
bags as well, our cultural hero, just like us. Right. But
if it's going to be like this everywhere I go when I fight Jerry Lawlard,
then there can be only one solution. I have to fight him in
a place where none of that advantage is conferred. And it's not like you
can have an away game in eighties, late seventies early eighties territorial wrestling.
Why don't we meet up yep at the Mid South Coliseum before any of the
fans are invited into the building on a Monday night. And you know,
we think Raw was the Monday night tradition. In fact, no month is
Wrestling was the original Monday night wrestling tradition. And let's have an empty arena
match, a first of its kind, of course, copied at halftime heat
by the WWF in nineteen ninety nine, right, boss, we know this,
Yes we do, And then and then copied at the Belean COVID absolutely
a lot of people remarking on how similar it felt those empty arena matches of
the early COVID era. So we're about to see it now. This is
something the match we just saw that's the one that was critically acclaimed at the
time and that the guys take the most pride in because it was just,
you know, a smashing, fucking wild affair. This one is one where
history is fascinated with it, and the guys involved don't think it's all that
great, or at least you know how that goes not as great as it
could have been. You know, like you can never tell Steve Austin that
is matched with Undertaker SummerSlam ninety eight is any good. You can never tell
him that the First War Games that he was in is any good, even
though they're both great. Yep, it's similar between Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk
on this one. It's like almost they wouldn't prefer that this one be the
one that's immortalized. But you don't get to pick in this world, especially
if you're an entertainer of any stripe, what you get immortalized for, right?
What what exhibition of your work gets to be remembered most fondly because this
just has such a unique dynamic to it, and we just heard the promo
that laid the groundwork. We understand the mentality of Terry Funk and requesting a
match like this, considering his past experiences with Jerry Lawler and Memphis. We're
now about to watch it the April sixth, nineteen eighty one empty arena match
in the mid South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee. It's the epitome in so
many ways of the Terry Funk Jerry Lawler feud. What's your time code?
Boss? I am at one one fifty eight thirty one, absolutely perfect and
hit play on my one three two one Funk and a challenge to Jerry Lawler
what took place? Not you can hear audio on your side right ultimately Lawler.
So we have Ance Russell and Dave Brown at the announced desk in the
w MC television studios talking about this empty arena match, which is you know,
always being presented as on tape, it's not being presented as happening live.
Lance Russell explaining that you have not seen this tape yet. We weren't
really told we made arrangements. How we're even going to get copy of the
tape. I think I think the tape may be a self explanatory. Let's
take a look at what I want to do. It's just sure, look
at this, I just I just want to Lance Russell standing around in an
empty Good South colosseum with the stick mic, making small talk with the crew,
the production crew, the only other people in the building. They're including
Lance, talking about how he's going to do the introduction. Is he waiting
our law and Funk going to show up? Is this match going to happen?
That's tremendous. Lance Russell scoping out the lighting situation, and he's let
a cigarette, damn right? He is a yeah, okay, let me
give you a cigarette. Give me a count that way, give me a
countdown, will you missus? Lance Russell standing in the middle of an empty
Mid South coliseum. I think most wrestling fans know that Terry Funk, the
former n w A World Heavyweight Champion, he should have challenged to Jerry Lawler
to meet man to man. Of course, Funk could accuse Lawler of having
Homer decisions in his battles with Terry Funk Previously and with brother Dorry Funk Junior
and so forth. Uh. He said, no fans, no officials,
no police, nobody, You and me and I guess you just have to
call it. What he's looking for is a shootout. He made the challenge,
asked me to deliver the challenge publicly so that it would be on a
record that he had challenge Lawler. Uh. Jerry Lawler Uh later said set
it up, And so here we are. We're in the midst of Colisseum
eleven thousand, three hundred empty seats right setting. The scene is link less.
That's all it will be here to witness this particular about with the exception
of myself and cameraman Randy West if i'm uh. Funk ask that there be
a camera and a tape crew here so that we would be able uh to
have a record of his demolishing Lawler in the event that it takes place.
It's right now ten minutes to one. The time that was set on it
was one o'clock. Neither of the participants are here at this time. We
will just have to wait and see if it takes place, you'll have a
record of it. If it doesn't, Uh, then you will never see
this. J Let's just cut the cut the camera off now, Rannie,
we'll wait to show up. We'll do it, okay, so masterfully produced.
Yes, camerason came back on here? Who comes? Who coming into
the Mid South Colosseum. Now it is now a couple of minutes past one
o'clock. Terry Funk, who initially his challenge, is coming into the Colosseum.
Hey, I'm here. I'm ready to wrestle. Whereas Laller, I
told you that the son of a bitch didn't have enough to come on down
here. I tell way to set if the man has everybody on his side,
we would like to use this if they take it away later on.
So please watch your language, will you huh? Because for crown out loud,
we can't use the thing that he's swearing like. I don't give a
damn. I came up here for a tructice to prove some son of a
bitch and face. And I'll tell you what. I came to prove that
Lawler didn't have the guts. I knew that he wouldn't come in the ring
lance. You tell me where he is. He wouldn't show up for nothing,
just a little after one o'clock right now, little to just watch it
and please try to get in a damn ring in and go ahead and count
him out. I'm not chuting. I'm not that this thing you asked me
to bring a can turn him on the son of a bitch. I ay,
come on, old you people. That lord did not have the guts
to come down here before an imfy arena. And he doesn't. Now you
go ahead and counting out. If you don't, I'll count him out,
all right. Well you just asked us to bring the cameras down. That's
what I did. We're here, now you I'm not a wary I'm here.
I know. I'm gonna go ahead. Is he under the ring?
Lance? Oh, he's not under the ring? He isn't nothing he has?
Is Terry at work? Boss? He is? I mean where he
is? Damn saying that is not join. But I'm set me in the
ring. I'm gonna cunt him out. One two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight nine ten. He's out. I'm gonna
go ahead and declare myself to win aroun Now, okay, the man was
a coward, that he didn't have the juts, that he didn't have anything
and he didn't have the intestinal fortitude. He is a son of a bitch.
All right, well listened, Okay, you proved your boy. You're
ship long enough? All right? Shipped from the people of Memphis. I've
heard enough ship from everybody about how good this man is supposed to be.
Why are you, George, just although he may have gotten tied up and
driving or something like that. I don't clock right now. Yeah, I
know it's after one. Now I'm standing around here like an idiot, like
a fool. I'm a fool. I'm an idiot. So you prove it's
kind of funny. He thinks it's funny leaving me sitting around here like gims.
I knew that the man didn't have enough guts to get up here in
the first place. Yeah, you tell me. I tell you that there's
a good possibility that he got tied up some way. It wasn't coming in
here. I great, your playing got in on shot. I am Marilla.
I understand, And yeah I know that. Why don't you go ahead?
Why don't you think? Don't you go ahead? Why don't you I'm
not will you not got stuff? All? Look, you're the one that
me Lance Russell played a huge role in getting this over, and you treat
me with, hey, well wait, just I didn't Okay, I didn't.
I wouldn't mean anything personal boy it except give the guy a chance.
It's just a couple of minutes past the time you asked me to come down
here and bring the camera man down here. And we're here and I'm hearing
the event that Laula. We set up to show it and have the match
in there. Now we've done our part of the thing. And the fact
that he's not here isn't my wall. Huh uh? Over here? Who's
there? Behold boss, I'm gonna get over here and get here. I'm
gonna get you. Come on there, I'm gonna what is idiot? Terry
grabbed the Keeam's hat on the way over. He's wearing al It is a
regular wrestling attire with a crown or the lance. That's the problem. You
don't even stop here. There's no one here, and Lawler's looking around like
the place is full, and he is apparently obviously ready to go. He's
got his full of tire and he is set because he can get over.
Come on, come on, come on, what are you? God?
What do you got in there. You gotta got a knife. You got
a pencil? He said, you got a knife? Put his cape and
his crown on for this empty arena battle. What an idiot? Well here
proved we honestly don't know why Terry Funk's wearing wrestling gear either. I know
they should be wearing they should be worried. Well, how do you win
if there's no referee? That's all to be determined. I guess Okay,
Terry Funk talking about no one's here to help me, and there's certainly no
one here to help you already in the ring. Jerry Lawler now coming up
to the U and uh, imagine standing in an empty arena with Terry funking
night daty one and he's screaming the yelling son of a bitch to you like
that's awesome. You can go ahead, Lawler, You go ahead. You
can leave right now. If he wants to piece of ship, there's no
officials. You're a fucking count. Terry Funk trying to get Lawler to come
say that he's giving it up. I don't John Jacking talking ship circling each
other in the ring. I don't need talk Lawler. I don't need to
talk. Could have fooled me, Terry you know, Oh he's done,
is fucking talking home video. Unbelievable. I said before I came all the
way from Mamarilla. I would came from Amarilla where you come from? Funk,
just spin it. Here they go, they lock up. This is
a canvas, the plywood. Lawler c w ring there and outside ofts the
floor, slips under the bottom rope and slams the table out of his mind.
It's out of his mind, down on the floor. Lawlor in the
ring. So you have never seen this, this obviously what a treat.
Funk telling Lawler to back up and let him in the ring, and now
Terry Funk back in the ring again. I didn't even know if there's one
uner. Oh yeah, table Laller and Funk going at full tribute spot to
his mentor for the first time. It's take down there from Lawler. They
roll under the roup to the floor and they're throwing. The fucker takes a
header on the seats, the empty seats. He's such a pushing over as
many chairs. That was the idea that no worries he trips over ship.
He's so clumsy. That's the best thing. He's a crazy, psychotic individual.
But he's so clumsy, so true. Everything looks like he's just a
bumbling fool when he falls. He's a boogiey board, for God's sake.
And he pulled as many chairs on his own head as he could on the
way down. Oh Jesus, like one lawlor through the throne on bread King
of the Ring Andy three shot at he really zoomed one home. Funk created
a ton of distance now after being fucked up in the seats. I think
that that guy in yellow is being like a tour guide for the places,
like, oh ship, what the is going on? I can't bring people
here, saying come on back up here? And Funk grabs one of the
identification standards. So Funk has a sign that says the section on it.
And what do they call those things on? What they call it? That's
all I call it. In the ring, Terry Funk coming up now,
his face bleeding. That's wrestling forms. Just that Funk has color putting him
down in the chair. See that does he? Where is it? I
don't see any color that much. So Terry's in the ring, swinging the
section four side and hitting Loller in the head with it Flunk, Funk brother,
what brother? What Funk? Now to the floor, Funk pile drives
Laller in the concrete, bangs it in. Blood running down Funk's nose and
through his head. He's cut. But Lawler down on the floor. I
don't think blood running through his head is very you know, unique to anybody's
in his squeals terry squeals. Microphone is what he's trying to make him say,
Oh my god, he's losing his mut. Funk going after Lawlor at
the eyes. Not it's this is where mankind got the squeal from. Yep,
I'm sure you can all roads lead to Funk. Period. Yep goes
right back into all are end of the seats, now knocks over the chairs
with Lawler's body and now Funk. At some point this was a state of
the art facility. The slams down the steps leading up to the ring have
all the house lights up so you can see every chair, you can see
every wall. Trying to get a club of some type. That is he
smacking against the ring post. What is that? Buss off right in half
one of the two before two before tub before now trying to get plants,
stumbles back into the chairs, but he's back on eat and here comes that's
a different spike in his hands. Four law down on the table, Funk
Funk standing, come on, let's girl, Yeah, ask him? What
what do you ask him? Don't kill me? The microphone? Here you
He takes him away from He says, you ask him, and then he
rolls Laller in the ring. My god, Terry, come on, Terry's
got a piece of that wooden two by four spike in his hand. Sorry,
two before the two before here we go. He's gonna stab Laller with
it. Ohn Russell couldn't even stand it. He goes, hey, come
on. While they're grabbing Funk by the rest trying to prevent the wood from
stabbing his face, He's straining mightily to keep the wooded bay, he says,
when he get his eye the only time Tory Laller's ever fought off wood
in his life. Terry looks the lance. Russell goes, you're trying to
get in here. He's so paranoid. Fixes in and now Lawler in his
back, throwing hands back, elbow, and Terry Funk's discombobulated. There goes
the knock need of thing. Oh I think okay, Lawler just kicked Funk
in the arm and hid it in the eye of the hand that was holding
the wood. And it looked like Terry Funk smacked his own eye with it.
Oh, he's screaming, doctor Laller holding off now his eyes hurt.
Okay, we'll get some. He did a big juice job on it,
the victim of his own plotting in their Lawler kicked him right in the elbow
and the stick stock Terry Funk right in the eye. I am in awe,
cap and crown and just walks away like well, that's awful. And
that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why there are officials signed to matches
to try to keep some kind of order rather than have the animal type of
thing that you saw here today. And that's why we need to have fans
in the stands right right. This thing wouldn't happen if fans were there.
It's pretty difficult. Okay, listen, Randy, I'm gonna I'm gonna get
okay, wait, that funk goes from you, idiot to help me.
Lance. Please look at it. Please look at it. Look at it.
Look at it. Don't be pleak God, Lands Lands, please don't
please me. Getting somebody, the son of a bitch, get somebody to
help me. My eyes, my goddamn guy, my eyes. Where is
he? Where's it? Where you go? Where is lallor my? Where's
that damn tower? And as soon as Lawler's out of sight, he starts,
Oh he's yellow. Yellow, he's yellow. Collapsed funk. This is
amazing. He's like fucking fucking deliverance. Where is he want? Okay,
come on, just forget and trust that with a towel. Now that that'll
do the trick. Thanks, Lance, Come on? What is get you
backwards? The water is we've got some help, some water. What he
did was kick your elbow and it stands you in the eye, and I
think, come on behind Lance. He went ahead and got my eyes.
Okay, he's yellow, he's yell come on, come on, Terry,
here's yellow. Son of a bitch. Okay, I fucking love this.
This is so amazing. He's yellow. He's a yellow son of a bitch.
Fucking child being walked back. They pause there God ended, uh,
so go ahead, please so much. There's so much, I mean,
the the the the the incredible I mean the incredible one to eight performance of
of of Jerry of Terry funk Is is really and what says in that he
starts off being such a aggressive, angry, cocky guy, and the moment
that he gets this injury, he's just a baby and a child and looking
for basically looking for his mommy. It's phenomenal. He's a bully that just
got popped in the face for the first time, right right, exactly exactly.
He's farcas getting beat up by Ralphie, Yes exactly. I mean,
I considering what they achieved in the first match we saw, I can see
why they perfect you know, person don't think it highlights the best of what
they can do together. But man, is this not what this should have
been? Like? It's not, I mean it is, but it's like,
I get, I get what they're saying. I guess as a match,
but in terms of a performance and watching them, there is a significant
amount of calls upon a totally different skill set. Yes, and they pull
it off. It's not like they have anything to be bashful about. They
both completely came off as credible to the max even when they were doing you
know, as we learn in the Empty arena COVID era. A lot of
these matches look extremely hokey without people reacting extremely hokey, and the guys and
gals weren't necessarily equipped to adjust the way their matches looked in an empty arena
setting to still make them look. You know, this is this is easily
the best empty arena match I've ever seen. It's yeah, it's always going
to be because it's because even if better matches move or move have happened in
empty arena settings, this is one that takes full advantage of the unique opportunities
the environment affords. You know, even in the Mankind Rock match, they
couldn't help but get to the back and use fork lifts and do as much
over the top bullshit as they could to almost get around the fact, like,
look, every single match, not e rematch, but so many hardcore
matches in the Attitude era went to the back and there's nobody back there.
Anyway, it looked exactly like all the other hardcore matches, taking very little
advantage of that unique, empty, cavernous feeling of an arena with nobody in
it. And you know, in these in these two cases, it really
it wasn't like this is a big stipulation match. It was just Terry Funk
wanting to have his hands on Jerry Lawler without all of the stupid influence that
the Memphis people and all his all Jerry Lawler's sick of fans brought to the
table. And it was supposed to be quick, and it was supposed to
be dirty. And it's a great way to get out of it too,
because, like you said, you identified it right away. We have no
idea how this one's supposed to end. Yeah, yeah, there's no ref
it's not even a match. And I guess it was meant to be an
I quit situation where he, you know, Lance Russell would would put the
mic in front of somebody and might quit. But it's not like a street
fight or a schoolyard fight. Like, yeah, everybody knows there's going to
be a fight. Everyone knows there's going to be a winner, But no
one could tell you what it would take to win. No one would,
No one could tell you what counts is winning. It's just when one person
clearly concedes to the other that they don't want to fight, while the other
person is still standing there ready to go. Yep. And it was masterful
because and Lawla was great about pointing this out over the years that these two
promo back and forth, like you keep screaming at me, like I'm some
monster for taking your eye out, but you forget that you're the one that
took the fucking stick of wood and was trying to kill me with it in
the first place, right, right, And it was almost just incidental that
you poked yourself in the eye with it, Like I didn't even realize what
I had done. So everyone's protected, right, everyone stays in their lane
in a way that's business can keep churning. And you better believe that Funk's
got a new lease on life, because now he can do promos with an
eyepatch on and in two thousand and fucking four and six and seven and eight,
nine and ten and twelve, at thirteen and fourteen, he can still
come at Jerry Lawler remind him of this moment and sell tickets. Did they
do that that many times? Well, we'll delineate exactly how many times they
did it, my god, But every time they went back and forth,
it's like, remember the Dusty Funk match we saw at the tail end of
last week's episode. Yeah, took place in Carolina Championship Wrestling. They you
know, the Lawler Funk feud had that stage to it as well, and
it was even more voluminous than that, you know, ladder stage two thousand
oughts collisions, and they did promos for all those local matches, and you
better believe this is the the collateral they had to work with so much equity
in this fucking thing that these two did. My eye, Terry bringing forth
range here range being Terry Funk and then being something a little different, and
then going right back to being Terry Funk again, talking shit about how Lawler's
yella. When he realizes Lawler's nowhere in sight anymore. Lawler doing a great
job, walking away like Jesus, like this is fucked up, Like I
don't want going to do with this. You know, he's not celebrating,
right, there's no swagger, there's always there's a bit of almost remorse in
his face. It's great, guys, really nailed it. And we're going
to turn now to Terry Funk and Jerry Lawler's respective books for reflections on this
contest. And if you could warm up your Terry voice, I'd ask for
you to share thoughts from the Funker. Alrightya di day. I had a
good feud with Lawler in Memphis, culminating in the first empty arena match.
I had the idea for the match, but I couldn't tell you where the
idea came from. It was so absolutely absurd, so ridiculous, that it
became a cult favorite. Hell, people don't even remember that I was gone
from Memphis two weeks after that. The idea of the match was that I'd
be saying I had been saying. Lawler always played to the fans and drew
strength from them, so I wanted a match where there would be no fans.
We had the rings set up and all the chairs set up, but
the only people in the building were Lawler, lands F Russell, and the
camera guys and me. The only way the match could end was with one
guy giving up a variation of an eye quit match. That thing continues to
live to this day. I think because of the sheer foolishness of it.
They introduced us as we walked down the empty aisle surrounded by empty chairs.
They even played up that they started the tape before an announcer, Lance Russell
was ready, and Lance had to put on it, put out his cigarette,
and then I came in and started ranting about Lawler giving a profanity lace
promo, which doesn't seem like much today but was a very unusual thing back
then. They bleeped me for TV, of course, but I was on
a tear, and when Lance asked me not to cuss since they had to
be able to show this on TV, I looked at Lance and said,
I don't give a shit. Yes. A few seconds later here came Lawler,
and the main thing I remember about the whole match was Lawler walking through
the curtains with his crown tucked under his arm wrong and his robe and his
robe on, no robe, just to cape as if there was a full
house there. It was the most absurd thing I ever saw. As for
the match itself, it was very strange to be wrestling when there was no
one making any noise. The only sounds came from Jerry, Lawler and me.
I figured, since no one was making noise, that I'd go ahead
and provide the noise every time Lawler would hit me or start to come back.
Goud yell, oh no, no, own, God, no,
Jerry. I don't know how Lance Russell could have announced that thing with a
straight face. It ended when I submitted with Lawler grinding a wooden he needs
to watch this match. Okay, that's the bottom lighty right right, I
know. And when I submitted with Lawler, No, there was no submission.
Lauler grant in a wooden stake from a broken chair in my eye,
I called Lawler a few more nasty words and screamed my ma. It was
an absurdity. But I wish I had the tape to put out the Empty
Arena match from nineteen eighty one, first official release. Hell, I could
sell it at video stores and everything. Mc foley and The Rock did one
in nineteen ninety nine during halftime of the Super Bowl, which might have been
even sillier than mine, with Lawlor shot there at Mick. Oh god,
so good. Yeah, that is that is terry to kind of misremember the
little details along the way, for sure, And here's aid Jerry Lawler.
I get stories from time to time, but what I really wanted was to
get in the cover of one of these wrestling magazines. I was like the
Rock, and I was like the Rock band Doctor Hook in the Medicine Show.
Who next to the Beatles are my favorite musical group of all time when
they sang about being on the cover of The Rolling Stone, I wanted to
feel the thrill that'll get you when you get your pitcher on the cover of
the Rolling Stone, except I wanted my picture on the cover of Pro Wrestling
Illustrated or Wrestling Superstars. As a matter of fact, that was part of
my motivation for an MPT. The arena match I had with Terry Funk in
nineteen eighty one, which of course Funk just said he got the idea for
and doesn't remember where, which is one of the best known matches we ever
put on. Terry Funk came to town several weeks in a row and he
and I had a knockdown, drag out battles that only Terry Funk was famous
for. We wrestled each other week in and week out for almost two months,
and somehow Terry kept coming up with a short end of the stick.
Looking back, it may have had something to do with the fact that I
was part owner of the wrestling company, But nonetheless Terry lost most of those
matches. Would not to do with you booking the damn that's what he means.
Yeah, to keep our program going, Terry complained that he couldn't get
a fair shake. He said everybody in Memphis was prejudiced against him. He
moaned that it started as soon as he got off the plane. In my
town. Cab drivers would take him on the scenic route from the airport to
the coliseum in charge myn arm in a leg. Hotels would give him the
worst rooms. The announcers were biased, the referees were in Lawler's pocket,
and the fans were just playing bad. He said, the only way we
could have a match on an even playing field was to have no fans and
no referees. There'd be no one at all, just one cameraman and one
announcer. So Funk handed a folded piece of paper to our TV one of
our team, the announcers, Lance Russell and Dave Brown. Pardon me,
to our TV announcers Lance Russell and Dave Brown. On the paper, Terry
had it written a secret day, time and place for our match to take
place. We had the match to the Mid South Coliseum. Imagine this.
It was a Monday afternoon before our regular Monday night matches, so the ring
and seats were already set up. The fans hadn't started arriving yet. When
the one camera that was allowed to be there started rolling, there was Terry
Funk standing in the middle of the ring, in front of eleven five hundred
empty chairs. Funk bellowed at the one announcer in attendance, where's Lawlor?
Is he chicken? Is he not going to show up? His voice echoed
through the massive empty arena. I knew Lawla was yellow. The lonely Funk
continued, He don't want to face me without all his friends around to help
him. The camera paned to the left, and there at the back of
the coliseum, I stood. I remember later thinking how stupid I looked,
standing there in full king regalia, tight's crown cape, with no fans in
the building? Why did I wear the crown and cape anyway? When Funk's
cause you're a fucking gimmick, Jerry, cause you gotta be got a gimmick
every day. You're not a real person, Okay, that's why. Yeah,
you don't feel comfortable anyway. When Funk saw me, he crowed,
well, LOOKI here, who's all here? Here all by himself? The
king with no one a had behind. We'll get in here, Lawler and
take your whipping like a man. Neither of us really knew what we should
do to start such a match. There was no referee and no timekeeper to
ring the bell, so we just locked up and went at it as if
it were in front of thousands of screaming fans. We fought in the ring
and out into the chairs. I had been in matches where I got very
little reaction from the crowd, but never had I wrestled to absolutely no reaction.
Well maybe that first match I had with in West Memphis against the Executioners,
but you've already heard that story. Funk and I tumbled into the empty
chairs at ringside and took turns sent seeing rather who could bowl over the most
seats with our bodies. It was a really weird feeling, wrestling in complete
silence, almost embarrassing. We both began making exaggerated noises when we hit our
hit or kicked each other, just so that there would be some kind of
sound to the match. See, I don't think it was that bad.
I feel like they they filled the void quite well. Say, I agree.
I don't think it was bad at all. I thought it was fine.
I'm sure in person it felt kind of weird, but well, of
course, but maybe it's just a degraded psychone and maybe and you know,
a lot of it might have been too. The fact that there was a
lot of build to get used to the fact that that there was nobody there,
you know, huge that that Lance stands there and acquaints us with the
atmosphere, and then you get then you get you know, uh, Terry
coming in there, you know, talking to himself like I think that there's
a there's a lot, there's a lot of that. That really helped out.
Yeah, that whole prelude with Lance standing there with nobody around and that
that's huge. That's so huge to like establishing it as as the unusual circumstance
you'd expect, like WW would jump right to it, like here is now
a produced new concept in sports entertainment right right there wouldn't be like this narrator's
voice telling us that this is as odd to us as it is to you
fans. Right, Terry got the upper hand while we fought on the floor,
and then he threw me back into the ring. He picked up the
wooden ringsteps and smashed them into pieces. He pulled off a piece of wood
that was shaped like a long knife and came at me jabbing. I blocked
his hand and we struggled, and the piece of wood appeared to poke into
his eye. The next instant, blood was pouring down his face through his
fingers. He cried, somebody helped me, somebody helped me, and I
said, there's nobody here. I need help. My eye, my eye,
loll or my eye. That's how the match ended. Terry Funk on
his knees in the ring, blood streaming from his eye and crying out for
help. That wasn't there. I thought afterward that we could have done so
much more with the match. It could have been really hardcore, it could
have been longer. But as I said before, I really felt silly wrestling
in front of no fans, and so what seemed like an eternity while we
were doing it turned out to be a very short match in reality. Oh
that's another reason that you don't look back upon it fondly. Boss. As
they were doing it, they kind of thought it was taking forever. I
mean, that's tough. That's a tough thing to shake. That is that,
it absolutely is. I mean, but again, then you should watch
it because it doesn't come across like that. But of course it's going to
feel like that, because everything feels like an eternity, you know, absolutely
when you're in that moment and it kind of feels and you're you know,
you're insecure. Yeah, ten seconds feels like ten hours. Yes, yeah.
If you are accustomed as a performer to getting a reaction to everything you
do right, time will seem to stand stale if there is nary a reaction
to anything you do. Funk was gone for a couple of weeks. He
was always a goofy sort of guy. Well not really goofy, but you
never knew what to expect from Terry because he would do almost anything. How
many wrestlers would blade themselves that close to their eye so as to make it
appear that the blood was actually coming from the eye itself. He did an
interview down in Texas and sent it to us to show in Memphis to set
up the big return match between the two of us. I didn't have time
to preview the interview before our live TV show that Saturday morning, so I
watched it live with the fans. There was Funk wearing a big eye patch.
Supposedly his eye had been pretty much put out lawler, you tried to
blind me, The doctor said, I may lose my eye. I watched
the interview on camera, standing next to our announcer, Lance Russell. I
saw that Funk's eye was all covered up of all things black electrical tape.
It went all the way around his head. I thought to myself, how
can anyone watching this believe he's really injured when he has electrical tape wrapped around
his head. The only thing I could think to say when Funk's interview ended
was tell the truth. I told Lance Russell. I hoped I never had
to go to the doctor in Texas if they put electrical tape on a wound.
Let's take a look, shall we, I think we should. Let's
pull up disc seven. Disc seven, as you prepare yourself again. This
is an interview that Terry Funk filmed while returning to Texas after the Empty Arena
match was shot and word began to spread in Memphis television about it. It
would have aired the Saturday after that Monday afternoon filming. And of course there's
return business to be done and return conflicts to unfold between these two and the
matters were about to discover gets so hot that they take it on the road
and the Jerry Lawler Terry Funk feud spills all the way down into Florida as
well, much like the feud between Terry Funk and Dusty Roads in Florida spilled
over into Georgia Championship Wrestling. As we discussed last week, All right,
where am I going? One twenty three? Please? We're going to see
a promo from Memphis Television Terry Funk with the aforementioned ipatch on talking about the
fallout and consequences of the empty Arena showdown much more? Sure? Go,
well, you'll play this one through a couple of promos, so this goes
about seven minutes, three to one end play. Yes, I heard after
that match with Lawler. Sure I'm missing some teeth, Yes, I've got
permanent damage to my eye. But have you seen Jerry Lawler? Has anybody
seen him? Does he have enough judge to come back against me? Again?
I am the meanest man in professional wrestling day have to pull me off
a lawyer while I was beating on a man's body while he was laying there.
This week, they're going to have a fence around the ring, and
few people remember what I'm saying to you, because I'm speaking the truth,
you will never see Jerry Lawler wrestle again. So if you want to be
there for his retirement match, well make sure you come down there, because
I'm going to take the man and I'm going to hurt him so bad that
he will not be able to wrestle again. If I have to, I'll
break one leg. If he gets up and hops to me, I'll break
the other leg. If he comes calling on his belly, I'll kick him
in the head. Believe me, Jerry Lawler is going to pay, and
he's going to pay dearly for what he did to me. He's crying.
I love I can't and my family loves me, my brother loves me.
But I have no respect for anybody like Lawler. I have a definite hatred
for the man, and I'm gonna take that sickness out of my mind.
That's the pre h that's the pre tape. Now it's a different stories.
We're about to find out. You're still playing right ye. When Terry Funk
makes his way back to the w MC Channel five studios in Memphis, I
believe this is the first time we see Terry Funk in Memphis since the match
here. He is here today. Let's fucking go I came here for perfect
I came here to go ahead and not before friends, big ass white patch
on his eye, cowboy hat on. Why don't this is where that comes
from? There's a tag match going on in the ring. Terry just invades
the announced position. Now he's throwing ship at the ring. He took his
shirt off. He's getting in there, and he started to fund people up.
The chaos this man creates. That's exactly Oh oh, squealing again.
I love the squealing. Look at him, sucking b who's he beating up?
These are nameless you brons? Who are the mask guys? I couldn't
tell you. Funk just taking on these j Broni's pumping jabs in their face.
They're trying to fight him, but they can't even them close to touching
him. That's wild. Screaming like a fucking banshee while he tosses these guys
over the rose. Get what a chop? Oh yeah, excellent? Where's
lawlor? I can't laying it out there? All the mask guys of the
Nightmares. Jesus. That was before Terry Funk showed up on the floor of
the studio, imagining one of like the ten people here. How disturbing to
have this guy walk this close to you? Yeah, that I patch on
there. We go back to the to Lance Russell's position. Ye, you
the airline people told him that Funk was coming in on a plane and told
him to get out of town. Now looking to punch the chair. He's
hitting that chair as hard as he can with his fence. Now, what's
it go do, Terry, Terry, He's gonna hit himself in the head
of the chair. Oh, over and over. He's so fucking pissed,
insane, like dropping to his knees, screaming, Oh my god, I'm
moving here. Look at his face. There is horse Country seem like so
much talking about it later very yeah, let's break aw is that thought?
Oh? I mean he's just I mean he's looking in the camera and he's
a complete psychopathic He's he he he really, I mean that that's just it.
He's suspending his own disbelief, all right, that's what he's doing.
Yes, And he is you know, reminding, not reminding. He's he's
It's just something that you never do. I don't think i've ever I would
ever be able to see it unless we really we did what we were doing
here. I don't think I ever would have realized how amazing that what he's
doing is, like the fact that he can really make you believe he is
nuts, he's absolutely insane. And here's the thing. This coming from the
same guy who can make the entire wrestling public of Japan feel like he was
the nicest, most gregarious human being to ever walk the face of the earth.
He's doing that at the exact same time that he's doing these things in
Memphis with Jerry Lawler and doing the things we saw last week in Florida with
Dusty Rhodes. Yep. I mean, he is showing that he can be
six pro wrestlers at once, exactly, and others have been able to be
two. Others have maybe been able to even be three or four. I
don't think anybody besides Terry Funk has been able to be six. Absolutely not,
no way. And we're seeing it, and it's like, and they're
all happening in vacuums. People in Florida don't know this is going on in
Memphis. People in Memphis don't know this is going on in Florida. People
in Tokyo. Don't necessarily know this is going on in either place. This
is to say nothing, of course, of the fucking trails he's blazing in
Houston and stuff. And this is the same guy who is the clean cut,
relatively speaking, technical NWA World Heavyweight Champion yep for a couple of years
and right around the bi centennial yep. This is the same guy with the
boyish blonde hair in nineteen seventy one in Japan that we observed when Dory Funk
Junior was over there defending the NBA title. Remember that Terry yep. Remember
the Terry with his picture on the gridiron at West Texas State University. Is
the next you know, kling caught all American son a Dory Funk Senior coming
to make a good run Waho McDaniel like run if he's lucky in the pro
wrestling ranks. This fresh faced young boy named Terry, that guy who could
get that essence across could also be a guy that walks into a TV studio
of Memphis, Tennessee and convinces everyone that he's completely out of his mind.
Ye. And I'm so glad you said it the way you did, because
if I explained it to you verbally, or if I read to you what
happened wouldn't come across. The genius of Terry Funk doesn't come across. You've
got to watch the tape. When it comes to Terry, you do,
you really do, because it's not just what he's doing, it's the context
he's doing it. And it's like when you realize his surroundings, when he's
carrying on this way, you realize how good he is because he's not feeding
off any particular energy. He's not taking any audience cue as to what to
lean into. He's just going out there and they're basically silent. I mean,
they start to make noise the crazier he gets because they're a little concerned,
honestly, And it's kind of fun in a TV studio setting to fuck
with a guy who's going that nuts and pointed at him because you know he
won't hit you and stuff. So there's a little bit of that going on,
but for the most part, it's just like, let's just stand back
and and let this guy keep going till he feels he's done. The lapse.
Chunk Boss, it's jaw very much so. A bunch of crack open
Disc six again. Disc six again, head over to one thirty seven fifty
three and I'm gonna lay little groundwork. You heard Lance Russell there in that
clip as Terry Funk hits the studios in Memphis looking for Jerry Lawler, saying
that in fact, Lawler was give me the time code again, one thirty
seven fifty three. Okay, Jerry Lawler was indeed in Florida, which is
a territory that he would visit a bed after getting over as a baby face
in the mid seventies at the time that Terry Funk showed up looking to confront
him with an eyepatch on over the Empty Arena match here in nineteen and eighty
one. And in fact, as I mentioned, Funk and Lawler would take
their few to Florida. Dory Funk Junior was booking down there for Eddie Graham
and got a tape of the match, the Empty Arena match. Actually,
I think he got a tape of the earlier five Star No. DQ brawl
and showed the match on television down there, and indeed seated interest in seeing
Funk and Lawler tie it up down there in Florida, and they move some
tickets down there, and part of the campaign to get the Florida public interested
in this feud between Lawler and Funk was Funk leaning in to his history as
a heel in that area, having gone to Florida really since he broke into
the business in sixty five in bits and spurts, of course, his family,
being closely acquainted with Eddie Graham, and really deeply understanding how that wrestling
territory worked for the entirety of his life in the business. Now he's got
to go down there and try to adjust a little bit the story with Jerry
Lawler to sell fully to the Florida public. And it comes up with this
perhaps his most famous promo, in which he decides to use some motor oil.
Let's put it that way, Oh boy. This is from his book
Before We Hit Play. Yep. Lawler and I were also set to do
a match in Florida, and I did a promo for it that became rather
famous in wrestling circles. The shot opened with me standing in a shower stall
holding a can of motor oil. Jerry Lawler wants to become a Floridian,
not a transplant. The King wants to become a real Floridian. Well,
I would like to know exactly how it feels to be a true Florida Cracker.
So I have Quaker State super Blood motoroil, I said, pouring the
oil over my head. This is shoot motor oil. He's pouring on his
head, boss, And I'm going to show you people how it feels to
be a true Florida Cracker. And right here I have five pounds a dirty,
filthy dirt, and that's exactly what it is. I started dumping the
dirt on my now oily head as I continued, and I've got this dirt
entirely over my body. And now I know what it feels like to be
a dirty, stinky, greasy Florida Cracker. And it's something I never want
to feel again. And all that oil was an incredible pain in the ass
to get out. I got that shit in my eyes too, and I
nearly got blinded. I washed and washed my hair, I went home and
went to and the next morning, my damned pillowcase had oily splotches all over
it, and VICKI had to throw away the whole pillow. I thought it
was an original idea at the time, but it didn't make the match a
particularly big draw, so it became another one of my deals. It didn't
work. Now that might seem like a contradiction to what I was talking about
earlier about not wanting just to insult the fan base. But the difference is
I was never one of those who went out every week and just ranted about
how lousy the people were, because I had more focus on my opponent and
how to cut a promo the best fit that situation. So he earlier had
explained that this spoke about how he wasn't much on just going into the ring
or on television, taking a mic and saying you people suck, this town
sucks, everything about you sucks. He would much rather tailor's promo to the
wrestler he's going up against and saying things unique to that wrestler, and he
was the best at that. Here, I think he's trying to sort of
say, I know why you might think that's a violation of that rule because
he's talking more about Florida wrestling fans and people. Yeah, he has about
Jerry Lollard necessarily, and he sees it as a bit of a different grade
of a gradation of that. But it acknowledges that it might seem like a
contradiction. I was always throwing ideas out there. I guess I figured eventually
something would work. I was like a weather man. If I kept talking,
eventually I'd say something that was right. And the beautiful thing about people
is that they tend to remember when I'm right and forget how many times I've
been wrong. The Lessons of Funk. Indeed, that's hit play on this
famous promo Terry Funk doing what it takes in a shower stall. You can
see the tile behind him. So weird, No Shirren on can of motor
oil three two one play. Its face is now coated tan true. Now
he's pulling the dirtle over the motor oil. It's caking on him like brownie
batter. It's like it's turning into like the color Oh my god. Yeah,
you can tell. Its eyes are killing. We can barely keep him
open. Yeah, Jerry Law a little better sound here. Wants to become
a real Floradi and not a trans plant. The King wants to become a
flor Well. I would like to know exactly how it to be a true
Florida cracker. So I becomes the Quaker state, thus state super wid higher
death. Here, Oh, I show you people can't stand how it feels
to be a true Florida Crackers. Here, I have five pounds of dirty,
filthy dirt, and that's exactly what it is. Oh. I have
got this dirt entirely all over my body, and now I know what it
feels like to be a dirty, stinky, crazy Florida Cracker. And it's
something that I never want to feel like again. What I would like to
do is the Gillan's bed fool Jerry layd to this guy of a batch to
where he would go ahead at him, eyes fully closed over his body and
paying five bounds of dirt and pour that over his body that turn him into
a dirty, filth taking Florida Cracker. All right, we can stop there.
Thoughts his most disgusting thing. I mean, uh h, it went
in his mouth, it went in his eyes, and then you put dirt
on it like he's just he's trying to kill himself. Are you pretty much
just revolting? You know? In fact, if obviously, but revolting of
all the differences we talked about last week between Terry Funk and Dusty Rhodes.
Perhaps the greatest difference is what each of them individually means when they say they
do it for the craft. Yeah, oh yeah. Or Terry has clearly
done this kind of pouring motor oil over your head for the craft of the
business. For Dusty, it's done for the craft. Macaroni and cheese,
ge damn right. But I just you think he's nuts. You think he
might be a little nuts this guy. You can you can go into method
acting all you want. What's that about? What did he just do?
I don't know what he just did. What he just did was was just
absurd, Like that's not even method acting, Like that's that's I mean,
I don't know how. I mean, I know it's not good, but
I can't imagine that, you know, I don't know how. I just
don't know. I don't know how bad it is for you, like again,
to have that shit in your eyes and in your mouth, dude.
Indeed, indeed, and so they would tussle in Florida. They would tussle
many more times in Memphis, but for the most part, by eighty two,
the feud between Terry Funk and Jerry Lawler in this country had subsided of
course, Funk closes out eighty three with the All Japan retirement kind of takes
a little bit of a break from being full time in the wrestling business,
pursuing rolls like Over the Top and then later Roadhouse going to work for Vince
McMahon nineteen eighty five after the national expansion. Much like the Dusty Rhodes program,
it's sort of like a bastion of some of the last great feuds of
the territorial era, this program here with Jerry Lawler. However, because it
used to be better. Yep, you can continue to sell this feud thirty
years after it happened. Of course, because the gentlemen involved were well acquainted
enough about what makes wrestling worth a damn that they kept the magic alive as
best as they possibly could. They did not seed that ground. They did
not turn over and say, you know, this is all a bunch of
bullshit. Jerry Lawler here in this clip talks about how important that element of
things were between him and Terry Funk. This is from the two Man Power
Trip of Wrestling podcast where Jerry Lawler was a guest talking about the feud with
Terry Funk and what was most important to preserve about the feud, and that
allowed them to cash them checks together much much later in their respective careers.
Just our stuff would kind of it was like the Andy Kaufman stuff. It
just kind of happened. It wasn't that we sat down and spent days or
weeks or months planning this stuff out. When we did that live TV every
single Saturday morning in Memphis for twenty straight years. Stuff just happened. And
and and we didn't. We didn't sit and write guys promos. You know,
the guys went out and they did their own They cut their own promos.
And Terry Funk has always been one of the best in the history of
this business at cutting promos, and so that that just came about. And
the fact that Terry went out one day on his own, you know,
just this is his promo. And he said, you know, I hate
to come to Memphis, Tennessee. I mean, I hate the city.
I hate everything about it. I hate Jerry Lawler most of all. But
he said, when I step off the plane in Memphis, Tennessee, everybody
recognizes me and they start treat me like crap. He said, you know,
nobody will carry my bags at the at the airport, I get into
the taxi cab. The guy when he realized who I turned me to the
Mid South Coliseum. You know, he drives me all over Memphis just to
run up a big bill. He said. Then when I get to the
building, you know, I get treated with no respect whatsoever. He said.
Everybody is on Jerry Lawler's side. All the are for him. They're
all against me. They're ring announcers for him, they're all against me.
The reference, he's got the referees in his pocket. And he said,
So what I would love to do. I would love to get Jerry Lawler
in a ring without any sands on his side, without any police or security
there that's on his side, where it would just be me and no referee
that he's got paid off, and and and and that's how that whole thing
came about. He just made an interview like that, and we said,
hey, why don't we want the idea, Why don't we just turn to
the coliseum before the fans are there, and we'll, you know, we'll
we'll have a match at the empty arena. Match and and so that,
you know, that's how that thing happened. And and it just it grew
legs. I mean, it went all over the place is and and it's
a testament to uh, to Terry and and and myself and in the fact
that you know, we're still so old school that we don't you know,
we don't want to let we don't want to I mean, disillusion the fans
or or take away from something that the majority of people really believed in and
really got behind and really really enjoyed. It's it would be a shame to
do anything nowadays to diminish that and where people are gonna look back and go,
oh, guys, that was it wasn't what I thought it was.
So you know, Terry, I hope he doesn't really hate me, but
you know, he wouldn't tell anybody anybody anywhere, especially on any kind of
media, that he that he doesn't hate me, you know. So that's
that's just a testament to the professionalism of Terry Funk. And there it is
that seed of doubt about don't you know what, I don't know if the
motherfucker actually does actually hate me. Wow, I mean, Lawler has to
leave that possibility open. Ah, that's so amazing. Funk would tell our
a video and a shoot interview that he does love Lawler and thinks he's a
great talent and a great mind for the business and everything. But you better
believe he still throws that little rejoinder in there, that little twist of the
knife. And I don't know when he called into the podcast, I didn't
sense a lot of love there. I mean, but again, just like
Dusty said, he's always working. He's a worker. I'm so glad you
said that. The work. If they're working, you and you and you
they're working with he's a worker. He's a worker, worker, it's all.
He is. Telegent worker. Thank you. Terry the worker, Terry
the Worker. So the eighties go, Funk does the movies, he does
the NWA program with Flare in eighty nine, and his stock is up to
a really high level, pretty much higher than it's ever been in his American
wrestling career at least, and down in Memphis, Jerry Lawler is still kind
of chugging along. We know that Memphis hung on longer than pretty much all
of the other wrestling territories in part because it's top star. Jerry Lawler,
because he had points in the office, never really left and certainly hadn't come
to WWF yet. So we go to nineteen ninety as we turned the calendar
to a new decade in pro wrestling, and the USWA is mid South.
Was that pardon me is? The Memphis Wrestling territory was renamed eventually is running
strong and much like when Dusty was seeking an opponent to draw with on the
Indies, kind of post the spotlight, seeking an opponent rather to get his
son over in the PWF company that he found it after leaving the NWA and
the WWF with Jerry Lawler in his USWA, Who you're going to call,
boss when it comes time to pop a house in your respective territory? You
got to call the Funker under the bright lights of Vince's you know, and
the WCW's hegemony in the business. Yes, you do call the Funker,
And you open disc seventeen and you go to two O three forty four,
in which on October eighth, nineteen ninety in the USWA, the Funker returns
to Memphis to get back at Jerry Lawler after all these years, almost a
full decade after they had if I'm not mistaken, after they had last touched
in the city Terry Funk and Jerry Lawler are back at each other's throats in
the nineties, and it's a different it's a different look in a differ field,
but in so many ways it's still a quintessential Lawler versus Funk. Blood
less than hatred. So when you're ready, I am very much ready.
I am ready. That's at play in three two one, play the funker
candy, you know, wine champion Lawler because I am meaner than our rattlesnake,
tougher than shoe leather, else stagerous in a hollow. I'd sport man.
Can I can't take you? Can eighty five of these morons on here
and beat you all at once. Get a joy pass three notch if you
will from Terry Funk. Who's now, where's fun going? He's going up
a leaner nineties funk here? Yep, it's in the people rampaging around trying
to get that old school heat. One guys at his face, this guy
means business him looking at him, he's piste. The reference turned around and
saw the bow tie Lawler with a very ninety splash of color on the Singlet
I know it's get those streaks, Yeah, yeah, the bumb equipment still
still vestiges of the old Memphis audience. He just threw a chair at the
cameraman. Yeah, so Funk had come us w WA heavyweight champion. That
that title we passed around like crazy. I remember Lawler like basically claimed to
have won it, like thirty something times. Undertaker won it. I remember
that when they were walking together. Papa Shango Laila would just be in the
u s w A and just take on anybody he could get for a you
know, a moment in time. This is the same us w A were
vinced first he'll turn in ninety four, right right, So Terry Funk's in
the ring. Redman Tobacco sponsoring this USWA broadcast, as the center of the
ring indicates collar and elbow tie up now, And this is the same way
they started the empty arena magic Yeah right, it's right back. It's like
riding a bike with these two man. Funk throwing big lefts over the back
of the referee and then stumbles of course through. Oh he freaked out the
front row on that one. Who's that guy. I'm pretty sure that's Scott
Levy. I think that's Raven. Wow, that's embarrassing, just standing there
with his arms folded watching the match. Fun climbs back in now and it's
like old times. It's just like here we go. You know what to
do. It's Funk Lawler. It worked in you know, front of twelve
thousand in Mid South Coliseum. It's going to work here in the smaller building.
Looks big. What's that reface? Tall? Yeah? Ano the ring?
Oh, the ring? Yeah, yeah, it doesn't look like your
typical you know, twelve by twelve. Yeah. Order. Terry Funk is
the wild man from the Double Cross. Yeah, Funk looks different now.
He's kind of got like a he he looks like the love child of Jake
Roberts and al Snow. Yeah, very good. First whip and Funk takes
the buckle and then throws his body over the ropes as best he can.
This is when he started doing the the stringy hair look. Yes, very
much so. Alther has gotten rid of the concerning go tee. There's nothing
more like suggestive of law I mean you know very well what he's after when
he has that go tee. Absolutely all right, clockwork earns three ways yeah,
yeah, just like just hedonism, right, like curlicular so Funk hatches
up to Lawler, throws him on the floor, raising hell on the outside
of the ring. Now boom, Lawler's head right into the post holding up
the ringside ropes. Arry, see look at that, Look at that lady
up screaming. Still a little bit of that Memphis spirit left in me to
make you left over? Absolutely ooh funk DDT's Lawler on the floor and it
made a nice sound. Look at him, think kicking the camera guy,
just raising hell everywhere he goes. And this is Terry Funk's existence. Now
he'll come down, there'll be you know, four hundred people there. He
doesn't give a fuck. That's Terry Funk in the nineties. Just give me
a payday exactly. So you know, I want to make sure the check
clearers don't want to have any of them rubber checks. I want I hadn't
made the town, and I want to have made the town, and you
made sure the checks were it made a rubber right as she does. Every
wrestler needs someone on payroll to make sure the checks aren't rubber right, screaming
as the fight enters the people, it's like they're not doing a hell of
a lot, but they're just like, no, they're just humming into each
other. Yeah, this is the Memphis brawl, This is the Memphis style.
This is the building blocks of really what ECW was, right because,
as we'll talk about, particularly when we get to the stage where we talk
about Terry Funk ushering in the entire existence of ECW, which is kind of
a career accomplishment. Yeah, it was based on Eddie Gilbert's obsession with how
the Memphis territory would book angles and do brawls, and Eddie Gilbert was the
original booker for Todd Gordon. The original ECW, it was called Eastern Championship
Wrestling, And in fact, the Funk Lawler Feuders are about to find out
was brought to that part of the country in the early nineties when Todd Gordon
was getting his first germinations of an idea of doing a Northeast based independent promotion.
And so in a weird way, what we were seeing with Lawler and
Funk here is not just them epitomizing what it meant to go against each other,
but a style that would define wrestling in the nineties. Inasmuch as you
consider what ECW did differently defining I mean, that's pretty that's pretty remarkable.
And we know it's Funk, that doesn't I mean, Funk is there,
he's at the vanguard for ECW. Meanwhile Lawler is ddt'd Funk in with chair
and Funk scrambled out of the ring and now Lawler is choking him the ringside,
retaining rope. Sa fucking Now. You know, I always look around
and perverted mind. I'm always wondering how many of these fans went back and
just got fucked and had sex, Like who who here? Was? Is
like so turned on by this and just is like feeling really really hot,
wanting to just fucking get drilled. God help us. Well, Funk just
got drilled down onto the ringside anounced table and again tables right chairs, Yeah,
oh my god. A funk seated on a table, picks up a
chair, throws it up in the air to try to catch Lawla behind him.
It lands on his own head. Yeah, just tossing chairs, being
choked with cables. He's it's like, the the amount of I don't,
I don't know he I imagine he must have had some inkling of you know,
not hurting people with the weapons, but the way he loss his stuff.
Yes, without really looking like he has any concern is unbelievable. Yeah,
he couldn't possibly know, like if he's going to hit somebody because he
doesn't look. Yeah. Back in the ring, a long are off the
rope knocks Fun out of the ring again. Funk has got in and out
of this ring forcibly about forty five times. In this match, Funk again
lays splay on the table. Christ what a what A? What a champ?
So of course, just like what six seven months after he piledro flare
on the table in the NWA. Oh what do we got? What is
that? It's like styrofoam, a canvas or some sort of board. Yeah,
it looks like a canvas like you paint with. Oh Funk. Oh.
E Laller gets it and absolutely obliterates it over Terry Funk's head. It's
kind of like when he crowned Warrior with the piece of art inninety six.
Whiler covers after that big shot and gets two and this is E. C
W coming. You know, it's just a little hints of it. Referee
did absolutely nothing when Jerry Lawler smashed that thing over his head. Memories in
He's in Jerry's pocket. That's right, I'm still coming alive. Ducksta larryed
and hooks a middle ring sleeper hold on the king. King is fading here
in the us W. A referee is like in side, Yes, close
as well. He said he's in his pocket, right, He's trying to
take that literally. Lawler dropped to two knees in this sleeper. Funcus,
can I have some cash? I want to had and put this pig to
sleep. I put the pig to sleep and had a Memphis biscuit. Jerry
with his creepy Memphis breakfast diners like Colin moment at the diner's Sweetheart. He
has his own table. Yep, God help us. He has to have
two and a half fried eggs. Can't do three, won't do two,
has to do two and a half. Gravy Oh yes, yes, he
likes to have right. He likes to have the home fries with gravy on
them. And he likes to have two different pieces of toast. Speaking of
which, he just almost had his arm drop three times in the sleeper of
the funker, but was able to hold up. Still fight left in the
King here in nineteen ninety and you know What the best thing is too,
is he never actually finishes it, all right, He always leaves the same
amount uneaten. Yeah, he always hit the same amount. He gets two
and a half eggs and he leaves. He leaves like one whole egg.
There he writes down the tip on the receipt and then he writes a heart
on it. Yep for the sweetheart. Oh, depend on who it is
leaves his number. He may leave his number. That is definitely raven.
Look at him, you looked right at you, idiot. Just what you
weren't expecting. On the lapsed funk, just what I didn't need. Speaking
of VCW, there's a raven like it's all coming together as the eighties become
the nineties. Here backdrop on the pile driver. Attemp Terry Funk hits the
canvas and now it's the king looking up the pile driver. Oh, and
he spikes Funk tough drops him down. This must not be in Tennessee,
the ring announcers making reference to the fact that the pile driver, of course
illegal in Tennessee. We know this from the Kerry von Eric eighty eight SuperClash
match. We're not in Tennessee, apparently because that's two in a row from
the King. Maybe we're an amarilla, perhaps cover by Jerry. After two
and no, he holds up. He doesn't want to pin Funk yet,
he wants to put the final nail in this coffin. So even in a
no DQ match, the the pile driver would be illegal, No DQ,
it's legal. He did it to like Kaufman for example, although I wonder
if the Coffin match made it illegal. Another one, cover one, two,
and Funk like seventy six gets his foot on the rope because it's fucking
general East. Lawler missed the fist, sure did back up. Now Funk
throwing the lefts. I love the way he throws those punches, man.
Yep, it's like over the top a piston like. Funk has removed some
of the tape from his wrist and he's choking Lawler with it. God damn
it. Ref Irish whips. Referee Tony Falk runs him over with a clothes
line. That's the Funker right though I'm looking at he's fucking beating on him.
A ref pissed him off, so now he's gonna fuck the ref up.
Yep, just push him over. He's gonna stomp his head. Oh,
Lawlin from behind rolls up Terry Funk. No reugh account, brother,
Why is he rolling up? Terry? What rolling me up? Brother?
They concerned in the nineties. Back Duck underneath Waller with the downtown right hand.
Funk stumbles again. Yeah, he fucking falls out of the ring.
Funk is liable to spill out of the ring at any moment in any match.
How it's back to the eighty one steps because it's a count out victory
here for for the king. Oh, actually, I think referee Tony Fox
is clearing the laller of the victory due to just qualification. Funk just attacked
the ship up because he got beat up, like that's lame free, explaining
that Lawler does not win the championship. Funk throws a chair in the ring
and Tony Fowk has to block it with the belt. They have Funk throw
chairs, speaking of ec W, He's just like see again, that's just
it, Like you you really get a fend for yourself. He's yeah,
the chairs coming, you better be ready. He's lowing them, you know,
right, Oh, Laila reciprocate and scares the ship and his little kid
threatened to reciprocate ye security active at ringside. It's another example of how they
brought the chaos into the nineties. This christ, let's go to Disc eighteen,
the SKA teen. It's gonna take us to a promotion called the Tri
State Wrestling Alliance the t w A. Have I ever talked to you about
the t w A before? No? No, Is this the audience Lumberjack
match? Sure is. We're starting right at the beginning with the fucking WrestleMania
one for Nintendo Graphics. It's gonna say, it looks like someone fucking we
got eight bit graphics here, dude, dude, So it's the t w
A. Dude, dude. Pom Pom Pom Pom Pom king yep, Arch
second, nineteen ninety one, play in three two one play. A promoter
by the name of Joel Goodheart started the Tri State Wrestling Alliance based out of
Philadelphia in nineteen and ninety. I believe it was, and it was.
It was truly the precursor to e c W. Like literally, this kind
of looks like the ECW Arena in Philly. It's actually a different building called
Penn Hall that was a bit more spacious had a little more ringside area between
the rail and the ring. But it just looks like ECW already, doesn't
it. Yeah, it does, It definitely does. It's like it's not
like a real arena. It looks almost thanks. Oh even some pyro they
set off there. Oh they spent the big bucks. So the King comes
out to Philly now or TWA winter a challenge too? What am a loser?
So the feud has gone from Memphis to Florida now to Philly, and
it's kind of a weird thing. The legend of the Terry Funk Jerry Lawler
Memphis brawl style match and feud is that Jimmy Garvin and the ring announcers.
No, that's promoter Joel Goodheart, it's them. I don't know. I
think it's Jimmy Garvin, take your pick future ECW referee in there, as
well as e TDWA in the apron. Yeah. And so if you think
of ECW as a Philadelphia based wrestling operation, I mean it's truly the outgrowth
of TWA. They were really Joel Goodheart was really the first to see like
a circuit like this based in Philly. A lot of these fans, you
see here would become the ECW Arena regulars. Wow. And this is Terry
Funk with bulldog brower leading him to the ring of all people. Excuse me,
old grizzled letter, the old grizzled veteran, I should say, old
grizzled letcher is what it is? Oh, this is the dark Funker.
He's got like black leather head to toe now and it looks like one of
the blackjacks, really does. I's cut the stringy hair in the back too.
It's like the roadhouse haircut, just without the volume. Yep, jaw
jacking with some ring siders. Is Terry Funk is And I'm making a guest
appearance as the camera operator on THEO A side of the ring. There Terry
Funk enters the ring. So this is it's it's really interesting. It's like
the Funk lollard thing is now a decade old, so it's legendary enough that
it's actually a draw on the US independence. Like nobody in Philly saw this
stuff when it happened. Nobody what belt has he got? I could not
tell you that all are and some neon green man in case you forgot it
was the nineties. I mean Jesus Christ. Think casew had these color ropes
too, with it a getting blue, yellow and red the sky the sky
blue, but the light blue canvas. Yeah, it's white. That's blue,
white and red some red white and blue I guess is not yellow.
You're right. Yeah, So Jill Goodheart's talking to Funk. We can't quite
hear him. Oh my god, that's an eacy w chat right there,
the Terry chat. Yep. So that's saying something too. We have yet
to see a Funk Lawler match with the people are going Terry Terry, Are
we have we not at all? No, they take it to Philly and
they see something different right at twas at the old NWA logo on the side
before a cool one on the apron. Yeah. And it's interesting because not
only would Terry Funk be kind of as we're hearing embrace like the baby face
when they took this few to Philadelphia, but Cherry Lawler one of the biggest
fucking heels to the ECW audience when he showed up in ninety seven to work
that short program with Tommy Dreamer and was calling it extremely crappy wrestling. Remember,
Hey, there's Lad, I remember that Lad. Unbelievable. Go to
wa I didn't know he went to that level down there and taking the Amtrak
down a phil must l sounds and we are underway. Also in Winter Challenge
to this card here in nineteen ninety one. Yeah, the Chikh versus Abdullah
the Butcher. I'm glad they're pushing the new guys and Nick Boley, Cactus
Jack, Pinzetti Gilbert in the Falls count Anywhere match. Jesus, this is
Terry Funk and Nick Foley sharing a locker room for pretty much the first time,
and again sharing in that Philly street fight ECW style ethos from even before
the existence of ECW. It's a locker room that has kind of the same
spirit to it. Yeah, block up in the right hand. Funk sends
sent through the ropes to the floor, and the lumberjacks are all over Terry
Funk and he's swinging on him. You better believe he's swinging on him.
The lumberjacks don't appear to be wrestlers, well, they actually they are there.
It's audience. It said that in the opening thing. It's an audience
lumberjack match. I don't know if that's how legit that is. It seems
very unsafe, but I guess J. T. Smith in there, who
was the early Babyfaces in Philly of ECW's predecessor companies. Funks back out with
the people calling for a time out. Terry picks one fan in particular,
to go right up to him get in his faith. Of course, the
Lumberjacks start hassling Funk again, trying to pushing back in the ring, and
they succeed. Funk comes up kicking the ropes, furious they've succeeded in forcing
him back into the fray. He's just tremendous. Also, Ivan Cola,
first Manny the raging Bill Fernandez on this card. So we're just picking up
all the all stars all over the mic. Not sure what he said,
but it's probably an insult to the people of Philadelphia. Probably doesn't matter anyway,
Coler and Elbow to the corner now, Funk just a different vibe about
this one. I don't know. It's not an audience full of people looking
for the lawl or comeback. No, I mean, we're talking about angry
wrestling fans here in Philadelphia. The Terry chance a right hand it again.
Funk through the ropes. No, but this time he slid back in because
he doesn't want anything to do with the lumberjacks. That takes a tool out
of Terry Funk's toolbox that he can't bump to the floor. Oller sucks.
Chance, what a different world that's becoming. Ah, I fucking love it.
It's Funk sending Lawlor sailing through the ropes to the floor. The lumberjacks
immediately on the king, loading his neon ass back on the apron, and
Funks standing on an old Look at Funk. He can't the man can't stand
on his feet for a second. He's upside down half the time. Of
course, Oh, Funker throws him to the floor again, and Lawler preemptively
tried to pie face one of the lumberjacks on his way into the railing back
in, and now Funk going out? What's he doing? Always that's EACW
guy right there, that's the hat guy. Yeah, the Hawaiian shirt,
always in the front row. So look at this, the raw material here
of ECW. Fascinating times due it really is. It's amazing, It is
amazing. But of course it was before anybody would consider themselves full time twa.
You know, it wasn't enough of a circuit where you worked reliably just
for this outfit. It was one of several indies that guys like Lawler and
Funk would take, you know, shots in based on their schedules. There's
Funk going to work, spinning around, dropping to his knees, taking the
barrel of closed fists from the king ladder opressed by Lawler gets too, Funk
kicking out with such impact that Lawler hit the floor and the lumberjacks do their
part. It's extremely easy, and in fact, they load Lawla right into
the waiting clutches of Terry Fun. And you better believe it's legal in the
City of Brotherly Love cover by Cherry two. Now Lawler gets his foot on
the rope like a bitch. I he ain't putting his foot on the rope
in Memphis, I'll tell you that way. Funk looks so lean. I
know, it's very weird. All those episodes ago, he talked about how
wacky he would get a fear about having a cardiac episode like his dad.
Yeah, yeah, that's so scared of it. One time he had a
panic attack, ended up in the emergency room. H Funk basically crossing himself
across the top rope so he can stand on Jerry Lawler with both feet as
a Lawler seeks refuge under the bottom rope. It's like Terry Funk, second
Bulldog Brower is even getting some cheap shots in on the King, all their
tries rolling free and no, sir, not gonna happen. Come on,
funk it out of there, Come on, Funk. I'd invite you to
consider that a Funk picks another fan to start shoving lubber jacks, grab him
by the waist and pull him free. Even to considered, this is weeks
before Hogan faces slaughter in La. Think about where we're at right now in
wrestling. Oh my god, that's that's not fair to think this was going
on somewhere else in the country when we were that age. Holy shit.
I can see myself picking up an aftermag in ninety one and seeing like photo
spreads of this Jerry Lawler doing business. Oh yeah, and didn't you tell
me you became acquainted with Lawler from PWI coverage. Yes, yeah, yeah,
I was. That's that's primarily where I learned about him, because I,
well, I should say, yeah, like I he first appeared to
me on on WTV as he as the ring announcer or and I am commentator
in late ninety two, but I became familiar with him as a wrestler,
and I had no idea he was a wrestler until I started reading PWI and
specifically I got to learn about those bloody brawls with the Moondogs. Yes,
I just remember being fascinated by like the title wins that they would list that
he'd had and PW I in this, you know, because they put the
USWA rankings right next to the WWF and ww rankings, and so endlessly curious
about this, this Jerry Lawler who seemed to be wrestling these huge names.
Yeah, and this is Lawlor. Kind of after it's clear that the gig
is up in the Memphis territory, spreading his wings and taking paydays everywhere he
can get him. Yeah. The apron Funk has run headfirst into the buckling
and collapses to the floor as Terry Lawler, after landing a fist drop off
the ropes earlier, has taken firm control of the contest. The Lumberjacks kind
of swarming around Terry Funk, but looks like Bob Brower is keeping them mostly
away from his charge. Yeah, psychology, there was involving bulldog Bob Brower
with Terry Funk. It's like making Gary hardest manager in eighty nine. It's
like, sorry, Terry Funk doesn't need any help on the stick. Okay,
he doesn't need a second No, I know he doesn't, right,
what do they I don't understand what they're thinking with that? Can hear all
those East Coast accents that the cameras are picking out? No Lawler running start
right hand to the to the chin of Funk, who hangs on to the
top rope with one hand and teetering trying to prevent himself from crashing down to
the concrete, saying teetering. Oh, could have been teeto wing too.
I said, whoa Oh, Refri had fucking waffled and errant left from a
wild swinging Terry Funk puts the official down. I think that's not Jim Malino,
John Finnegan. I think through the ropes to the floor goes uh Bawler
Brower gets a cheap shot in on the King, could then pick him up
like a hammock. Oh, Jerry Lawler planking at ringside will Terry Funk just
continues stomping the US Christ referees out cold and Funks stomping his head. The
fucking Terry Wrestling alliance. That right now Terry over at Lawler choking him aggressively
with a belt. He's got him dog collared here, lumberjacks trying to pick
up Jerry Lawler's feet to prevent him from hanging to death here in Philly.
And look at this. Funk's trying to get over the ropes to go after
Lawler and the lumberjacks like crowdsurfing. He's now on the floor and he is.
He's swinging. It's like a mad animal again. Terry Funk back to
choking Jerry Lawler with this this belt around his throat. That sounds to a
groan. Yeah, you can't do that in this day and age. And
now it looks like Funk is choking one of the lumberjacks with the belt while
Brower loads up Cherry Lawler or with the right hand. That's a huge change
from Memphis in the eighties to Philly in the nineties. Is they went from
going nuts when Lawler won by count out in eighty one, didn't they say
the end? That's a big difference from Memphis in the eighties to Philly in
the nineties. They went nuts for Jerry Lawler winning by count out in eighty
one, oh for sure. And here they are feeling a sense of no,
this is not what wrestling is going to be. And pretty soon you're
going to see a ECW that has absolutely notice qualifications or countouts to prevent this
kind of reaction. We're seeing it in the Petrie Dish right now, if
you will, through the lens of the Terry Funk Jerry Lawler feud later laid
out in the canvas, Brower hovering over him, Lawler choking referees as if
that's going to do him any good at all. At this point with a
belt, the Brower hoisting whatever belt it was, the Terry Funk board of
the ring. Funk could care less. He's on the floor, swinging,
stumbling on chairs in the ring. That's right, Come on, Jerry Lawler
a is still trying to collect himself on his knees and look, oh,
Brower hit some of the belt, bare lap, but hit him. It's
fucking chaos though. This is nuts. Yeah, there's just a feeling of
like, you know, like aggressive male wrestling fans coming out to just scream.
You know, they're they're they're so over whole comania. Wow, is
that what you're sensing? Fascinating points This is that crowd. Terry Funk has
chased personnel up the aisleway as Jerry Lawler finally gets back to his feet,
turns Brower around, hits him with the belt and no one gives a fuck.
It's such a different Brower on his knees, begging off Lawler throwing big
downtown right hands and yeah, the people are making noise, but it's like,
ah, Funk throws another chair in the ring of Lawler. Lawler's trying
to aim a chair to toss from the ring, and Funk is using the
front row as a human shield. Look at him? Is look at that
He jumps the rail and gets as close to a bunch of little kids as
he can. That's the Funk. It's kind of funny, like it's like
they're playing up Terry Funk is the heel, but he's clearly not right.
Yeah that They clearly booked that sequence of Lawla going after Brower as a baby
face pop for Jerry, and they were just sort of like indifferent to it,
and there's Terry funk fist pumped up in the front row getting a round
of applause because he created the chaos and the fans know it. Yep.
The fans are now maturing to the point that they can tell the difference between
who's playing support and who's actually leading the dance and creating the most excitement.
And Lawler held up his end. But you start to see this respect for
what Terry Funk does that's sort of meta. It's a respect for what he's
doing, even as he does what he always did tod be heel to be
a crazy heel. They're respecting him for that game. So Lawler tosses another
chair to the floor, barely missing Funk. Funk takes this chance, try
to slip in and Lawler shds another cheer. Adam, It's not unlike any
heel that becomes a face in the eyes of the fans over the years.
You know, it's like this guy's been so good for so long and making
people hate him and creating a sense of violence and excitement that we're going to
start to cheer for him. And they're going nuts for Terry. Yep,
Terry's got his back. Against the ringside wall with his arm up, and
the people are just like with him. It's like they're his people here in
Philly. I would have thought that Philadelphia would be the city for the man
from Memorial of Texas. I know, it is such a weird thing to
think about, because it's it's not what you would consider it's so nineties all
of a sudden. Yeah, you're in the lapsed Funk. It's felt so
seventies up to this point. Yep. But Funk still finding some fans flipping
of the bird to talk shit to his garbage flying through the air. They're
trying to hit Terry Funk with bottles and bags and whatnot. I just this
is getting very disturbing. All of a sudden, this crowd is a different
feel. Yeah, well it's again. They're interested in the violence. They're
not interested in anything else but the destruction of human physicality. Joel Goodhart with
the announcement saying Terry's been disqualified. Jerry Lawler wins and ah mostly booze.
Yep, they're interested in the violence. Boss. Very interesting. Yep,
that's what it's all about. Makes sense. I mean, that's why they'd
be That's why this match would sell outside of Memphis because of its reputation for
bringing complete, crazy, out of control violence. M It's not only people
in Philadelphia have an emotional attachment to Jerry Lawler like they do in Memphis,
and they want to come see him so we can triumphant make sure Terry Funk
gets his They're just here almost agnostic to who wins are and loses. They
didn't have a favorite, and it ended up it ends up being Terry Funk.
It's just since Jerry Lawler standing in the ring with his hands on the
ropes looking at these people, you can tell he's like assessing, like what
is making these people tick? Like, look at these fucking people. This
is a different deal. Yeah, it's very it's it's it's it's not your
others. He's right, other's pointing and laughing at people. It's having that
time of his life. Yep, telling a fan, I got something for
you, you can shine my boots while they're playing Heel. He's he's playing
He's playing heel here, this is wild. While they're walking around like fucking
like the nWo in ninety six, just taking taking garbage. That's saying what
kind of sounds like it. How about a haircut? Jerry, One of
the fans says, so much talking by the announcers of the promoters, thank
you and please drive safely. Jill Goodheart tells these twa faithful as Lawler continues
to stand in the apron hands on hips like what have I gotten myself into?
What is making these people tick? It's a different kind of wrestling,
A different expectation is the referees make their way out. So that's a different
feel. The Lawlor Funk futures feel become to take on a much different meaning.
And as Jerry Lawler would transition into working for Vince mcmahn of the WA
Ye f in nineteen ninety three kind of a starting as a co promotional relationship
with the U. S w a H. Terry Funk would very much begin
to incorporate that fact into his attack lines on Lawler when they would cross paths
next. So here's Terry on that. On that phone confrontation, we played
some sound from earlier bringing up Jerry Lallard that as he enters the nineties becomes
a little bit more of a corporate animal than the one he faced in the
eighties. You guys, look at me look at me, Look at me.
Look what lunger is done to me over the years. Your eyes,
I've had to worry about that guy. Oh my eye, yeah, my
day. I'll tell you why that, Because why is that? Because I
had such pain from from that injury and I grabbed it and I said,
oh my eye, my eye, yeah, because you broke what that's wrong
with? You broke the steps and broke up a big chunk of sharps shard
of wood, and you were going to stab me with it, and somehow
when I blocked it, it stuck the stick in your own eye. You
people for teams to seem to forget about the fact that you were trying to
stab me with the stick and it backfired on you and you stuck your own
eye, and then you blame me for trying to put your eye out.
I still can't you know. That's that's that's you know. You sit there
and talk about all of this crap and ship and everything else, and here
you are. You're the one that goes ahead and me, I see buried
vision to this DNA and you did it to me, And people wonder why
that I truly dislike you, that is why? Well, what do you
got to say about that, Say something about that. I got to yourself,
not me. I got a couple of good teammates. They're going to
help me in the rings. And you got a couple of idiots they're going
to help you try to hurt me. I know what you call him.
You call him my own son. I know what's going on. You call
him my own son, Grandmaster sex Ay, an idiot, and you're calling
dangerous Doug Gilbert, who is the brother of Eddie Gilbert hot stuff Eddie Gilbert.
And what's your kid's name again? Grand master? What? Okay?
Okay? His real name is Brian Christopher. That's right, that's right.
But he was Grandmaster Sex Well you kind of you kind of like can that
he was? What did you name him? No? No, I did
not name him. Who named him? Imagine somebody in the w W It
was your kids? I named you Ryan Christopher Lawler is his real name?
Okay? And then along comes w W and you allow them to control your
life. Yes, I haven't allowed them to control my life. No.
I don't drive way way, way way. Wait, wait, drive you
know way a brand new way. Hold on, I don't live in a
goddamn mansion. Wait a minute, I live in a chicken house. Well,
who was Chainsaw Charlie in the w W? Who was he? Yeah?
He was who I had to be. Oh, why you let the
w W control your life? Not for very long? God damn it.
Okay, Well, I gotta admit you don't try to live off that persona
like a lot of people do after they're out of the w W. You
went back to being to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I
am too, Well, I'm glad to do that. You know, we're
on this telephone talking and you know what, the people don't really realize it
says that I don't like you. I think you've made it half like you.
I think you've made that clear and clean that the people and uh,
all over the world, all over the world, let's say it, all
over the world. That's right, we're all over the world now. I
still live in the and in the Panhandle of Texas. That's my heaven.
All over the world, all over the world. You heaven, all over
the world. You I can what do you want to do? You want
to hell, I've been to Africa before. Yeah, well, good for
you. I'm living I wouldn't want you ask what you said. No,
I said, we're being heard, being heard. Said I lived all over
the world. No, no, no, I said, we're all over
the world right now. No, No, I heard you. You said
I lived all over the world. I know what you say. No,
I did not say that. I said this phone call that you're calling us,
but we're being heard? How much? How much am I I'm calling
you? I'm paying for this goddamn thing. I fucking can't. I love
it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I
love it. I love it because you allow WWE to control your life.
And Luller goes quiet, and then it comes with chainsaw Charlie Yes and yeah,
I could only stand it for fucking six months basically, and I'm gone,
yeah, amazing. How much is thread into that? I mean,
he's clearly joking with him a little bit. They're clearly having a little fun
together. But then Terry'll say something to get to Jerry to respond with just
a tinge of annoyance in his voice. And I'm here for it, and
as a wrestling fan, I will be here for it till the day I'm
in the grave. And it's that dynamic that interplay, that that flame that
continues to flicker and never dies down between Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk. That
allowed them to push this feud not only into places like USWA and TWA in
the early nineteen nineties, but even into the two thousands. Boss, we
have one sample of that moment, chant this shit, and I think you'll
be pleasantly surprised at how favorably it compares to the Terry Funk Dusty Roads match
from the two thousands. Those were rough, yes, that we were able
to observe, that one not ending on quite as high a note, but
Lawler staying a little more spry when we come to a match between the two
here from May third, two thousand and three. It took place in the
three p W promotion, which was one of many outfits attempting to make up
the market share the ECW had after going out of business, of course in
two thousand and one. It was a group led Blue Mini and Jasmine Saint
Clair and was a short lived operation. They were running shows at the famed
DCW Arena until XPW got sort of an exclusive on that deal. Of course,
the XPW another attempt to capture what ECW had after they went under,
and of course every attempt to resurrect the spirit of ECW throughout the two thousands,
you gotta call Terry Funk, of course, and so from XPW to
three PW to so many other organizations, Terry Funk would that the hardcore homecoming
show that went against the first one night stand that WWE did had Terry Funk
on it as well. As we'll get too further down the line here in
The Lapsed Funk, it's a decade of Terry sort of going around trying to
keep anything propped up that he can that's not WWE, I think, in
a lot of ways, to keep the wrestling ecosystem alive that he's so well
leveraged and played off of in the eighties, to keep himself gainfully employed and
well paid in the industry, while at the same time not having to tie
himself down to any one particular boss for any particular length of time. So
we're going to go now to disc thirty five, and we're going to take
in the final match of this installment of The Lapsed Funk, one last taste
of how the fumes of the electricity that we saw in Memphis in the eighties
and even the mid seventies would continue to be a source of energy for Turn
Funk and Jerry Lawler even until two thousand and three. If you're ready,
we'll hit play. Is that the very beginning, very beginning, all right?
Pre two one play. There's the funker Wow bandana around his head,
Terry Funk T shirt just fall. Mhm, all our ties on the announcing
h on a dead or alive. He's fucking through the goddamn towel at him.
Bunk with the microphone piss on w w A Aller stands there and takes
it. M hm m m one more time. M hm, hi Lama,
fuck you h took out my eye, asshole, Terry Funk says as
he drops the mic. So I think the where's this one again? Where
is this Philly? Philly? Oh yeah, forget it. Let me this
he's getting. He's got no chance, Lawlor, yep, no chance at
that germ of preference for Terry Funk that we detected there and Phil in nineteen
ninety one and the twa ye it's now fully baked in two thousand and three.
They are not for the King, not at all. They're here to
see it one more time. Terry Funk and Jerry the King Lawler are locking
it up while they're still pretty lean compared to how Fatty would get later.
Yeah, pumping the left jab was lee. I remember, like later nineties,
in the early two thousands. Yeah, this is back when he had
like that curl on his forehead. Just such a grotesque individual post facelift.
I'm pretty sure lock it up separation. Funk now stalking in a T shirt
and now he's got the black, white and red striped pants that he would
most be known for in the nineties. Front headlocked by Jerry Lawler's, Terry
Funk seeks refuge between the atop and middle rope. Here goes Funk. Ready
take a punch and do the Terry Funk thing. Yeah ha, Terry cat
the son of a bitch off me h? Are you? The refere says,
Wow, Terry's gonna kick the ref for off. I don't know,
man, Do you think two people that are feuding today can go to an
arena in twenty five thirty years and pick up where they left off like this?
Oh, No, one's gonna give a shit about seth Rowins in thirty
years Colorelloo to the arm, drag goes the Funker. It's, you know,
showing why he was NBA champion. All are carrying his hands really high
protecting his said Terry. Funk reaches for his face in the corner. Referee
trying to get between these two. Terry, it's taking place at a then
you call the Electric Factory, which I heard Terry say in a shoot interview
that this promotion was doomed because they had to keep running this one building and
that was a bigation. Remember Jasmine Saint Clair, right, is the porn
star in ECW. Was that Jasmine Saint Clair? She was the porn star
who did ECW for She was the behind this promotion, along with the Mimi
who dated her for a little while. Bunker working over the left arm.
Now it's different. It's it's lawlor kind of selling the holds of Terry.
It's not the brawl. Yeah yeah, Actually there's been a lot of pure
wrestling here. Look at Martin's CORSESEI down there on the white shirt and the
tie. Oh yeah, he used to come to three p W all the
time. It was his favorite promotion. Actually, Funk just working the arm
on the canvas here. I know this. I'm surprised that you fans aren't
booing yet. You fucked up big time, bald spot up. Terry's oh
fully re seated up the middle. Now what's that say? Stuff is neck
or something that? When I heard, I think, so that's a full
fucking cradle here, by funk. He's got one arm hammer locked and he's
threading the other one, trying to pull all their shoulders down like this in
Japan, right exactly. This isn't an NBA title defense in seventy six.
You know, Jerry Longer, not Jack Briscoe, right right, That's one
thing about Lawler, I got to say the big thing about it, though,
I don't you know it was Uh, do I know that Terry Funks
wrestling Jerry Lawler or not me exactly? Just because I know it doesn't mean
that, oh, I don't know. Jack Briscoe knows it. I don't
know if you know, I don't know. I don't know if I know,
I don't know, if I know, I don't know if I'm coming
back. I don't think you are, Jack. I can't think of.
Maybe. In the WWF episode, Funks still working the hammer lock Lawler stands
up back into the ropes, looking for the clean break referee, looking to
get it granted, but is cranking that Kimora, essentially trying to rip the
shoulder out of the King. This is a totally different approach between these two
than we've seen thus far. Absolutely, and you know for sure, like
it's very it's clean, and you know, like there's not Lawler pulls the
referee between and I think what we're seeing is what it looks like when Funk
whistles Lawler. Both go into the ring with the full expectation that Lawla will
be the heel and Funk will be the face. You saw Lawler go over
the referees back with the right. You see Terry doing the stumble cell like
like Lawla was doing in the eighty one match, pumping the jab is the
King. Look at ye Funk flailing about, trying to stay on his feet,
ricochets off the ropes, takes a right and hits the deck. Funk
bumping real well. In two thousand and three, still bumps well against Dusty
too for that matter, you know pretty much. I mean Dusty was doing
nothing, man, Yeah, it's just the same. This guy goes fuck
w W f O fuck them so funny. There we go. Funk launches
a chair out of the ring like a fucking rocket, no warning it's coming
at all. I know, I know, it's just like a lawler cuts
him off for the way back then with nice apperco Think about having that goes
the Funker. I hope you can find this one on YouTube to follow along
with fans fan calling for law and order from Murphrey. John Finnegan is Oller
pastes him again with the right hand. Think about lawlor style, man like
you can do it for the rest of your life. You punch, you
punch, you punch well, I mean it's true. I mean, just
fucking holds that fist out all the time. Throw a drop kick in there
on an occasion. Yep. Works as a heel, works as a face.
That's one thing I say about Jerry. You know, Terry Funk may
have needled him for being controlled by WWE, but he was always able to
keep his independent bookings. Yeah. Yeah, Jerry loved working. I mean,
it's not like he's only taken shots before big crowds. He's just he's
every weekend he wants to be out there. When he's not commentating raw,
He's just one of them. Absolutely, Oh, Funk's been busted open.
He wow getting color. In two thousand and three, this poor guy,
look at him? What color you get color anything? It's the right hands,
I guess j R. Right there watching the matter. Hat Yeah,
yeah, love you, Terry. One of the audience members says, well,
oh, oh wow. Fu crowned with a steel chair by Lawlor on
the outside. He's got it wrapped around his throat and he's swinging. I
mean, Terry Funk is Randy the ram. Oh my god. Have you
ever seen a one trick pony? Hey, look, it's the fan from
the nineteen ninety one TBA show. He's still there, hat on in the
Hawaiian shirt, Funk acting like this chair strangling him. I have seen a
hon trick pony in a veil running wild tree of that. You ever seen
a hundred bony, then you've seen Terry Funk. It's the lapsed Funk,
Tim Sheridan. So he's old ECW original front row fans, they're not so
with the chair still around Funk's neck like a necklace. In two thousand and
three, Jerry Lawler comes and smacks him with another chair, Jesus hitting him
across the back him the head. No, No, Lawler's leading the chair
against the rope's sand. Oh Funk there, leaving a blood splat on the
seat of that steel throws it at the fucking camera guy. That's right.
I love how he's like when he's hurt, he's just like he's just content
to create a moment of chaos, even if it does nothing to his opponent.
Like he's he's like a you know, a wounded animal, you know,
right back in the ring. Now are both principles. Terry Funk is
busted. He has taken severe punishment with the steel chair on the outside,
and Jerry Lawler is laying in closed fists, bloodying his own fist in the
process. All are inviting Funk to throw and then jabbing the shit out of
him. Look at Funk. Look at the battle warrior he is. Look
at him, Oh taking those shot. Look how he sells scot Wide base
and this, I'll look at that just fucking falls down. He's doing the
hump in the canvas cell for made one. I know he starts hitting his
own cut. Is he wants more to collar, Yes he does. He
doesn't want that fucking wound to clot yet he's not ready. I invite you
to remember the Terry Funk that cut the promo with the motor oil, and
remember the Terry Funk that cut the promo with the eye patch on how young
he looked. Now look at him, fucking guy, I look at him
convulsing on the mat. Uh. Aller comes off the middle rope of the
fist, drop to the back of the head. That's got to do it.
Aller turns Funk over cover on two. Oh, what are you learn
how to hook the leg? Asshole? That all are holding Funk's head up?
You think he looks good? Huh wow? Peppering him with shots and
it's a total reverse role reversal here. Yes, this is Funk, his
baby face clutching the top rope to stand all they're getting so much mileage.
I'm just throwing hands. I'm nutshot left of the balls by Terry Funk.
Puts down the King there he is, you fucking son of a bitch,
asshole, beat your asshole out, your cocking in my ass, you piece
of ship's slapping the shit out of King. Bug at him, you step
of a bitch. Oh my god, what's he gonna do on the table.
Oh you know, you know, I know what he's gonna do.
All's laid out on the table. Funks down after him. No, come
on, Terry put him through it. He said, it's weirdos in the
crowd. Man, you c F n W T shirt and already laying a
Funk launches a chair like a projectilet Jerry Lawler's head. Terry now putting the
necklace on a the king, my god, and then he launches a chair
at the other chair. Violence never stops between these two. Oh no,
up to the table. Someone screams, fuck that entertainment ship. Here we
go. He's gonna pile drive Lawlor to the table. They're trying to pedigree.
And what do he do? What did he fall? Fell to his
niece? Did he fall? Oh? My god? Funny too, boss,
Tell the people, you know. Obviously he couldn't get Lawler up on
the table, and so he goes for a leg drop and it just it
just it breaks, it falls and it doesn't even look like he made contact
with Lawler. I know. It collapses entirely under Terry Funk's own butt.
Right well, Lawler just hanging at the other end of the table unmolested,
and now Funk's not the same. You can't say the same for some of
his girlfriends. You know, it's just a rare curre, it's indeed.
So Funk loads a table into the ring, goes back out after Lawler,
but Lawler's quick to jab him with pieces of the table. Now these two
are still battling. It's unbelievable in front of like what fifty people, Oh
the business. So now we've lapped the nineties thirst for violence and now it's
like a thirst four like participation. I don't know how else to put it.
I mean, it's it's I don't know. There it is huddle of
blood of the canvas, Funk convulsing as the king looks to capitalize on the
pile driver. What does someone say, like, hey, won't you guys
do twenty minutes? Right? Like? Hello, really, why don't you
go ahead and do twenty minutes? Terry chancer up his funk slowly builds himself
back up. Oh, Terry said, hey, can we go twenty minutes
out there? And then I went ahead and did it when I had and
took another pile driver? Is what he did? Here we go Oh fuck,
oh that's it is. I get him. In two thousand and three,
Man, why is Terry doing this for that? Right there? Wow,
you nailed it right there by Lawler two now and again Funk lifts the
shoulder and they respond positively. Still life in the funker here in two thousand
and three. Remember how I said a Slaughter was getting ready to wrestle Hogan
before? Yes, how about the fact that Hogan's getting ready to wrestle Vince
here? Oh my god, just think of the different eras. Think of
the different places you were in in your life in those two years, and
these two are still battling. That's so insane. To the floor, goes
the bloody Terry Funk, after absorbing two stiff pile drivers. By the king,
I noticed Lawler's not getting any color. Nope, Lawler's showing Funk's face
to the crowd. You like that? See if a real man can do
this? Well, Lawler says he's gonna load up Funk for a pile driver
on the fucking concrete. Oh god, Funk is too bottom heavy. It's
scary as hell. It is. He's old, man, What do you
know? Ah, fucking Kyle drove Terry Funk on the concrete before twenty five
people. You can't do that, come on, such a fucking asshole.
Oh I wants to spit out him and he does, takes a swig of
water and sends a squirt at this fan that keeps talking shit. He sis
Jah is better than you, whetish bulldog whipped your ass? What the fans
like? He's shaking. Look at Terry, he's up. He's like.
Lawler's having dialogue with these fans and Terry is on the floor suffering. You
might as well, yeah, Brier king pitch. Oh it's a different world
now, man. This is not the Mid South Coliseum at all, but
an evolution. Uh. Lawler's got the stick. Oh great, Terry a
good front of mine. Oh you know what if you I love when they
do that when they say you hate Vin sick man. But it's like if
they have a chance to yeah, and if you're gonna really hate dish,
Lawler stunts hup, wow Stunner on the funker, Jerry Lawler laughing his ass
off. They're applauding that one. I mean, I even you know,
even uh uh if the move that you because even the people who actually hate
w are like they still like Steve Austin. Yeah, that's why he blew
up because he was so against the grain of what w W have had been
off, like you should have done uh another kickout by Terry Schunk pedigree,
he should have a pedigree that would have pissed them off. The good call.
You know, this is two thousand and three, so we're like in
the you know, right in the heat of the of the Reign of terror.
Someone just said, hit him with the pedigree. Here we go another
stunner from law or no Funk kids him with the low blow. Yeah,
still signs of life and the bloody battle Funker and then here I fuck with
a stunner. Other tries the rocks out cover too long. He's got his
foot on the rope, yep ground the table full circle from the seventy six
foot on the rope. Jerry, why don't you set it on fire too?
He's working on it. Okay. Someone just screamed, bring it back
to the fucking old days. He's trying bio driver by Terry Funk, spikes
Lawler tough no cover by the Funker to note he pulls him up. That's
right because there's a table still to be used, and the funker is gesturing
to it crazy. He is on you, son of a bitch, Come
on you, son of a bitch. Table is not fully folded out,
just one leg is up, so it's like bridged over here and now funks
at a pile drive Lawler onto it. All their blocks backdrop, funk drops,
all are using that table to steady himself. As a matter of fact,
see backdrops Terry Funk to get free. All are in position for one
of his own pile drivers now on the table. No, don't pile drive
him on the table. Funk's upside. I got he fucking did it on
the table and his head a hit. Get Terry. Look at these fucking
Jesus just dead roadkill cover by Lawler. One two fuck moves up. Look
at this I kicked out. That's the thing. No matter the decade or
how jaundice the audience, Terry's gonna get him chanting his name at some point.
He's just gonna keep doing ship until it registers. I didn't say give
him twenty minutes. It's give him thirty. Give these old timers thirty minutes.
Consider it done. As Lawler hooks up another pile driver, No,
this time, Funk back drops out Lawler lands pulls down sunset flip Funk rolls
all the way forward. That's the thing. Two throwing funk pins Lawler had
long last Funk pins Lawler the Fluke roll up roller. It does, you
know, it can't help but break my soul when you're slipping them off.
You know when you see this guy who hit him like like this is right,
Like he's gonna go home now and tell VICKI about how he busted open
Martin Scorsese back there, he's making a movie about Terry Funk. Like Funk
the little bit of a shock of hair, Funk still has it. His
hairline is all crusted with blood. No, so he's just laying on the
ropes, flipping off Jerry Lawler as much as he can. If this is
the last time we meet Lawler, I'm gonna get every middle finger and I
can look at him. I wanna shove middle fingers up your ass, you
fucking idiot. They're up there facing off, and Funk's drop dropping trow because
why his fucking visage. Look at Funk. The state of Terry Funk here
on the lapsed Funk as the feud with Jerry Lawler. Somehow, improbably continues.
It's a long way from nineteen seventy six for the NWA title, isn't
it, Boss, It's a long way. Here's the functor. Funk wants
to end this feud right now. Started. That's what you want, people,
But I just don't get a body there. It goes the King.
The roles fully reversed, the business very much changed. Wow, they get
a fucking moving ramp is what they have. Jesus fucking Christ. Still,
somehow a strange constant is Terry Funk versus Jerry the King Lawler as he embraces
ringside fans and is caked over, bloodied state. We love you, Funk,
and we love you up the mover's ramp. Like you said, yep,
Dary Funk, look at the walk, look at the light. He
can't even like he just he's he right now. All he wants to do
is die. He's like, please just let me what an idea? Give
me the mic? One more word here from the Funker in two thousand and
three. Yeah, because he read to that, Let's just move the whole
damn thing out next time. The man them into Philadelphia and falls count anywhere
in Philadelphia, where the post station, the zoo, wherever the hell that
so months ago, I'll follow God Damn is that appoint that? Yep,
I'll take it all plight theater that does it. Wherever that son of a
bitch wants to go, I'll follow him. Terry Funk said here in two
thousand and three upon picking up a victory over the King all those years after
the feud started, and has mentioned they would go uh to Memphis again.
In two thousand and four, the Observer had this it him and what has
to be a wrestling first, an angle that is apparently that has been legendary
for two decades, even though it was a flop when it happened, turned
out to be a big draw more than twenty three years after it was shot.
Wow. The angle was from the famous nineteen eighty one Terry Funk first
Jerry Lawler MT Arena match at the Mid South Colosseum in Memphis. At the
time, Funk was a heel who challenged Lawler to show up bring TV cameras
so there would be no biased officials protecting him like normally happened in Memphis.
The match itself wasn't very good, since a match with no crowd is going
to be a struggle for even the best workers. But it became legendary because
of its uniqueness, all the swearing on the tape by Funk and the camp
be announcing by Lance Russell. It ended when a jagged piece of wood from
a broken table leg that Funk broke off, was taken away by Lawler,
used on nutna quite used on Funk's eye, and ended with Funk screaming about
his eye, which he'd hurt from getting Hardway juice early in his career.
With the idea it legitimized the business and being blinded and later blaming Lawler for
a loss of partial vision in the eye. He's actually done a similar angle
years earlier in Florida with Dusty Rhodes over the eye, of course, with
no gait. The idea of this match was not to become a classic piece
of videotape, but to draw for a house show rematch. However, when
they brought the match back, it didn't draw. Well. This is back,
of course in eighty one he's talking about. Nevertheless, as time went
by, Funk did become one of Lawler's most legendary opponents. In Memphis,
right up there with Jack Key Fargo, Nick Bockwinkle, Austin Idol, Jimmy
Valiant, Joe LaDou, buildun D, and Andy Kaufman. On August twenty
eighth in Memphis, after weeks of promos built around Funk doing old school videotape
promos from his ranch sent in talking about wanting revenge for what happened twenty three
years ago, the feud was brought back for its one hundredth or so incarnation.
Funk now is a baby face at sixty vowed revenge teaming with longtime TV
announcer Cory Macklin against Lawler fifty four and Jimmy Hart Now fifty eight. No
question this crowd was drawn by the main event, since the semifinal was Kamala
and Coco Ware over buildun D and Kevin White, who they tried to market
as a star doing eighties fabulous ones music videos for with ticket prices being rolled
back to eighties level ten dollars and five dollars in cheap concessions, a hot
dog, coke and popcorn combo for three bucks in cheap parking. Oh my
god, they drew more than five thousand, two hundred fans four thousand and
eight three to one, paying thirty thousand dollars. It had to be the
biggest crowd in three years for a non ww pro wrestling event in the United
States, let alone one that wasn't geared towards Hispanic audience. It was the
largest crowd for a locally based wrestling show at the Coliseum in Memphis since the
death of Jarrett Lawler Promotion in nineteen ninety seven. You have to go back
to nineteen ninety four nostalgia show, which drew three hundred and seventy seven fans,
headlined by a ten way match with Lawler, Idol Funk, Brian Christopher,
Eddie Gilbert, Doug Gilbert, Coco Wear Valiant, Tommy Rich and Moondog
Spot for the last local show that drew more people. The big angles leading
up were Laller entering Corey Macklin on TV with a pile driver, Macklin returning
swinging baseball bats, and chasing Lawler and Hart out of the studio, like
the nineteen eighty nine angle in fact that Rick Flair did with Terry Funk and
his promos, Funk sent in Funk kept holding what he claimed was the original
piece of wood from nineteen eighty one. The match itself saw Funk now sixty
finally pull out the piece of wood just before he could take out Lawler's eye.
Heart through powder and Funk's eye. Lawler got the piece of wood and
used it on Funk, who juiced heavy. He was using it until Valiant
got the wood from Lawler. Funk then made a comeback on Lawler, chasing
him outside the ring and the ring. Heart was choking Macklin with tape when
Valiant hit Hart with the gimmick and Macklin pinned Heart. In the post match,
Lawler knocked down Valian and Macklin Heart started whipping them with a belt while
Funk walked off, making people think he was going back heel. In the
end, Funk came back out with a branding iron on fire. As he
got to the ring, Heart and Lawler ran off hard escape, but Macklen
tripped Lawler as he was trying to escape, and he fell on the ropes
in a position where a guy would be set up waiting for the sixty one
nine. Funk then branded Lawler on the button. Lawler sold it big and
ran off to end the show. One more piece of footage here on this
Funk versus Lawler episode, because the aforementioned flame would lick the head of the
funker us click that link if you dare. God, hold on, here
we go. Oh my good lord, Am I going right into it?
Or do I need to wait for you one second? Yeah? Yeah,
here we go a play. Here we go. Knock that Buondo off his
nouse. Fun So Funk was working over Lawla in the corner. Two referees
dragged Funk out of the corner. He takes out the referees. Of course
he does over to Jerry. Now he's been he was handy. Get ready
for free. Jesus Christ could be more obvious. Here comes the patented Lawler
fireball, one last burst of heat. I feel like this is going to
be bad. Oh oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,
oh my god. Uh h, you're reel in here. Funk hits
the floor. My eye, my eye as it open, singed, stumbling.
You saw it. You saw the smoke like his his his head was
smoking. Yep, the same ref as the original. Oh what a what
a what a business man? I can't King Lawler thoughts on that fireball.
I mean I just it's in twenty fifteen Jackson, Tennessee. You can see
you don't need that. It's you know, like we don't need that.
At this stage, they'd leaned into it. I remember being ringside and Terry,
your hair is on fire. You probably doesn't remember that. That really
pisses me off. I am still sitting here with one side of my hair
shorter than the other. That really pissed me off. And that's the only
reason I'm coming back. Speak speaking of coming back, is it true?
I mean, you know, it takes an old man a long time to
grow hair. Okay, it took me seventy goddamn years to grow the hair
that I got on top of my head, and it took you seven and
a half seconds to go ahead and burn the shit off. You're really intelligent
lawler. That's really brave. That really has something to do with wrestling.
What does that have to do with wrestling? I don't know what you want
another told. That's not a headlock, that's not a body scissors say that's
that's really the most stupid thing that I have ever had done to me in
the world of wrestling. You ruin my hair in two seconds. You ruin
my hair and I've grown for years, wait and have my beautiful hair.
And then you killing my cat has said, my cat has that's the stupidest
thing that I've ever I've ever had done to me in my entire right.
Well, I'm it's not the first time. It's not the first time,
you idiots. And then what you just saw there. It was the final
one on one confrontation match between Terry Funk and Jerry Lawler October twenty fourth,
twenty fifteen in Jackson, Tennessee. Jerry Lawler lets loose the patented fireball,
and one could say, not only did Terry Funk fail to get even,
he walked head first into even more permanent disfigure. That night in Tennessee,
they would face off the final time across the ring from each other in promos
that we've been hearing from the phone call that Terry Funk made into Jerry Lawler's
podcast. It was in promotion of a pair of bouts on September twenty second
and twenty third, twenty seventeen in Spartanburg, South Carolina. For BTW got
that right, Raleigh and Spartanburg. I should say it was Ricky Morton,
Robert Gibson and Terry Funk defeating Brian Christopher, Jerry Lawler's late son Doug Gilbert,
the brother of ECW progenitor in so many ways in Memphis Wrestling acolyte Eddie
Gilbert and Jerry Lawler a pair of tag team matches in twenty seventeen, the
final time Terry Funk and Jerry Lawler would share a ring together. But of
course it's never over, is it. It's never over between the Funker and
Jerry Lawler. No, because for Terry Funk, there is no such thing
as finality. Oh man, here we go. Man. This is Bunkers,
Texas on the Double Cross Branch. As far as you can see to
the left, that's my property. In any direction, as far as you
can see, that is my property. I have a gated inference so I
can keep anybody out that I want to, and believe me, I live
a life of solitude or accept for one individual. Jerry Lawler has taken up
residents in my mind, and he's been in my mind for the last twenty
years, over two decades since he destroyed some of the vision in my right
eye. I had a call from Memphis Tennessee in the hospital. It was
from Cory Mack, and he was blabbering and blubbering and bullying like an idiot.
And he said to me, oh, Terry, oh, Terry,
I need your help. I want you down here now, please come,
Terry. And I said to him why. He said, because Jimmy Hard
and Jerry Lawler had beat the hell out of him. I said to him,
Cory, don't worry. I will be there. Like I said on
the night of the twenty eighth of August in the Mid South Colisseum, I
will be there. Not because I love you, Cory Mack, because I
hate Jerry Lower, not because I love Memphis, Tennessee are the people in
Memphis, but because I hate Jerry Lawler with a passion. Take a look
at the man. Look at his facelifts that he has. He looks like
Bob Berker. What I am going to do is I am going to give
Lawer an extreme makeover on the twenty eighth. I'm gonna give him a two
fisted makeover. I'm gonna lower his eyes, I'm gonna riden his nose,
I'm gonna fatten his lips, and I'm gonna realign his teeth, and then
I'm gonna pull every transplanted hair out of his hair. And then I'm gonna
put my foot so far, so far up here, so far up here,
so far up his poo poo. He'll have to go to the hospital
to get it out. Roller. There has to be a finality to this,
and it's gonna be the night of the twenty eighth, you know,
good for nothing eggs. Second, dumb man, we did it our way
because we love it that way. We love it that way. I have
this wonderful I've got a feeling, and I've had it all my life.
When it's time to go, I think it's now it's time to go.