You know, good for nothing eggs sucking dumb man. We did it our
way because we love it that way. We love it that way, and
I have this wonderful gut feeling that I've had it all my life. When
it's time to go, I think, just now it's time to go.
Hey, what do you want to know about, man? I'm gonna tell
you that some of the tough stats we are taking welcome on that. I'll
tell you one thing is I'm a hard core producer. I am, I
always have been, and I never have gone with the grain on any promotion.
I'm not ECWS man, I'm not Dennis Cordozo's man. I'm not WSCW
No. I am i WWF what I am as an individual and an athlete.
And when I'm looking for his competition, competition for all you hard course
out there, because I do his. I might scream at you, I
might holler at you, and I may hate you for the moment, but
if you dig right down into my heart, I love you from now to
my last broad ladies, gentlemen, mister Terry Funker. Terry Funk did go
to Extreme Championship Wrestling to do the kind of things that he was forecasting in
that interview, and you know he took risks, he did moon salt,
he did barbed wire. Yes, he did quite literally, as we'll discuss
on the latest episode of The Lapsed Funk Play with firew Arena. Welcome to
twenty twenty four, and welcome to the home stretch of The Lapsed Funk.
Our look at the most consequential career in the history of professional wrestling, that
of Terry Funk Boston. It's not even it's not even a debate, and
we're not even done. No, I know, we really haven't even got
to the things that crystallized him as a crazy man, which are the death
matches and all that shit. I don't know, I think we've crystallized them
as a crazy man. Well, welcome to what'll probably be a crazy year.
It's t lf X. There is no turning back. This is the
ten year anniversary of that fucking cast. That's wild. Things are going to
be popping off, can confirm. I mean, I'm ready to pop off.
How are you feeling? Ah good, you know it's good. It's
new year. I suppose if you want to, if you're one of those
people people who believed that years are are are a real thing? That that
that that are you know, acknowledged by anything other than human beings. Sure
by that you mean time? Well, time is a real thing. There
is a time recorded Time is a falsity calendar, right, yeah, right,
you know that's just somebody made that up. Somebody made that up to
have control over whatever existence they thought they had control over, which they don't.
They don't actually have control because if you know, we could easily decide
that. You know, someone could have decided that January was a was a
year long month, right, you know, they could have said, you
know what, the month of January is the entire year. Just someone decided
otherwise. It would actually call it a question the need for something called a
month. If there was only one, exactly exactly right, one would wonder
the difference between a month and a year. At that point, Well,
you know, the only the only thing that that you know concludes the year
is the fact that the Earth has gone around the sun. One time marks
the beginning of ten years since the cast started. Is us taking to the
fucking feed ten cycles? Ten cycles of the sun is what happened. A
lot of the things you're saying, I think Terry Funk would have found himself
agreeing with don't you think so? I do? I think so? I
think I listen, listen, if there was anybody, if there was any
wrestler who had who didn't believe in the concept of time or the recorded time,
Terry Funk, Well, you know, it's funny you say that.
I went ahead, and you know when I used to talk to my dad,
we used to talk about time, and there was a lot of talk
about you know, what, what the hell is it? It's it's sort
of a it's a funny thing, you know, it's a wonderful thing,
and what not. We we we we you know, my dad and I
would talk about time and would talk about Rosemary and all sorts of stuff.
We talk about Vicky, all sorts of seasons and season ings. There's a
reason the words is there, you know. But much the same, let's
put some season on that fucking solar system. One of the things we are
delivering to you have delivered already for TLFX is, of course, the twenty
twenty three tlf Holiday Special. The Christmas Special was unveiled our annual surprise to
the Solar system on Christmas Day and Boss did you put something under my tree
this year or what? That was a massive surprise. I definitely do believe
that it was a wonderful life and you found a wrestler in there talk about
it. Ye, yep, we talked about you know, Constantine Romanoff.
Constantine Romanoff, a pro grappler from the the turn of the twentieth century who
came from Germany and was a phenomenon and really, you know what, he
really was one of the one of like an early you know heel, like
k fabe international heel type. Yeah, I was wonderful to see you dig
up archives realizing that he wrestled under the name Jack Meyers most prominently, and
that, you know, opened a whole new world of color on the kind
of wrestlers he went up against and how the newspapers did the he can kind
of coverage of it all. Oh, this guy's oh, you know what,
this guy's a fraud and something like holder for at the time he's not
even from Russia. I'm thinking you mentioned the turn of the century, the
turn of the twentieth century, would that have been Austin and Brett Wrestlingia thirteen
only three years left to go in that century. I think I suppose what
is not the turn of the twenty first century? Oh yeah, or noting
the turn of the twentieth century would be would have been nineteen hundreds into the
twenty eighteen hundreds into the nineteen hundreds, right, yeah, yeah, it's
always it always lads a year. So the twenty first century is no what
we're in right now. We're in the twenty first century right now. Yeah,
So the twentieth century was the nineteen hundreds, I was correct. So
is the turn of the what I said? Oh, we see, I
was playing with the meaning of the word turn. Yeah, I thought,
isn't the turn into or is it turning away from? That one? I
don't fucking was dying on the vine? Yeah, we'll watching it with a
ahre you talking about heel turns, the doubles, oh geseys, wow,
man, we gotta get a we gotta get some tight nutrition in you.
Well, that would have been the double turn of the twenty cents. Yeah,
the double chin of the twentieth century. That one's gonna take a little
longer. I'm starting with abby. I was gonna say quadruple chin. Actually
is is abby? So that's sort of good care oh man, Okay,
yaks, actually, so we do hope you enjoyed that Christmas gift and all
of your holiday seasons from the Solar System, and as if, as if
by serendipity, before we took to recording here our first episode of twenty twenty
four, one of the more solid members of the Solar System and a motor
through and through he motored through. Scott my Ferry wrote us an email that
I thought ought to be conveyed because it speaks to how the It's a Wonderful
Life under the cinemat episode that we dropped on your Christmas Day says so much
about why we've been here for ten years, and how a sort of poetic
it all turned out to be. He writes, dearest co Chairman. As
I finished reviewing this novel, before I click send, I realized that I
may have got a little caught up in my head and I just kept typing.
So this very well could be way too long to read on the show,
But I wanted to let both of you know either way how important that
cast is. I mean, I'll tell you you know the moment you say
it could be way too long to read on the show, It's that we're
going to do it. You've laid down the gauntlet right exactly how important that
cast is in my life and how under the cinemat end of the year,
hitting me directly in the fields. I like that. Of course. I'd
like to thank the lapsed fan forget another year of absolutely tremendous content and also
for an unforgettable experience when when we hung out with a few of US motors
in New York, it was quite possibly the high point of my entire year.
Not only getting to laugh and eat some pretty great food with you both
before and after JP in action, but getting to put faces to some legendary
names of Solar System members that I had only heard stories of on the cast.
Yeah. That's the thrill for us, is Solar System members meeting each
other face to face, like you exist in the world. Yeah. Yeah.
They have their own you know, legacy and legend status. Yeah.
You know, it broke off over their own you know, little groups,
their own little coffee clashes. Yep, as we were, as we were
going through New York. As soon as I arrived in the city that afternoon,
my childhood nostalgia got the best of me and I couldn't resist the urge
to walk all the way from Grand Central to the Hook and Latter eight.
It definitely was going to yes bacting to see the Ghostbuster sign out front when
I arrived, but as I stared up at it, immediately felt like a
little kid again. I knew I had to take a photo of myself in
front of the station, which I then sent to my mother. I figured
she would appreciate it because she had to put up with my Ghostbuster's obsession as
a child. Now, thanks to that cast, I was reminded of one
very special summer, the summer of nineteen eighty nine. Oh boy. During
the Ghostbusters two episode of Under the Sin, Matt Jack mentioned a core memory
being unlocked for him. All that episode did was unlocked memories for me.
I could vividly remember staying what well paced my bedtime and sneaking down to the
living room my grandparents' house in New Haven just to port ecoplasm ecoplasm, sorry,
it's not ecoplasm, that's a whole different thing. And to the top
of my Ghostbusters firehouse onto any action figure I could sit inside. Yes,
that was the best. Oh oh, it was depicted on the box,
wasn't it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just fucking dropped the slime
and slime. There was nothing better. Now. I know that slime is
like a hip thing for kids these days, but you know what, there
was nothing like. You know. The thing about it now is that it's
like it's cool to make your own slime. No, what was cool was
sliming your action figures. Yes, covering them in goo was money. Everything
had a fucking slime option. Masters of the Universe had a slim thing.
Obviously, Ghostbusters did. They all had fucking slime, like a slime created
thing lovely to the top of the Ghostbuster's firehouse on any actual figure I could
fit inside while I listen to that Ray Parker junior cassette single of the theme
song and My Teddy Rupskin. I can remember waiting all week to watch the
cartoon and then sobbing like a little bit whenever I had to miss an episode
because my grandparents had errands to run, and then, like Kevin mc chemistro,
I could be left home alone. I thought I'd never get a chance
to see those episodes ever again. And that one time when Peter kept laying
into Slimer and he got so upset that he left a goodbye note and ran
away while the Ghostbusters slept absolutely inconsolable. I remember my grandmother painting red glasses
on my face and then throwing my Kenner proton pack on my back so I
could run around of the yard pretending to be Egone, catching invisible ghosts as
I jumped on the pedal that would open the toy trap. Like I said,
I was obsessed. I could talk about memories like this forever. There
was one memory in particular that you guys managed to unlock, and when it
hit me, I had to turn the cast off for a while, wow
and drive in silence because I just wanted to get lost reliving it all over
again. The sweetest memories boss or sounds that bring our lost innocence back.
Yes, you know what I mean, that put us back to that place.
It was June of nineteen eighty nine. My family had just relocated as
Southeastern Connecticut in October eighty eight to be closer with my grandfather's job at United
Nuclear. I was begging my mother to take me to see Ghostbusters too.
My birthday was the next month, and I wouldn't ask for any other presence.
If I could just get to see this movie on the night it was
released, and my mom broke the news to me that she wouldn't be able
to make take me that weekend. As you'd imagine, I was devastated.
She was working full time in a women's prison. She got held a lot
for doubles, so I didn't get to see her much growing up as it
was. And oh, sorry, go ahead, like, okay, so
imagining her working in a prison, and then I'm imagining inmates going for like
a double leg takedown. I was gonna say it. Last time I heard
of her getting held for doubles was from Ganda. Oh God, tremendous,
tremendous, awesome. So I didn't get to see her much growing up as
it was. And when I did get to spend time, whether she had
to fight to stay awake. Sometimes we would make plans and you'd have to
cancel the last minute when she got ordered in. I loved watching movies and
taking me to the theaters, where she sometimes snuck in a couple hours sleep,
because as much as she wanted to stay home and get a full night's
rest on her giant waterbed, wanting to make sure, oh man, there's
the waterbed. Oh you know, I wanted nothing more than a water bed
when I was a kid, just so I could bounce around like a fool.
I wanted to make sure I could still have a good childhood meant more
to her. It was the very end of the school year, and as
I sat in my first late classroom, I knew every other kid in there
had to be daydreaming about summer vacation. All I could think about was Ghostbusters
too, leaving the theater before I could see it, because who knew how
long it would take to come to the ahs, and by then the other
kids would have spoiled everything for me. That morning, as I stared out
the window the playground, just wanting to leave, I noticed a few of
the kids in my class were looking toward the doorway. I turned my head
to see my mom standing smiling at me. I knew at this match meant
that I had the best mom in the world. My mom managed to stay
awake through the entire movie, but I'm sure me marking out the whole damn
time would have kept her awake. Anyway, it ended up being the perfect
day. You think that would have been enough to keep me satisfied, But
since I got home. I started telling my grandparents all about the magic I
just witnessed on the big screen. And then I didn't know where I got
this idea. I was inspired. There was something now I needed to do.
Next thing I knew I was pleading with my grandparents to walk all the
way up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty with me. That's wow.
They laughed at the thought. They were in their mid to late fifties,
and while they went for walks regularly, they were not excited about the
idea of climbing all those stairs side of a claustrophobic nightmare of a spiral staircase.
But it happened, Yes, it did. I remember being in the
back of my grandfather's light blue Dodge omney, looking out the window with all
the massive, big city buildings and trying to contain my excitement for the entire
ride. My grandparents were dressed like they were about to play tennis, in
their bright colored shorts and their white sweat bands already in their foreheads. They
would drag themselves up all those stairs, knowing they'd get tired almost immediately,
like the Ghostbusters did climb in the apartment stairs near the end of the first
film, and I, with all of my excited energy, end up being
too busy, sprinting up a little and then coming back down to motivate them
to catch up to me. Yep that I wasn't processing how much they were
suffering just to make me happy. Wink wank, nudge nudge X sounds familiar
right there? Huh yeah, trure words had never been spoken. Well.
I couldn't wait to see what the city would look like from the Crown.
I didn't really have a plan other than to make it to there, just
to say that I did. However, on my way to New York,
my grandmother handed me something that gave me an opportunity to create that perfect moment.
It was a cassette that her friend had made for me. On the
thin piece of masking tape on both sides, I saw the title written in
pen Ghostbusters too oh Wow. Immediately threw it in my portable cassette player and
blasted Bobby Brown's on our row to my ears multiple times as we enter the
city. But then I knew I had to cue up the tape to a
different song and save it a little bit of battery until I made it to
the top as we stood the crown of Lady Liberty looking out over this island.
I admit that the view was not as spectacular as I had envisioned,
but none of that mattered as I placed my headphones over my years and ust
to play one more time. Because it isn't because isn't It's funny I fucking
lived in New York, for which betweens there's no chance, he went,
I No, no, never, That's how I'm trying to think. Isn't
she not facing the city? No, no, it's facing the She's welcoming
the being coming right, So it's of course it's the worst fucking view you
could possibly have. You can get the same exact view by staying on the
ground it. Indeed, when I went, it was after nine to eleven.
They didn't let you climb up again yet, so I didn't feel like
I was missing anything by not being up there. I mean, I get
it, and seven I haven't been there, and probably since like the first
time I ever went to New York, I think was the only time I
ever went to Statue Liberty. None of that mattered as I placed my headphones
over my ears and pressed played one more time. It was very crowded where
I was standing, but as Howard Huntsbury's cover of Higher and Higher kicked in,
I closed my eyes and imagine the Ghostbusters being there with me and Liberty
was about to take us for that walk through the streets of the city to
save the day. When I opened my eyes, I threw my arms up
in victory and yelled, I love this town, just like Winston did at
the end of the original film. I couldn't stop smiling all the way down
to the pedestal. I couldn't have imagined ever having a better summer than that
one. I thank my grandparents for taking me to New York, but I
don't think I ever truly expressed to them how much that trip meant to me,
because sometimes you don't really understand it's how special those moments are until you
get a little older and those people who helped create those memories are no longer
here for you to think. That's right. My mom is still here,
though, and she lets me know whenever the Ghostbusters movies are on TV.
I think she still watches them because they also think of our time together.
Yeah. I had a really close family friend who would always call me even
when I was like thirty five when the Grinch was on the cartoon. Ah,
that's so cool or root all for that matter. Maybe that's part of
why I'm such a Christmas Mark. I don't know. Probably, you know,
it probably is. It's probably a you know, part of it.
And then because it's like my mom always calls me if there's something, if
there's something, oh sure, oh you know, like I say, she
when she called me that that Bobby Lashley was on Good Morning America, Well,
I'm sure we dropped everything, dropped everything, and I dropped trow as
well. Oh my god. I think she still watches them because they make
her think of our time together when I was a little kid. She gets
nostalgic, just like I do. And to this day she would tell people
about her surprising me at school on that day in nineteen eighty nine. Look,
let me just tell you, folks, Okay, if you don't have
children yet, or if you do when they're really young, surprise your kids
at school at least once. They're never going to forget it. Yeah,
an early pick up, a surprise pick up, to do it, do
it. It's all I can say. One of the things about her nostalgia
is that she will also watch the movies that she watched with her parents when
they were raising her. Even though Christmas is and what it used to be
in our family, and I can see that it's hard for my mother to
be without her mom and dad every year. Right before Christmas last month,
she asked me to help her find one movie, It's a Wonderful Life.
As a child, had no patience for black and white films unless they became
colorized at some point I could pay a whole d I just didn't appreciate good
storytelling with a lot of action, violence, bright colors, or laugh so
I could never pay attention to this movie. Whenever my grandparents watched it,
I just wanted to watch some Rank and Bass instead. And it's like,
god, oh, oh, I'm straight. I understand that too. I
continued to refuse to watch it because I knew it would just make me miss
my grandparents. One day, I finally caved, and that day happened in
December of twenty twenty three, when I found my mom was just watching it
over and over again. I've already typed too much. Whilst all I'll say
is when George Bailey was on the bridge, yelling I want to live again.
I found myself struggling to hold back some tears. All I could think
about was more opportunities that I missed to bond with my grandparents. I get
this movie now, and it's beautiful. My grandfather in particular, are left
to talk about movies, and I just wish I could have enjoyed this one
sooner when he was still here. So I want to thank JP for the
ridiculous amount of work he puts into each episode of Under the Cinemat, even
for the movies that I think don't deserve that level of effort, because for
all I know, some of those films could mean something to someone. But
thank you for these two itisodes in particular. Even when I didn't think I
had a lot of common interest with my loved ones, I realize we will
always have that connection through our love of film. And that's why hearing you
two share stories of your childhood is also important because it triggers the memories that
remind me and I'm sure many other members of the Solar System why our childhoods
were special too. And closing, I'd like to leave you with my favorite
Dan Draper quote. Nostalgia. It's delicate but potent. Teddy told me that
in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It's a
twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't
a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards. It
takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called
the wheel, it's called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a
child travels around and around and back home again, to a place where we
know we are loved. Ah fuck me. Actually wait, Much like one
of JP's castmates and King of the Jews trying to surprise us with a small
package at the end of the first act, this is a false finish.
I want to end this on a more upbeat note. That's so awesome.
I have a story that I can't believe I forgot to share with you before,
and I swear that this is absolutely true. June twenty fifteen, New
England fan Fest, Providence, mart Island. Oh my god, I just
got back and watching wrestling two years prior, and while I was somewhat familiar
with the few of them were modern names in the building. I was there
for the people from my youth, legends like Jim Cornette, Jim Ross,
the funks, the think rather probably think you can tell what your frame of
mine, Diamond, and the expostulate great means Ginochron. Jean had a voice
that, without fail I could close my eyes and listen to and be magically
transported back to the living room floor in front of my grandparents television every time
I heard it. Sure, I have specific memories attached to these other personalities,
but only Jeane and Sean Mooney had the power to take me back there
every single time. When I sat next to Geene, I couldn't help but
thank him for being such an important part of my life as a young wrestling
fan. Jean responded, I'll tell you something, Scott as he posses,
Oh you will, you will, Jeane, You're gonna don't see that one
coming. Gene, thanks pal as He puts his arm behind my back and
looked up with a smile on his face for a photo together, before continuing,
I've had one hell of a career. I've been very fortunate, and
if I had to do it all over again, He then turned his head
to look at me dead in the eyes, the smile now gone from his
face, and he said I wouldn't Jeane should have fucking done the weather.
There's a moment of awkward silence as I tried to process would it just come
out of his mouth? There was no wink, no smile, no further
comment. Was he working me? I opened my mouth to try and say
something, but I froze like Ralphie Parker being asked by I'm all Santa.
I didn't wanted to. Jean then shook my hand and I left, but
not before he wrote holy balls on it by ten because for some reason he
was trying to get that over. What to be a wrestling fan, right
boss on wrestling fans have experiences like that. Fucking Jing goes out like goes
close to Scott's He goes kill me. Well please, got it? Got
done. I can't do this anymore, And in closing, Scott writes,
I can't help but wonder for these legends who've been around the business too long,
who've seen too much, that it might be inevitable that all of them
eventually will become lapsed fans. Yes, holy balls, Scott balls. I
thought that was worth reading. That is exceptional It connects what we tried to
do for you this Christmas season with what we're trying to do with TLFX.
Why we've been around for ten years, why we'll continue to be around for
another ten because we tap into what Scott just talked about, and wrestling happens
to be the perfect vessel to tap into that exploration of nostalgia. And once
you get a taste of the fact that we're up to that in addition to
laying down definitive histories of the most consequential nights and moments and characters and professional
wrestling history, you might just start to get it. TOLFX Boss, It's
a real thing. That absolutely is also a real thing. Is the upcoming
International LATS Day. This is going to be on Saturday, January twentieth.
Keep your eyes peeled to our x account or Twitter account for details on this.
This has been an opportunity to find exact time codes and episode numbers for
any moment in our ten year catalog that you recall fondly and why don't we
listen to but understandably don't even know where to start, And a lot of
times you remember something but you don't know what event it's attached to because we
have a tendency, I don't know, let's say, to go off on
tangents and talk about things that have nothing to do with the pay per view
we set down to discuss, for instance, reading this all timer email from
a motor on a laps clung episode. You know, but this is the
chance to, in the spirit of TLFX and looking back on all we've done,
find those things and so at the ready we'll be members of this incredible
group that's formed called the Lapsed power Plant. These are a collection of super
fans with a tremendous wherewithal when it comes to archival skills, digital search,
just cataloging. I mean, this is it's basically like our in house library
and it's uh, it's going to be at your disposal. Are you talking
about and talking about digital transformation fanwidth? Is that what it is that you're
talking about? The wheelhouse disruption? Are you talking about you know, a
Paradigm partner platforms triple P yes? Do you say, by the way,
do you say Paradigm partner platforms? I mean that sounds like that sounds like
someone that tried to it, sounds like a company that started to try to
take over China on demand video. In two thousand and two, a pre
a pre revenue company out of Beijing went public because look at all these Chinese
people. What if they all had what if they all paid two dollars to
watch a movie? We would max three hundred million dollars a day. I'm
up your shirt. I don't know. I think so, I don't know.
I'm just saying triple P. So avail yourselves on Twitter. There's also
going to be a basically do it on Reddit and discord and other forums if
you're not on x to be able to get the elapsed power plant working for
you, to find those time codes would be a fun event, so you
know where to look for that. And we also want to put the call
out firmly. We we already had some of these backed up because we first
started making the call for audio recollections knowing TLFX was around the corner, So
we have several in the chamber already. But as you've noticed, a weekly
here in TLFX, we're going to try to post some audio recollections from members
of the Solar System to take the time to sit down for a couple of
minutes ten minutes. I don't care how long it is, Yeah, yep,
and just try to put your finger on why TLF, why you think
TLF has been going strong for a decade and what it means to you.
And we've gotten some great input so far coming your way. If you haven't
already heard it, you'll be hearing more of it. And we heartily encourage
you to send audio in this vein to the Lapsed fan at gmail dot com
throughout the course of twenty twenty four and we'll pick some of the best ones
and share them with the entire listenership in the form of what we're calling theself
TLFX testimonials. So lots going on, big year, big time, big
doings. And again, as I said, we're rounding third in this one
of a kind examination of the Funker's legacy. So we continue in the ECW
track, Boss, and I want to take a temperature check from you.
I mean, we saw Funk come in from the very first Eastern Championship Wrestling
taping and a Blazer trying to be a host that turns into a guy who
feuds with the book of the company at the time that a Gilbert who saw
the triple threat match or the three way dances you see that we called it
with Chane Douglas and Saboo. I'm sure you're not excited and thrilled to continue
in the Ring of Extreme. Do you find yourself feeling any differently than you
expected to hear on this LEGA, No, it's about the same, And
you expect me to feel how and do feel how? Upsetting and revolutionary stuff,
it's not. It's cheap. Okay, it's cheap. They don't have
a lot of resources, that's true. I mean, I mean it's a
cheap way to like listen, and I agree. You know, it's hard
for me to say because when I was when I was again, if I
had been, if I had found ECW in the nineteen nineties, I would
have been all about it and I might have nostalgia for it at this point
if I if I had found it at the right time. But now knowing
what these guys put themselves through, knowing how many are no longer with us
because of the YEP, the peripheral or whatever, you know, the collateral
damage. Yeah, the collateral damage is exactly it is. It's like I
can't I can't enjoy it. I don't get any enjoyment out of it.
Yes, I can say, oh yeah, great, you know Terry Funk
did live and didn't die directly because of this shit. But it's like I
I, I can't help but think of my dad fucking doing moon salts and
shit because he's you know, the same age, you know, and like
this is ridiculous, and it just I I just don't It's it just seems
like a cheap way to satisfy, not even satisfy, but to it's like
a drug. It's because they're never satisfied, right, It's like a drug,
really is what it is. And you because now you know that first
whatever it was, like that first moment when people realize that ECW is something
different, You're never going to get that back because it's like anything the first
time it happens, you can never get back that moment because your expectations are
now at a certain level because now you've seen something that excites you. Now
you've seen something that was different than what you ever saw before. And so
now like if they're one of the biggest problems being a wrestling fan is that
feeling in general, And now they've got it where people are doing extremely violent
things, completely unsafe things and damaging themselves and other people for what. No,
it's great, it's a great point. The for what is because that's
what it took to stand out in pro wrestling in the nineties. They have
a job. I mean, you've got to think a high of these guys,
but it's not a job if you're not getting paid well. That towards
the end, that was a big issue, of course, But no,
I mean, you know, these guys were getting paid well enough. ECW
actually I think punched above its weight in terms of some of the salaries,
and you were able to offer guys like Taz and Rob Van Dam when the
rating of their talent started aggressively, particularly from WCW first, and they're able
to put down the right guys got paid, But it was always robbing Peter
to pay Paul kind of thing. It seems to me it's teams that for
everybody who got paid, there was someone who didn't. In the next week,
right, there was someone different who didn't get paid and someone different who
did, perhaps more towards you know, when those contracts got locked in.
It it's basically the strategy you know that Vince has always had, although he
had sort of like an arm's length relationship with Paul and ECW, and in
fact, as we learned years later, kicked in some money to keep the
thing kind of going so that he could send guys like Al Snow and other
guys he didn't know what to do with down there for reinvention. It's just,
you know, sign guys to big contracts so that the guy who can't
afford it has to match it, like a Jim Crockett has to also start
offering big fat contracts to keep you, and then eventually they'll not be able
to pay those contracts. I'm sure that's part of his psychology with ECW before
he exited, and I'm sure Triple A just picked up that mentality as well.
It's just, you know, let him have Adam Copeland. You know
it's not going to last long. Of course, Aw's tremendously more wealth resourced
than he CW was in the nineties, but that's kind of that's kind of
the thing. So they ended up, i think, having to pay their
top guys a lot more than they ever expected they would have to, and
that's when the lower guys really started to get problems. But in the beginning.
You know, this is just a cast of misfit toys who probably wouldn't
make a time in the wrestling business if not for Hayman coming up with this
presentation where they actually had a place where a guy like Mikey Riprack could become
an ECW World champion and excite people just because a promoter saw in him a
chance to have a totally unpredictable and you know, just sort of an orthodox
looking guy pulled a rugout from under someone of him become champion for a great
moment, and Mikey Ripwreck had a job in wrestling for a decade because Paul
Hayman did that for him and Spike Dudley and know there's for him, you
know, I mean, Paul did it for the show, but he did
it with guys that WWF and WCW would have never done a single thing with.
But a lot of those guys, to your point, met untimely demises.
Too many of them did. And we sat here thinking of TLFX.
We sat here years ago now ten years after the ben WA tragedy in twenty
seventeen, trying to grapple with what culpability we have as wrestling fans, if
indeed you follow the logic that ben Wah's brain trauma contributed to the tragedy,
which was was basically gospel for years, and then all of a sudden people
decided to start questioning that again because people in the business can't deal with the
fact that they may be next, right, so they have to tamp down
that as a contributing factor in their minds. I understand the cope, right,
I understand the cope. But you know what about ECW. What about
grappling with that? What about grappling with the fact that they couldn't do what
you sat there expecting them to do without copious amounts of pain killers, Yes,
without you know, incredible risk to their to life and limb, and
a lot of ugly stories out of that locker room as the years went.
And if you go back and tell the ECW story with clear eyes, it's
it's very, very very few of these stories and positively and in fact,
there's about none of them. Do really you could say a guy like Taz,
you know, found a way to make a good living in the business
for the rest of his life and didn't have to, you know, subject
himself the further physical harm after currenting neck injury, but very few vandam he's
kind of on the purphery of the business now still kind of paid decent physical
health. It would seem high as a kite all the time, which you
know it's not to do. I'm not saying that disparagingly. I'm just saying
he's somebody that you know probably has as much has Mara wanted a thing for
feeling like he can walk around as much as Sure, you know the business
taking it easy on him. It certainly didn't. But I don't know,
and I think we need to keep that in mind as we watched Terry Funk's
CCW run, what conditions is he contributing to and what expectations is he looking
to say, because I think and the very beginning he had, along with
everybody else who's kind of plugged in the early stages of this underground thing,
were enchanted by the idea that this is just a wide open canvas of possibilities.
Sure, East w is gonna do things we've never seen before in pro
wrestling, and happens to have the unique mixture of like underground cred but with
enough exposure that they actually can afford people that we care about to come in
and do these things and get the usitary funk, to get the rub off
people we haven't heard from that can do wild stunts in the ring and things
like that. Guys like Public Enemy who no one in the world saw much
in, particularly Johnny Grunge, I mean Rock a Rock was a good high
flyer and stuff, but as a team I mean Todd Gordon and Paul Hayman
absolutely pushed them to the moon is like this and basically took guys that never
would have gotten jobs in WCW and made them eligible for that sweet ass you
know, fucking guaranteed money. They even went to WWF for a cup of
coffee until they started mouthing off like they belonged, which with the JBL in
the locker room is not going to last very long. That's a whole loving
story. But these are guys that got the shine off of the talent that
this group was able to attract, just small enough to go completely fucking ape
shit and just big enough to do it with people we actually cared about.
It might turn our heads and say, remember, Shane Douglas, you know
what I mean, Like like you said, if you if you had the
if you had the ability to watch ECW, or you're aware of ECW,
and you heard Shane Douglas was their champion, and you thought back to Shane
Douglas from WAFNWCW, you'd be intrigued to see what he'd become at least sure,
I say you'd love it. But there's something there. It's not just
a bunch of nobodies, you know, they're trying to try to intrigue you
with, and Terry Funk was among them, obviously the most tenured and respected
names. It was just it was such a it was a dash of like
caviare you know, almost in this fucking pedestrian fast food plate. Not to
say Terry Funk is fancy, but somebody of his prestige and respect in the
business who hadn't yet gone so far off the deep end that he was thought
of as like, you know, a crash test dummy almost of what he
would do in the ring. That was like endlessly fascinating that this group that's
this incredibly violent and edgy take on wrestling has a space for Terry Funk and
he's not and it's not a space where he's going down there as we saw
in our first episode of the ACW part of this journey. It's not a
space where he goes down there and acts like he's you know, lost his
mind and his burning things that that happens. But in the very beginning,
as we saw h when he goes face to face with Shane Douglas after keeping
the title off of the Three Way Dance and they do that that phony press
conference afterwards and Shane Douglas gets in his face. Terry, we see a
Terry Funk there. Boss. That's just like he's a James Dean. He's
like a he's like an old cowboy. He's not nuts at all. No,
no, and and and there is something to that because he wasn't the
crazy, the crazy guy he was. He was really just an Yeah.
He was like a like you. It's like a John Wayne type, you
know, kind of holding the fort. Yeah and kinda you know, the
last the last cowboy. He's someone crazy and enough, he's crazy, but
he's crazy to believe that ECW had a shot to become a phenomenon and he
would stake his reputation and put all the equity he built up in decades of
being on top of the wrestling business into this one quixotic little idea in Philadelphia.
That was what was crazy. That he would lend his cachet to that,
right and actually, you know, be willing to say, like,
if ECW totally sucks and fails, then but I'm about hardcore fans. He
knew, he knew that that was the thing to tap into, that that
was what ECW had to beat on. That was unique, and he broadcast
that and the clip we played, and and a lot of times when he
discussed what it meant to him to be in ECW and what he thought he
was there to accomplish. So that's what the original craziness of Terry Funk was
in ECW. It wasn't necessarily moon salts or hyper violent matches or anything crazy.
It was that he was willing to fly this flag and potentially fall in
his face and it was just for nothing because no one gave a shit because
they're in a bingo hall, you know. But it didn't. And that's
why Terry Funk lives on forever. Because when he told you something was worth
something, when he told you that there was a there, there there always
was. You know. He he led you places where yeah, even if
everything else around him sucked, he knew what the wrestling fan really needed to
feel satiated and wouldn't rest until he gave it to them. And he was
able to read that from a crowd in Saint Louis in nineteen seventy five just
as well as he was able to read that from a crowd of two hundred
people in Philadelphia in nineteen ninety three. So that's that's the legacy in so
many ways, what we talked about the Sabou series and his interplay with Saboo
last time. We're going to look at another Saboo match here, but this
one unlike the one we saw on the Northeast Independence, and just sort of
a snippet, a snapshot, if you will, of the kind of matches
Funk was having, not just an ECW with Saboo, but in all sorts
of Northeast indies that were, you know, sort of lean into all the
hype about Saboo and what his matches were like with Terry Funk and wanted to
bring it to an arena near you. We're gonna actually watch these two tangles
in the ECW ring. So if you can go and open up disc twenty
two. Boss, This is from nineteen ninety four, and in a lot
of ways it's going to set up I think, not just this twenty two
ECW Matches was like at the time, but how they began to plant the
seed in the minds of the fans that we are hyper creative and we are
going to deliver surprises, and we are going to deliver twist and turns,
not just stunts and not just violent table bumps. You know we're going to
also, I believe when I say it, reward you showing up expecting to
be shocked as well as it's almost like grossed out. Best of Terry Fun
twenty two. You got it? What's the timecode again? One? Fifteen
nineteen one, fifteen nineteen one, fifteen nineteen. Brother, all right,
I'm there, here we go, all right, three two one play here's
me, sir. But mister Hughes is no condition to tonight. I signed
a wrestling guys hang up here to give these people a wrestling match, and
I always have and I came here to wrestle for this man right here talking.
I coming on. How would you like it if I wrestled you out
it? Oh? What's a matter boy, come on home. Oh shut
up if you'd like to have a fight with me, not that I would
ever stand a chance with you. I know somebody that would want to face
you. Why don't you fight sat I'm not afraid of any man of peace.
People want me to wrestle him, I'll go ahead, Nash shows,
But what do you want? He just cracked Terry fuck with the telephone.
It's would be happy if challenge true. Stubby reference something real to ring.
No wait, carrybody puts a classic bolt on head just like the whip floor
into the sluts, the eye come taboos in the way the work you got
Terry fuckaboo stopping away now on Terry with the lemon Lion number on tonight.
Indeed he does look like a sprite can with Terry fuck take live mellow yellow
w That's true. What more could you ask for? That's Terry Sos came
in bridsided, funked with the phone. Funk came back with the bag over
his head. But Sad was going back to the way by his order los
ring the time he was still escaped the I don't know if you heard me
before, but did you know that Seth McFarlane was a referee. It seems
today that all you see is violence and wrestling and sexy everybody stalking Terry buck
stalking. Oh yeah, throws back in the ring. So this is just
stup of once after the three Day danced with Slate, so you know,
interesting is to tussling then been seated. Yeah, sabs a chair in the
frame, cracks funk across the back with it. I started looking a lot
more like the c W ran out of the bad enough fans that there's seats
a lord camer side on it gets the program, it's out of the window,
takes off Terry, the seat of the chair, clos on and funk
over the finds another ta to the land on somehow excluding using a steel chairge
right, because I should bring you up. Today, Jamie Douglas did face
for defending his easy W heavyweight title. The match ended in this qualification.
Therefore, the franchise is anyway champion Well Terry fuckus leg sliding down a bar
in the wrestler. Our next big card will be here at the c W
Arena on Saturday night, May fourteenth, and by the time this show airs
in a couple of days, you can call the East c W hotline s
away on fuck wows a little wobbley. Actually he goes face first into the
turnpok. That's when you know it's the nineties, babuy, when they're pushing
hotlines on puck once finding his way into the ring once again the right elevation
if you want to call up slap at all, terry fuck barely escaping and
deboo stumps away. Still there's I think it's Nike. They again, that's
right. Be a tourney point the aprint. It's an attack you can block.
You have come to life and land ahead. Fun for ab. A
couple of people heads and launches from the d. I'll tell you whatever we
had scheduled lam a multi camera shoot. Were so one style, hard camera.
I'm the leave, go get there. It's month into two. I'm
scheduled and we'll be like TD tailor floor. So this is on the Sports
channel Philadelphia, which is pretty primarily close to the role in the Eastern which
will be a man some syndicated stations in its each they blinked up their television
right there, sometimes four and finances turning into twenty four program how many stakes
they reached. But it is you know, it was a clopper together work.
This is before the barboe. It was just e C W l an.
That's what I think of that. Vctims in the cour of fun setting
up. They named themselves Extremeline and the streamed out was thrown down the beat.
But they weren't really really ready to like a stream bottle slope. You
know, they still could write that I wanted to appear to be in the
traditional wrestling territory fun signaling once again whose neck breakers and the funk appears to
be busted open signing the terry fight the man that the legend. You don't
talk about that the chair is a s funk loading the chair into the room
and throwing it in from the outside, holy dangerously at Taboo, nobody expected
them to be out there golding the chair out of driveld. Actually he took
the most leisurely See, I just wanted to sit down and want had I
want to head took a seat. I want to head took a chair.
I want to have took a taboo because ship. I want to have took
a seat because I went ahead and got tired. Oh yeah, that's how
much going ahead? Of course, you got time, threw up with the
chair and sp the headway that it flies off the apron to the table on
the floor entry table. I don't thing a busted. It's not that cold
concrete floor and the table you cross, you're starting place to books ruled the
rest seat there he goes here, he goes, this is a bad president.
He saw chair chair after chairs, gonna do it. Yeah, there's
the start doing it. You wait, we're gonna go into here, you
know, like this is the problem and getting this this is it like you
know, fans have been given the opportunity, they've been given the pen door's
box open to do ship that they really shouldn't be doing because they don't.
I'm sorry, but fails don't know how wrestlers protect themselves know or including photographers.
Look at the funk. Yeah your shirt shirt, your fucking your fucking
bitch at him. So he did he kind of did the spot we referenced.
He set the table up almost like a wall, and that's sad Ran
Sabinet walking bust it open while they just don't have to kill resources to give
them this type shot of it. So it's covered. It's kind of a
waste. Although he's blading more for the people than the TV comes. This
is Jesus sling Shop flip dive to the floor by Savage Lovers. The funk.
Yeah, you can just feel the gears turned, and I think,
like you know, like and like you know, the little kid monializes like
he's hoard away old or something and makes aquence. Yeare two more fantasies,
right, come home in the house is a total disaster, right talk is
about this and you wonder and you oh no, no, no, no
no, come on, still in the bottom rope like a letter bomb things
and thinking they just took off to the floor. Did the funk? They
my daddy? That's so why does he do it? I mean, I'm
thinking back to February because because he needs the money pretty much. Job being
called the night the line was brought job but Walmart the regulized the bomb arteas
and the clutches a little funk. Yes it is with no warning and this
guy is like you would never tell people's why. Oh my god, he
almost get into the fire in a chair like a bullet across the ring arties
in the prospector that chair. I should have gone. I hadn't gotten that
job, but move off the chair, clips on going up. It applies
from the faithful, enthusiastic, the blood thirsty. They're on their feet.
But I still don't think that they've lastering. The boy still come off as
a bit more distant. Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean it's
you know, you have to because you know why you got it. You
gotta when you when you introduce a new drug to the market. Yes,
okay, you need to. You need to get it around first. You
know, it's not like everyone's got it at the same time. You know,
try for christ sick hold it out chair. That guy, that guy
up front, he is, he is like, yeah, Terry terrf living
whatever the yeah that guy. Yeah, that guy right there he was and
he was customer number one, all right, that goes to right ingested the
drug and he was like, holy ship, this is what I need to
survive. Looks at last, customer number one at the new Old Old Country
Cafe they opened up on the road the cracker Barrel to funk had a chair
folded out of the corner, sab off the middle rope and I'm off the
wap. What's the masked wrestler doing here? What the is that like the
orderlies that bring Saba in animation straight out? Well, So Saboo was like,
it's like Kamala. I don't know who it could be in this case,
who's under the name, even Terry thinking that fucking stupid let him on
a table on the floor. Cage came out shot, Uh, you know
what, Taboo, you know what. I'm not gonna go ahead and do
that. I'm gonna get the fun out of dog. He cuts me in
a cross fire. So we got out of the way and celebrated with the
leg drop crashed through the table on the floor. But as we discovered the
last time, in the last one, he'll do that even if Terry Funk
isn't on the table right he'll he'll do that even though there's no crowd,
Like I heard he does that at his home. I good fun trying to
load this busted up table out of the road, Like went ahead and put
the fucking table, you know, but that son of a bitch had to
fucking break it apart. And I'm gonna go ahead and eat a heat a
eat a sardine. Pretty much. He was waving the funcker was waving on
help from the crowd. To get the table then, and maybe it was
this frest let day. Well, Paul's skiing getting fucking Zach Morris phone where
those tell the cell phones? What is the saxon in before it? Yeah?
Yeah, come on, he didn't have to flip phones. They dated.
Yeah, yeah, he's important. The laddies said, I'll be looking
too, and lads instead of back and then a piece of broken off table
funk of dt te Lion's attacking and destroyed one of his minions. Jerry,
there's one of the kids who came down and helped funk Turby in that way.
Might have been a wrestler, sure right to this kind of a come
on, don to the wright. Joey stalls telling he coming down if you're
table spouse furniture un picked up the broken piece of dable and deemed himself over
the head. Why don't do that down, Jerry buck, come on totally.
Yeah, there's still hunks coming out. He's gold with the spinning toe
hold. One of the massmen that brought Savu out got on the aprins and
funk level hit of the left and I was pummeling on this the rocket rebel
rocket r all right now, Jose him as the rock and rebel who was
a wrestler one w at the time, taking the payoff from Paul Up.
Now the fun We're going back to the spinning told on several and other maskman
in the open funk Tag's hand going for the mask again and it's coke math
before that Taboo's number one handling Savage, number one handler. I guess he
wasn't really established, just a teavcator d again the legs like picked up.
Back to the spinning toe hol the Fuckersaboo desperately trying to flight it all carry
clips becomes another mask man attacking the fucker springing neck breaker? Who's this?
Have we established no rules? Was never just qualifications? Even early problem I
think that was always shut up post up. He just dropped like Jesus,
oh huge lemy off the top by this mask man who is he was not
among the orderly who brought Sabbage to the room. There's the dropped the sabboot
co two Funk is down for three thanks to the interference of this Paul hired
help put it man that the story is it dory? Funk? Is it
dunk? The Dorians coming away pick up the phone on businesses. He having
the ring, he just dropped it out. Tommy Scott in here, Mick
Foley's who is it that beautiful Bobby? Bobby, Bobby, that's a c
W Bobby. What the fuck? Todd Gordon hits the ring like he's an
invading w W. Lesson he gets dropped, Paul Haymond Mount cadd Gordon striking
him in the back of the head with the phone. It's chaos. Ship's
taking a lot and looks like Bobby and has been doing. Just ahead,
Wait a minute, who the fuck is as said carn Anderson, double a
easy dupoy? What Anderson? They're going that? If the fuck is going
on here, they're going barn Anderson and Bobby hitting and Lucy w in nineteen
ninety four Doo Doo too, the saboo by the enforcer. What are the
people doing what they're doing? Are you look the step Stadlers at this time
walking on take the shirt office. They're definitely dangerous Alliance guys too, that's
for sure. That's it. I haven't seen this fired up in years in
the West and West than people don't think. I don't think I've seen this
fired up since then. What a surprise that was it still it's still Easter
appeged me. They hadn't done the I think it was later in ninety four,
so but they had, you know, kind of understood that we need
to start delivering some hyper violence and letting Saboo room free. But yeah,
that that's that's the kicker on ECW, man, you know, like they
bring in these guys that, like you think would make such an awkward fit
for the style, and they just find ways to fit into the tapestry of
what ECW was presenting like when they brought it in. But how did that?
How are they able to do that because they were both working with w
CW. And that's this is sort of how we come to the next leg
of our story. I don't want to get too far ahead. Well,
yeah, who else was working with w W in nineteen ninety four, or
think about it was Funk the Funker, who was in the War Games ninety
four for the second stud Stable yep, yep, who did the matches we
watched in our Dusty Rhoades feud episode with Dusty and Dusted on the Clash in
nineteen ninety four. Yep. So for as much as Terry Funk is flying
the flag of being, you know, the embodiment of an anti WWFWCW style
wrestling. He sure found ways to go get paid to WCW and WWF during
the course of his ZCW tenure, that's for sure, But he did it
in a way where he managed to come back and be accepted as someone who
didn't sell out. No one ever chanted you sold out at Terry Funk,
even though he made a lot of the same moves that people who were on
the receiving end of those chants did. And that's that's saying something, that's
there's something there. So the angle we just saw at the conclusion of the
Terry Funk Sabou match from April of nineteen ninety four and ECW was a tag
match against you know, with Arn Anderson teaming up with Terry Funk taking on
Bobby Eaton and Saboo, and it was it was It was a really strong
match in term but you know, it wasn't really about Terry Funk really,
it was more about the holy shit factor of Arn and Bobby Eaton and the
novelty of seeing like a Saboo work with these older guys. It was really
interesting to see him try to fit his high flying in with their ground based
attack. But it wasn't you know, it was the exact It wasn't full
of violence, it wasn't full of table crashes, it wasn't full of chairs
or hyjinks. It was just straightforward, you know, balls to the wall
wrestling that aren't innerson typified in the ECW ring. So ECW was presenting a
full buffet of different things that it was hard to say this is what ECW
is because the next match was a totally different style and that east W continued
that through bringing in ring Maisterio first and presenting, you know, just all
out high flying lucha libre without a lot of violent spots right in the middle
of a show where there was fire and tax and barbed wire and people getting
dismembered and all that. And then they put out Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko
doing the best technical wrestling match of the year in US Pro Wrestling on the
same card. So how are we to deal with this? How are we
to categorize this? We want to, but Paul Hyman's making it very difficult.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I will say, I mean,
I did you know they're they're there became such a I will say one
thing about about e c W that I I grew to appreciate based on the
ww's version of e c W, was that there there there really was like
such an array of styles that they would put on that it wasn't just hardcore.
It wasn't just the extreme violence. You did have some really incredible wrestling
matches as well. Yeah, I mean you had Ben Wah, you had
Jared right, you had Malenko, you had Guerrero, you had Mysterio,
you had Psychosis, you move into Guerrera, right, all these guys that
WSW put out there to blow our minds with work rate between nWo segments,
it's just took it from ECW. Just watch dc W said, I'll have
that guy and that guy in that they brought in Sabo in nineteen ninety five.
It didn't work out as we've talked about like in our World War three
nineteen ninety five episode for instance, but that's just that was sort of like
that was like the outsourced part of you know, how we're going to fill
this card out. And then they had the relationship with some of the Mexican
officers through Conan. So they've got a whole lot more LOOTI doors in,
including ones that never came through ECW. But the workhorses, you know,
they out came from ECW first. Hayman brought them to American audiences first.
In so many ways and among the what's the word I'm looking for the anachronisms
that you wouldn't expect to see inn ECW was. I mean, this is
just as anti ECW as you would think. But the Funker needed some help
as he found himself embroiled in tag team feuds, not only with the likes
of Saboo and Bobby Eaton, well not Sabu was yeah, sab Bob Eaton,
but also the public enemy. He was in need of a partner.
And we know who the Funker is. Gonna call disc number twenty three,
boss, if you could all right here on the laps trunk, we're going
to take you to heat Wave nineteen ninety four. Heat Wave, of course,
became an annual summer tradition for ECW, and there in fact, their
second pay per view was heat Wave in ninety seven. What uh, what's
the time code? Oneh one? And we're going to take you to the
ECW Arena July sixteenth, nineteen ninety four, No rope barbed wire match.
Oh my God, the public Enemy versus Terry Funk When You're ready yep three
two one play, Oh my god? Who do you say? God?
I said double? Here at w he Wave ninety four, the ring ropes
have been removed from the ring in the hard wire ship at m W style
barbed wire matchup the most dangerous match never sanctioned here in the heath. This
is a hard course again the legendary what the CELA score with the e W
PAG two champions Republic editor and have the hoodies picked off before than they can
show tory function elsa w re ready to be team he takes sparkle borns dog.
I need you to come to tell you what what? What is e
c W. It doesn't matter what it is dunk. I need you to
come to e c W. Okay, what do you what do you do?
What do you need me to do? I need you to do a
barbed wire no rope match with me? What it's a no rope in the
ring, dunk, no ropes, all barbed wire. It's very dangerous.
I don't is it safe? Yeah? Okay, as long as dad says
it's all right, Mom and dad says it's all right. Very don't want
to do anything that mom and dad don't like. Please, I'm sure they
told themselves in some ways. This is the natural extension of the Dowyfunk Senior
Texas death Match against the Iron Might d. This is what it was locked
down with the Boys Ranch. Frankie Hill Murdoc. Yeah, this say exactly
from the Boys Ranch to the Bingo Hall. I remember Dad telling stories about
like this where they'd put kid put boys in the in between barbed wire and
see about what happened. I want to haven't tried to myself. Wasn't a
probably to a parents sent the kids? Therefore, what do you think of
the public enemy? I don't think we've talked a yet about them. Do
you have an I don't, I don't think. I mean, I don't
know. I don't. Yeah, we've seen them a couple of times,
and I mean, I know we've seen them in dow C w Right,
but I don't really recall they're fair fair enough. I just want to make
sure there wasn't something in the TNFX deck had a log that I'm forgetting.
We've probably couldn't say something I don't remember. I'm sure I really don't remember.
Well, here I probably don't like them. Here they're tucking tail.
Terry and Dorry were in the ring ready to go, and of course bunk
house gear I surrounding my barb wire. The public enemy coming halfway down the
aisleway and say fuck this, and they go through a door that leads you
up to what they call that the crow's nest. I think, yeah,
they like higher up perch, the least wad that things to have with Joe
Stausers to have them at the ounce both and you know people jump off that
back. Can they get suplexed off that day? And I'll let you do.
You have a carbar match, asshole. He's calling to you, and
don't look at me. I want to theres match referee Jim Muller will be
officiating this match. I guess he drew the short straw. I'm not getting
anywhere near that bar boar. Oh, I get an asshole chance ninety four.
You nailed the boss about that fan in the front one of the identified
bund to day one sort of like in the body of the ass w and
the past of the show side, it says Barbara the way foods get said,
Yeah, see he is, he's he's one of those guys like he's
he he he swallowed the fucking pill the first time. Among other philosophs,
Yes, among you know, well, come on, you know when you
swallow the ECW pill, you do have to do it with food, otherwise
you get nauseous, although ironically it's so you get nachos and you do swallow.
Take well. Finally, due to the cat call Terry Funk, the
public uniss seeing now it didn't a worthy to get into the way gingerly with
a ton of what a sense apprehension about the barbar and they're really scared of
it. One cord overalls. It looks like stud stable Tarry to me,
yeah for sure. Oh, I didn't have any other clothes the bar this
or bunkhouse buck Dorry doesn't have any clothes at home. I had to let
him borrow some home mine. Dory's definitely dressed like he's gonna pull brush brush
it. Hey, Terry, are we gonna are we gonna take care of
brush? After the match, said another Funk brother. I know about there's
Dunk Terry Brush, Jimmy Jack. Oh no, no, no, no,
no no, almost whipped into the barbed wire? Was Dorry Funk Junior.
I'm old bad. I didn't plan on that. Nobody told me.
It's so wild that it was star. Did you say there was gonna be
barbed wire? We talked about it and I did Dunk, I said there's
barbed wire. Didn't tell me then, Okay, I'm going for a slam.
This has been a series of vice on them so far, as far
as like, here we go again, going for a slam. Okay,
okay, thank you, Terry trying on the chainsaw Charlie outfit saying how he
feels swam. I'm gonna do something with you. Okay, I don't know
who you are. There we go? How is that, Terry? It's
Dory Funk June. You're talking to you? As double whip Roco Rock Baseball
slides to avoid hitting the barber, ends up going underneath it and getting caught
up in it. Really faithful Rocco Rock looking like a fucking substitute math teacher
Dory hits the floor in the public Enemy, putting the double towel ow ow
ow ow what can you guys, pull your poncas a little better. Please
think about when we start blaps fun talking about Dorry beating, drinking the skul
of like sixty nine or wrestling and Tony and ok between seventy and Yeah.
Now he's now, he's exactly where he deserves to be. I mean,
I know we were going to follow Terry Funk to these like lacky detours that
you wouldn't necessarily expect him to take for the decades. The fact that he
took Dory along more than his sated Where Terry goes, Dorry goes Dory.
I didn't look at him, his hair, his stringy and got, god,
pretty sure it's a real war bloodsheet, Terry. What do you want
me to do? Care? I want to find out. Oh the funker
on his neck the first one, Oh rock O rock goes for a a
splash and ends up eating the wire as the funker moves out of the way.
Took Hims and Ben Savage back there? Yeah, indeed, well there
it is. They get the visual of Rocco rocks shirt. Oh god,
and it's all tangled up and pulled by the wire. Ay thoughts, any
feelings? Just he's just so gruesome. It's not even bloody yet, and
it's gruesome. Just I mean, if you heard the dory Funk was in
it, no rope BARBERI or tagging that to the public Enemy and UCW,
you would have to find this take. I mean, he's just like,
what the fuck are you talking about? He's taking his boot off and he's
swimming on these these well these hoodies as they used to call the hut on
the background, these hoodies. I got them. I got him before I
got him Zuckerberg and all the fucking word he software at the Woods, took
hoodie for the frilly side. Right, he's breaking a chair? Is the
funk turning a goddamn chair? It's a piece of ship. Oh he crowned
Johnny Grunt with it. And Johnny Grint a very good friends with the Bunny.
My wife he lived there and liked Johnny Grunch's death. As we talked
about it was one of, along with Anny Girl, one of the things
that put Cross over the edge. Johnny Grunts during an overdose, of course,
So that's fine, Yeah, of course, normal traditional that's what happens.
I drank anything, Jason Redge hall en Off, I'll go to that
to himself. He leaned into the barbier and it gets distilled. Right,
He's got it. He's gotta got color. I gotta get you know,
I want ahead, and got colored for the fans because I didn't know any
other way to get the fans, because I don't think they'd like black and
white. I didn't. I don't think they'd like a straight black and white
match. I figured we better get colored. Johnny Grudge is the one bleating.
Look at the funk. You find a way to put that fire so
near his fucking literal jugular vein. Of course, why do you have to
do that? Well, you know, I wanted to get the fans involved
in the match in a way that maybe didn't. They didn't think they wanted
to. Terry Terry, I'm bleeding story. Dory gets dropped the wire fucking
throat. Look at it. Terry Story is forever a guy who gets helped
get out of better. It's forever guy who needs help. Well, apparently
not helped to throw those downtown right hands on one rock o' rock. He's
battling Terry. Somebody made me bleed. I got a boo boo, that's
dunk. I got a boobo. We'll hope you give a water. Thanks
Terry, I got a boo boo. Can you I need someone to get
me a band aid? Please call me back. I woke up on the
roof of b Terry. Terry is dunk one of the cows. Ate me,
Terry. It's come home from the bare Chin coming on, look it
up, call us back. Somehow the Public amily managed to both get themselves
completely enraptured and barbed wire without the monks necessarily doing it to them. You
know, I want to head warm my night shirt ahead, dressed up like
I'm laying down for a warm winters snap and then bank before Christmas. I
want to head war my my sweat pants and my and my long Johns.
Meanwhile, Johnny Grun's making a bee line for Long john Silders looking on that
the NCW shirts that say the search Destroy wrestle a out, so those there's
a little more had strangle. I don't think they have the barb wire RECW
logo yet, but this match probably give them the idea. Yeah, it
had a tag match already. These two teams and I without barbers. This
is a big blow off to the field publican ship talking the Funks big time,
and they were guessing the wad. Oh my god, that's terrifying kids.
Johnny grunsm lid bring with a big pile driver door funking lock a rock.
Here we go calling for it. What do you see? Remove it
ready? Bos here hers Oh, and they're hitting grums in the head like
come along, Oh this is not okay. I mean, they're thirty forty
chairs in a room. Terry power drives Johnny horns aproximate to a few of
them. But look at these people. Look at that. It's a less
John Stocks. These the guy who back then were the second that I take
a pitch sho. Look at the ISNs. Terry Funk is giving these guys.
You don't give fans any a green lights about throwing chairs will start the
match, Barber to the squeams. That's Terry Who's gonna go in there and
tell you to do it anyway because it's a chance to make wrestling full.
Un So Funk has left the world. I don't have without party are apture
on his early bargo firsts now, I went ahead and went home. He's
left the arena. We lost signal here. Oh god, are about let's
see you like a set of headlights outside the side door of the arena and
all the fans are believing to see what Terry Funk's doing. Look at that
really full of chairs? Don't hit Funk in the head? Yes, and
what do you think of that? I don't love it? Thank you.
They don't have the Jervis has the other promotions. Don't that that's the boss
to say you left s at this while they have their own an answer to
the people to please stop three chairs? I know right this really truly was
he cw living on the edge. They new the hats, so he hated
the son of a successful way. They're gonna get suit of intro. The
question is how far can you push it? Let's just put it this way.
With Terry Funk on the roster, he'll he'll lead you to the promise,
lads and even him and is the living embodiment of of better to ask
forgiveness than SHOT's exactly craft all about three to using music you don't have license
to pulling in television and fucking showed ah Dorry focus swinging a trash cans the
damns day. I've never seen dude get a trash can with it. I
wanna, I just want to. I'm just gonna hit a guy with it.
Okay, I'm gonna hit anybody who walks. Boy funk lost the up
in the Terry has got a double Terry and on these chairs in the area,
Terry is a down scaving what's going on the chairs in the read but
obviously a ta the I'm gonna grab a chair and just see what happens.
I'm not a ship. This doesn't look like the carry him down. He
went down and look down. This does look like like the back lot of
a bad man managed party until class. Terry funks back in the april,
getting hammered by a trick, but with a trash can and rock a rock,
and he navigate the barbed water ropes. I heard he asked Vicky if
he could use a trash can, you know, during six and he was
hammering her. But I just didn't that she was not a fan of that.
I think Terry has found a way to has found a way to get
himself wrapped up with a wire. They'll think him screaming a rock a rock
for some help, because I don't think he can get out of the position
he is I'm me the fuck out of here to herself. Wow hits the
floor and the wire comes off, and that's like Johnny Grun Johnny Grins's wirecutters.
He's liberating those barbed wire screens who have the hit brof. It makes
you wonder why I know I am the first smell in there in Gerial I
love. I'm sure, I'm sure that it well, I don't know.
I don't know what smelled worse that he used to give you Arena or the
Sportatorium. That's composers found the West. He says, we're only wrapping South
off like Christmas Riddle or the darm War, but find it don't come off
tied up with the dum chair there too. Morocco covers three. Wow.
Terry Funk in a bed of barbed wire is beat down with a couple of
chair shots in the ring and covered by the public enemy. It is over
and Terry is a bad position. We are you can't move it into it'll
be risking. She's adcut out door's up imature a post bell like Kara good
on Terra I got a chair again. When you see what happens, it's
all gonna be okay. Dory's here, shut out of public, gating me
with the plastic folding chairs. Oh shit, dunk funk Nick down, We're
gonna watch this one of the folks and door funk hits the war and the
boss man steps up. Get the room for class. Oh oh oh no,
Terry's standing there like the trash cans and surgically test this person. Feel
like a hardly tosses it. Just go with me there, but okay there,
it is very nice. I know people love them. Republican Tennessee Terry.
What's the chairs in here for? Terry? Trying to take the barber
office? They can't. Yeah, it looks like fucking Maxi moment before had
They're on his chest, under his arms, across his head and he's just
piling up chairs and they're throwing more, they're throwing more. Look, he's
part of what he's presiding over. He's like a Jesus of this fucking hit
on hit a guy, hit hitting a head of guy. And he's got
a crown of thorns on fucking running around like a fucking leather face and in
uh Texas chains on Manchester, emphasis on Texas, Yeah, and Moilla chainsawn
as a Monilla mom house. Oh is that how we answered the phone at
the at the ranch Amorilla mom house. That's a mom house. Huh.
So the folks are the standing picking up chairs from the pilots and whipping them
down to the carcases of the publicity. That's what That's what we're going on.
This is what the fuck is this scrap yard of the this is if
Harry can't get under that's how ripped up his tights are his tights are torn
to pieces, or wish her to help to take them along enough to notice
Terry's almost dead, Terried? You know you got barbed wire all over your
body? Christ you don't got that into this predictment for about ten minutes.
Where have you been, Terry? I don't know what a predicament is,
so I can't help you with that one. That's where you lost me,
Terry. Uh carry Terry Fuco stands up to Fox hit the wire in fuck
it? Terry? Can we go home? Now? I get that's the
problem, and that's the problem. Dounk, we already went home. Yeah,
he's a t c w Oh, then I might just take that take
a look right here in front of the fans, is that. Okay Funk
is cutting the wisest the dog. The man is carry out Terry Rock,
turn round away, enraptured and wire the chair. Bitch. This is when
something is another resting promotion that the play. Yeah that he you know what,
He's not wrong. I don't know it's a good thing or not,
but he's not wrong. It good Funk wander the landscape at the ghost of
Christmas past. We're a disaster? Is he doing to himself? To what
end? To what end? Terry Funk? Did the moon dogs ever come
to? Did not have? I'm surprised about that. They were se fit
right in here. It's a DCW hat wear in front row fans will be
the listed to help with the bolt cutters to trouble free the Funker from his
Terry I've never done. I've never used before. Know what's going on.
I haven't worked with barbed wire before. Yeah, that's the problem. Barbaar
doesn't work, Terry. You know you gotta tell the barbed wire to sell
though. That's fass. Okay, Terry, where am I so? For
better or worse? What we're seeing here is Terry Funk doing what it takes
to what a special spot in the hearts of the house and what's becoming he
said, your friend base listen to it. I prefer Japan today. After
this Joey co Yeah, Tony Grune is on his feet, taken off for
Charlotte Noweman's business. After they get the ship on you. But the Funks
are done. They're walking off to hopefully free Terry Funk from his Uh can
you imagine if you never get free of that? And he was like every
single time from now listen en, he said that E C doub boss,
it started to happen. I mean, see here, this is part of
the problem with it all is that, you know, a lot of these
guys get this rip patents were being amazing wrestlers for doing just violence and it's
not actually that good. No now, I mean that was just the damnedest
thing you ever saw at the time, but it's not particularly good. And
I think that's that's ECW in those days. You know, it's like the
people who can it's to me, it's it's no different than the people who
fucking talk about you know, the hell in a Cell ninety eight as being
this incredible match, which it's not. And it's kind of what the point
you're making before ECW kind of in an odd way doesn't hold up because of
the fact that you lose the context of this being something that no one had
ever seen before. Yeah, and all the work it does for you.
I mean not to say that there wasn't. I mean people who had tape
traded, saw FMW, no wrote barber matches. You heard Joey Styles even
make reference to this as being an FMW style match. They existed, they
were just hard to find and they certainly weren't mainstream. So I'm sure for
most people who saw this tag match with the Funks in the Public Enemy was
the first time they saw ropes replaced by barbed war. Sure, and that
does like ninety percent of the work. But now when you watch it after
having seen a million barboer matches, it's like, what, what's the big
deal here? Well, not only that, it's not even that as much
as it's it's you know, and I know these kinds of matches still happen,
but it's just not like it's disturbing. It's disturbing that this sort of
violence, which is not safe. Okay, it's not like a stunt being
done in a movie or a TV show like this is they're they're the only
thing they're not doing here is they're not actually you know, is that the
only thing that that that's kind of fake here is they know who's gonna win.
Yeah, everything's right there with him. It's not just these we behind
the years kids trying to make an impression. No, No, he's the
one covered in barbed wire, right. And I just again, and it's
a it's a it's a it's really a thing of the moment. Yes,
it's a thing that they They were very smart in, you know Hayman in
that he knew that the wrestling fan was sick of the cookie cutter YEP matches
exactly what wrestling fan it's like what we do, Like we know like why
people feel it used to be better, and so we can like answer the
questions before people know exactly how to ask them. And Paul Hayman knew exactly
what it was about the Big two presentation of the nineties that dissatisfied people,
and he gave voice to that and the promos that these wrestlers cut, the
matches, they did, the style they presented, and he crystallized it for
him without them having a real They knew it felt cheesy, they knew it
just didn't feel like it didn't have the grit that they loved about pro wrestling
before it became you know, kind of McDonald ezed and corporatized in the nineties,
and he knew he knew that if he presented this certain thing and had
wrestlers, you know, kind of have the liberty to say these types of
things that instantaneously it would make the wrestling fan go, Yeah, that's exactly
the kind of unpredictability and crazy shit. I mean, it's like, you
know, it's like Terry in Memphis when we went back to the Lawlor feud.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's updating that and putting it forward. And
so it's no small coincidence that Terry Funk's among them. So we talked about
it. We heard there the ECW chant. I think it's the first time
we've heard an ECW chant from a crowd in the matches we've watched this far
on the ECW leg of the Lapstunk Journey. And so that's same as far
as this group of fans coalescing around what it means. Maybe they maybe they
chanted it in the three Way Dance. I don't think they did, but
they did. No, that was the most prominent one, at least so
far, that we just heard there. And so now we turned to the
pages of Terry Funks book. I've shared with you Boss the excerpt that which
you could share with the Solar System from the Funker talking about the nature of
this fan base that he suddenly found himself existing to satisfy. The ECW fans
were different from any other group of fans I've ever encountered. They were loyal
and came every week. But these people were radicals. It was like there
were one or it wasn't like there were one or two. I'm talking about
an arena full of radicals. I just remember Ben wah, Malinko, Saturn,
and Guerrero. Yeah, that was pretty much four guys, right,
They're all there and they and they thrived on being known as a radical group.
They did, actually they did for a while. They thrived on being
very knowledgeable fans too. But they also kind of liked the title of those
ECW fools. They created a few new chants, some of which were quite
controversial. A lot of the guys didn't like it. When the ECW crowds
would chant you fucked up, you fucked up at them. Well, the
thing is they were right, Terry. Whenever a guy got that chant,
it was because he fucked up, and we all knew you'd better not fuck
up in front of those people because they'll let you know about it. But
when you had a good one, they loved it and they let you know
that. They appreciated him more than any other fans in the world, although
some of the Japanese crowds were at about the same level. They really loved
that product, and believe me, they really missed that product. I was
sure don't remember wrestling anywhere else for the fans chant of the promotion's name.
They're all something's missing here. Yeah, he talked about This is him continuing
on. It's there's a partial sentence there. If you could just start with
I'd able to become attached to them. He's talking about the THECW fans,
especially the mainstay fans, the ones that were always at the shows. I'd
really become attached to them and still keep in touch with some like John Owen.
John was a paraplegic with a lot of health problems, and wrestling was
a great release for him, So being a paraplegic, it was it made
him. It was a release to watch others potentially become paraplegic. Yeah,
okay, that's pro wrestling right there. Yeah, he loved and the other
fans loved him. Another fan, Old Mo, took me everywhere, including
to the hospital. Her car was no limo, but the price was right.
Say that's right. The ECW wrestlers would give one hundred percent every night.
They wanted that thing to work so badly. There was a sense that
we were underdogs fighting the giants. At least we thought we were, and
it really helps breed unity when you have a common phone. It gave all
the guys a bond, and we were all really tied together. There.
It is Funk on the emerging ECW fanbase and how they worked symbiotically with the
wrestlers to make ECW what it was. Now for all of that romantic and
poetic waxing and nostalgic about how great the ECW fans were and how Terry Funk
existed in this particular point in time to satisfy them and to cater to them
and to reciprocate their passion for him and what he did. He also goes
back to WCW right Todd Gordon's book, and this is how it happened,
And this is sort of what we see in play when we see a Bobby
Nannarnederson who had not really truly disassociated themselves from WCW, but we're still showing
up in this Philly Indy. What's going on here with television? And what
turns out was happening and we found this out years later, was there is
basically a back channel agreement to have WCW guys come through and works in ECW
shows and for what well, we'll let Todd Gordon tell in his recently released
book, This is some of I think the sharpest color we've gotten around why
some of these WW contracted talents would have been welcomed in ECW at the time,
and further why a one Terry Funk would have been welcomed back to WCW
without it burning any kind of particular bridge at the fledgling ECW ord began getting
back to us. Todd writes that the wrestlers and the two major federations were
watching us regularly. I had heard that first from my old friend Kevin Sullivan.
When I booked arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton from WCW. Kevin was booking
there in WW and put the loaner deal together so I could have Arne and
Bobby make an explosive appearance at the ECW arena that generated the biggest pop I
ever heard from our crowd. So it's Kevin Sullivan. He's the one.
Don't forget. He was among those wayward souls looking for a place in the
industry post the territorial collapse, post the collapse of Dusty's attempt to start Florida
up again, post you know, being on the booking committee and a heard
and washing out from that. He was in those earliest DCW shows, Kevin
Sullivan was. That's how Nancy a woman ended up in ec W. Yeah,
and she sort of stayed behind and continued working in ECW, ended along
Shane Douglas while Kevin Sullivan went to book at w c W, which was
always a curious thing while they were still together, and Sullivan always had his
eye on ECW. Todd Gordon earlier in his book talked about how Kevin Sullivan
showed a not so thinly veiled interest in who Todd Gordon was going to make
ECW booker after Eddie Gilbert was basically was fired from the job. And I
don't know he Kevin Sullivan kind of got what was going on at ECW earlier
than most and so when he got power in the book over at WCW with
Dusty back in charge, you know, under a under Urch Bischoff, what
do you know, Suddenly there's a relationship here. He c W had a
relation not just with WWF, but they had a clear relationship in nineteen ninety
four with ECW. And it was such a clear relationship Boss that it would
lead to brutal rumors later that all Todd Gordon really was toward the end was
a mole for w stems locker room to try to communicate that there is interest
from WCW in you, and here's the number, and why don't you give
them a call? And it's a fascinating story. It doesn't really belong here
in the lapsed funk. It has so many twists and turns. Thanks to
Todd Gordon's recently released book, a lot of nuance has been put on the
story that I think has been missing over the year. It's not necessarily missing
but not laid down and written word and it's just it's just wonderful because it's
like Hayman is is telling Todd Gordon that will tell the locker room you're the
mole, or will tell the locker room there is a mole, and it'll
make you the greatest heal ever when you're revealed as a hole. It's a
storyline. And then Todd Gordon turns around and realizes, according to him at
least, that Paul Hayman is actually telling the boys there is an actual mole
in the ECW locker room looking to take us down and poach all our top
talent. Amazing. Well, Terry, I want to tell you I did
see a mole. I saw a mole crawling around the floor right there on
Gillian Hall's face. I think, Terry, it's dunk okay. Dory's here,
it's gonna be okay. I think I saw a mole at home.
I'm not worried about moles at home, Dory. I'm not worried about moles.
And Amilla, Well, I just you're talking about a mole. I'm
not an Amarilla. I found a mole. It was it was in the
garage and I just wanted to say, I think I found it, the
one everyone's talking about over there in Philly. I found the male indeed,
Detective Dunk on the case. Do you know why I've said a couple of
times. I don't know if I've said this yere on the show. I
don't think. So what, Dorry's here, It's gonna be okay. Todd
Gordon tells a story about how they were, you know, looking to expand
down into Florida, where, of course Dory Funk has the Funk and Conservatory
and Okala and it's kind of involved in promoting local shows in the area that
ECW first started to try to set up shopping to expand down to Florida,
and there was like there's like a walk through for some reason. Paul Hayman
and Todd Gordon were in the arena early and it was empty, and suddenly
Marty Funk, Dorriy Funk Junior's wife shows up and they're wandering around, and
I think there is a reason to connect with Dori Funk. It wasn't of
critical importance, time was not necessarily of the essence, but the way Todd
Gordon tells the story, Marty Funk suddenly shows up a little while later,
almost in a breathless state of existence, starts saying, Everything's okay, Dorry's
here. Everything's gonna be okay. Dorry's here. And that was like shorthand
between Gordon and Hayman when they were actually talking in friends for like just you
know the absurdity of what they were involved in. Dori's here, It's gonna
be okay because he just showed up and didn't say It's like, why is
Dory even here? Like he's no one asked him to be here, So
why is anyone acting like his his presence is something we've all been waiting to
have confirmed. What I mean, I'm I just I just came exactly well
enough of what happened back in the hotel Dory. Oh, so this is
Kevin Sullivan talking to Todd Gordon at the time of this loaner deal being reached
in this sort of I don't know on holy alliance between WCW and ECW ninety
four. They're all watching you in the locker room. Kevin said, you
don't know what you got there the night Arn did his run in for me,
Todd Gordon Wright, So I heard the same advice again. After his
match, Arn asked if he could talk with me, and we headed over
to a corner where he pulled up two chairs so dramatic. Have a seat.
He instructed, you got something here. I don't know how you did
it, the audience, participation, the anticipation, their chance, but you're
onto something here. Don't fuck it up. I never forgot that Arn Anderson
was serious about the business of wrestling as and was a heavy WCW player.
He's stooge. No, no, I'm sorry, Oh, I'm sorry.
That's two paragraphs put together. Wow, I kept the heed from another sentence
and then jumped to stooge. Okay, this is uh the Freud survivor.
Yeah, this is actually Todd talking about how also in Stanford, the ECW
was on their radar because you know, famously Vince McMahon would have signed Howard
Finkel to track what was in the newsletters, what was being said on the
hotlines, what was being said on the internet when that became a thing,
and report back to him and like a dossier. And so Todd Gordon talks
about that recive the Fink here said he'd watch ECW and report back to him.
Every week. Imagine being given that job. I'm too busy and important
to even fast forward through this one hour tape, but you seem like you
have a lot of time to jack off, So watch this for me,
fink. I'm sure Frince wouldn't have liked what he was seeing as we were
saying fuck WW and their steroids on TV. The truth was, Vince McMahon
could have put me out of business rather handily if he'd wanted to. If
he'd run a card across the street from each of our shows, that would
have been it, particularly when their emulation of our product started to Yeah,
if you run a show across the street from the ecw Ren, it would
literally be in a heroin den. So I don't know, I don't know
actually know if that was always an option, but I get his point started
to take off and they'd abandoned wrestling clowns, pig farmers and dentists. I
know we had a segment of diehard fans that would be lined up to get
into our show while mooning theirs, but the large majority of fans would want
to see Diesel, Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker in person. Fortunately, Vince
thought we were worth more to him alive than dead, for reasons I didn't
fully know yet. So Paul's so Todd's the mole w Terry Taylor and poaching
talent, I don't. I don't do that. I don't poach talent,
right. I believe in healthy competition. I don't bankroll competitors. I don't
help I don't drop up any It's free enterprise. And if you can succeed
on your own merits and your own bootstraps and your own finances, and all
the power to you. But I'm not here to to issue any charity or
create an unfair market place. I'm just here to I'm just here to watch
and be entertained. That's correct, be entertained by the demise of people that
I ostomize I said in motion. I mean, the demise happens. It's
it's you know, it's not because of me. It's just a thing that
was meant to be. No one ever ran a show beside hours to put
us out of business. We did have an interesting offer to do that to
someone else. I made a call the WCW headquarters. Todd Gordon writes to
book some talent for our upcoming shows. Why is he calling w W headquarters
to book talent? It's so weird, and WW president Eric Bischoff asked to
speak with me. He got on the phone and in the first and only
time I spoke with him, he said, tell you what, Pal,
you ever want to run a show in the same town Cornett's running, I'll
give you my whole roster. Wow. Dropped it like I already knew all
the backstage drama that seemed to swirl around a business polluted populated rather with paranoid
predators, populated with paranoid predators. Write that one down. I'm sure it's
wrong and an unfair characterization, but I didn't know yet the full scope of
what Paul was preparing to tell the locker room. This is as we wind
further down to that mole rumor. If it was going to keep the talent
working and not fighting with each other, I would deal with their knowing I
had tried to get Sabou, Sandman and Phonsie a job at w CW.
So that's what Todd Gordon's doing. He is his contact was very clearly Terry
Taylor and you know, to some to Greek Kevin Sullivan at WSW and he's
trying to get them jobs. He got Sabu in a WSW for a cup
of coffee before that blew up. He and it's not you know, it's
not very hard for Paul Hayman to turn around and get in the ear of
people who are not going to WCW and want ECW to work and tell them
that what this guy's actually doing right, yes, fucking us, None of
them seem to mind. Todd Gordon writes, when I'd called for public enemy
back in ninety five to go to WW, Paul went into his worker voice.
If you don't tell anyone about this, that is to say, if
you don't pull back the curtain and reveal that we're working together to call you
a mole, after a while, you can come back as the greatest heel
ever in the pro wrestling business. What's better than a heel owner? This,
of course is Prevince, Oh my god, but yeah, pre Eric
too, being heal and nitro. He was very expansive on the idea,
but I told him I knew he was full of shit. In truth,
it was a really good idea. I never said he wasn't brilliant. I
told Paul to go tell them whatever he wanted, and he did. He
went off and apparently called some of the New York crew to his house.
That is to say, wrestlers that came from the New York Indies as opposed
to the Philly Indies where Todd had his most you know, loyal soldiers,
and Hayman's team was more like the Tazzes and the Tommy Dreamers and the people
from New York. And before I knew it, the Sheet started printing Todd
writes. And that was another thing that jumped off the page to me in
his book is how obsessively the American indie promoters would read and respond to the
sheets. Of course, oh my god. Of course. You know,
Todd Gordon talks about being written up in The Observer as like, you know,
they made it, And I guess I didn't. I guess what I'm
trying to say is I didn't realize the cachet that carried in the nineties when
I was just a kid, you know, watching WWF andww of course,
and as I've referenced, without particularly great access to ECW, I hadn't realized
that that's basically the race. It's not to get a national TV slot.
That was a pipe dream. It was to be the promotion that was written
about in the Torch and the Observer this week, right yep. And when
you think about it that way, it starts to make a little more sense
why these shows would be so choc a block with wild and crazy shit.
You know, it was in an effort to be relevant that moment, as
opposed to, you know, deliver a wrestling show that checked all the boxes
that you know, a wrestling fan would want. Of course, they wanted
to satisfy their audience, but above and beyond that, it worked for home
video too, and eventually the ratings for the television show when weeks later it
would air in clipped fashion like we've seen in a couple of matches here to
create a buzz right out of the building. The week after the sheets come
out, reports are that Terry Funk you know, and Dory Funk were covered
in blood and barbed wire against the public end. What the fuck? Right?
Can you imagine reading that without being able to see it immediately, and
how the imagination would run away with you? You can take off. I
mean, I I write, I mean, that's that's that's all about.
That's that's that's half of what's that's a good portion of what's missing. Yes,
today absolutely is the fact that we get so much access to so much
stuff that we don't we no longer, you know. I mean it's the
same thing with movies in that what you don't see is what's more impactful.
You have our friend Scott Michael Ferry there sitting in his first grade classroom,
melting at the thought that there are legions of kids that will get to see
what Ghostbusters two is and he's going to miss the window and have to wait
up for a year before you can see it in a yeah. Yeah,
that's what makes meaning in media consumption is that anticipation, that scarcity value.
And it's gone, it's dead. It's been taken out back and shot in
the head because teaming Boo and all the missteps made during COVID by people that
sit on the biggest ip in terms of offering things to stream instead of waiting
for theaters to reopen because they were terrified they'd never make a profit again.
Of course, and they fucked it up. And now there is just no
way a kid is not going to be able to see exactly what he wants
to see. The second he wants to see it, bootleg, YouTube,
TikTok, whatever you want. In a second, there's it's never coming back
that anticipation, and to act like that's just not a big loss is to
be pretty fucking stupid in my opinion. I mean, it's it's for me.
It's about a big a big part of the reason why I you know,
I've never I've never actually and I've talked about it, you know,
since the beginning, you know, talk about TLFX. I've been talking about
this for ten years, about seeing those pictures of the Moondogs and Lawler and
Jarrett. Absolutely that's the in PWY North Star example, I've never seen the
match. I almost don't want to see one of the matches because I know
that it will not nearly be as as crazy as those pictures made me think
it was. Yes, And you know, I always wondered why Folly and
Terry went to Japan and blew themselves up in the death matches, And it
finally clicked with me when Terry was saying, it's still a magazine driven business
and where a small company were not new or new or all Japan, how
were gonna get to cover the magazines. Yep, how could a wrestling magazine
resist the potential to move copies If we can put a fucking exploding ring with
Terry Funken Cactus Jack on the cover, it was at least your best shot
at winning the week in terms of relevance. And further, it's not like
they were just doing things in the arena, booking angles, shooting angles,
delivering angles and matches and hoping that ended up in the sheets. They were
in contact with the Wade Kellers and the Dave Meltzers and the others. You
know, they were trying to frame things in a way that would be sort
of you know, beneficial to their agenda in the form of news tips.
You know. It's not like they were just calling and I don't know,
I'm hardly on the phone, but you know, yeah, it was also
a battle of like reading it and trying to decode who else was he talking
to, you know, and who amongst us would it benefit if that rumor
were to get into print, And what does that say about how they're trying
to you know, position themselves at cross purposes with me and Paul Hayman,
particularly for you Todd Gordon's book, It comes through so loud and clear.
And I'm sure Todd was a political creature like this as well, just like
the ultimate game game master, like he sits down and games out every possible
scenario, who wins, who loses? You know, if what I suspect
is true is true, and he just he has an insatia. According to
what Gordon kind of portrayed, he has an insatiable appetite, a limitless stamina
for thinking paranoid thoughts like that, or at least in the vein of preparing
himself to see the assassin come around the corner, you know. And his
position in the industry now and how he's trusted by the top players and the
biggest dogs in the industry to advise them on career choices and to be their
mouthpiece when they're on vacation on television speaks to the fact that he's absolutely the
best at that. It wasn't course to mad scientist overthinking shit. He he
knew. He knew how pro wrestling functioned in the back, just as well
as he knew how to get results, you know, by producing things out
in front. And this has started to happen in a CW Joey styles Todd
Gordon writes in his book, did a story on the Weekly nine hundred hotline
saying someone in the company is trying to bring ECW down. The story was
everywhere, and Paul used it to create an US versus them solidarity in the
locker room. He told them a mole inside the company was planning on setting
all the talent to WCW for an invasion angle that would leave ECW empty and
bankrupt. Paul gallantly told the crew that this mole was looking to sink any
one who wasn't lucky enough to be stolen away and fuck all our fans over.
He used it to galvanize the locker room and it worked. So Paul
leveraged this this rebel spirit that Terry Funk is helping to create, to you
know, erect a straw man or maybe maybe still the truth maybe Todd Gordon,
I mean it was in the Observer and stuff at the time. It
was in the sheets that there was an invasion angle planned. That's where a
lot of the the fire to the smoke came. That there was an idea
that there would be a total exodus of the top ECW guys and they'd all
show up on Nitro. You can see you can easily see WW thinking like,
what's our next nWo here, we're kind of fucked right anymore. The
one angle right, so they need another one, another installment of that same
angle. And so in all of this gamesmanship that was the nineteen nineties,
you know, wrestling politics, Paul Hayman makes a misstep that really is one
of the few things Terry Funk has anything negative to say about anybody in terms
of like reiterating, and he for all the praise he heaps on Paul Hayman
for his vision and how he pulled off ECW and created what it was,
he definitely held it against him that Paul Haman prevented Saboo from getting a Big
Two contract because Sabo, of course, was one of the guys that the
Big Two were seeking to poach, and Saboo seemed to be the first person
that an ECW boss stepped forward and said, no, you're actually contracted to
us. You can't go anywhere, and if you think you can, I'll
see in court. And that really pissed off Terry Funk, because, as
we've talked about, he had a very soft spot in his heart for Saboo.
He wanted to see Saboo succeed. He lent a lot of his body
and reputation to trying to give Saboo some spotlight and to get the kid paid
would have warmed Terry's heart. That's one of the biggest parts of these Funk
stories we're finding as we go through the years is that the people he touched
along the way and put on a path to have a, you know,
a nest egg of earnings from pro wrestling at critical points, whether they thinking
about quitting, or where their confidence is down, or for whatever reason that
their talent is too raw for anybody to see besides someone with you know,
the eye for talent. That Terry Funk had an almost unique guye for talent.
You could say, here's another example he wrote in his book to Terry,
Kevin knew that Saboo Kevin Sullivan was a real piece of talent and got
him a deal worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, which is
pretty damn good money, even with the inflated salaries some of those other guys
were making. Paul Hayman put a stop to it, citing a contract he
had with the Saboo, even though Paul was barely upholding his end of the
deal and owed Saboo money at the time. To this day, I still
consider Paul a friend, but this was one of the few times I was
really upset with him. I just couldn't stomach the idea that Paul would keep
this guy from earning a living. I don't pretend to know everything that went
down between Saboo and PAULI and ECW, but why do that to him?
Seriously, WW was thrilled about the idea of getting Saboo and Hayman, threatening
the possibility of legal action put the kaibosh on the whole deal. It just
chilled the whole deal. So the Funker navigating the nineties wrestling politics, and
like we said, going back to w CW, don't remember, don't forget
Slamboury ninety four. It's in the archives. Yes, a lot of legends
came back for that show. Yes, indeed, including Terry Funk, who
wrestled who do you remember. I don't remember who, Holly Blanchard, who
they talked off the bench, and who had made a couple of ECW appearances
already in his own right. Trying to find a way post getting fired by
WWF and therefore rejected for WCW return in ninety one in the Business and yeah,
they had a great match on the show in terms of like you know
what you'd expect from quote unuote Legends match to go kind of in slow motion.
Now they went out there and memory had Bockwinkle and Funk. Wasn't it
too on that show, Dorry Junior, I think so. Yeah, Jesus
exchanging holds looking good, looking, real solid and tight, and that had
a great They had a great match to Tolly and Terry Funk and that was
sort of their return their respective returns to to ww in the National Television Spotlight
and they did the bunk House buck Stable with Colonel Parker. In the Art
of War Games, we covered the ninety four match where Funk eats plenty of
steal and Rob Parker ships his pan answer. Remember all that Funks in there
contributing. You know, he's the one bumping the stud stable, aren't Anderson's
in there as well, so you can kind of see it's it's you know
again, it's it's it's to me. It's one of those funny things where
you know, you take for granted, just the legacy of Terry Funk.
Oh yeah, yeah, because there's always a run that you forgot about when
you try to think about his whole career, when you try to sit down
and really like almost do a highlight reel in your head of the key beats,
you're always going to miss two or three. Yeah, And it's like
those are huge deals. It's not like I it's not like I missed ones
that were inconsequential, right, They're all of pretty even consequence. It's not
like Funk went anywhere it was a flop and no one cares and no one
remembers he did something worthy of like a best of compilation tape in every single
territory he ever worked in, and he worked all of them. That's that's
another thing that I think is unique about his career. But as as time
went on, you know, we know about the political turmoil at WSW at
the time, Terry Funk started to get disillusioned once again in Atlanta, just
like he did in nineteen eighty nine. He writes in his book, I
looked around WW and didn't really especially like what I saw. In this business,
you have to know when to hold and when to fold, when to
blow, and one to go, And this was a case where it was
time to go almost as soon as I got there. There was no real
direction for me there, and I never got the feeling I fit into anyone's
plans. By now, Jim Hurd had been gone for more than two years
and the company was being run by Eric Bischoff, who had replaced Bill Watts
in nineteen eighty three, who, of course, as refreshments in the past.
No love lost between Bill Watts and Terry Funk. Necessarily, Bischoff had
been brought in a couple of years earlier as an announcer. Shortly after we
took over ninety three, TBS brought me in to talk about taking over his
booker. So again talk in ninety three about making Funk the booker of a
national promotion just like WWP YEP. Bill Shaw, one of the executives who
ran WSW, asked what I wanted to be paid, and I told him
I one to three hundred and fifty grand a year. That's no problem.
He said, would you be willing to work for Eric Bischoff? Hell?
I figured I was on a roll after the salary thing, and I said
no. He thanked me for coming and I went home. Because Bill Shaw
was very much Eric Bischoff's Rabbi in WCW definitely was the person that despite he
was the person Eric Bischoff buttered up very well and strategically, he identified Bill
Shaw's the guy that he needed to impress more than anybody when it came to
the decision, and when Bischoff was shockingly picked over others to run the whole
company, it was it was the work he'd done on ingratiating himself to Bill
Shaw that was the key. So that was not the answer that the fuck
needed to give. And I'm not sure he even had the intel going in
there to know that Bill Shaw was, you know, full it was pretty
much the only team Eric guy that was around. In the very beginning of
Bischoff's tenure as executive vice president. He thanked me for coming and I went
on home. I'm not sure I made the right executive producer. Sorry,
then he became vice president later because I could just hear him in my head
being like, oh, I'm wrong. You know, they talk about this
and they go off on these tangents. They didn't even have their facts weight
How only did I not have the executive vice presidents job at the time.
I wouldn't want the executivevice president. I wouldn't want it, you know.
Uh, thank me for coming, and I went on home. I went
on home. Terry always goes on home, doesn't he, Terry? You
know what, Terry didn't come to w c W. I didn't want him
at w c how only was Terry Funk not offered the booker job at w
W. There wasn't a booker job at Not only was Terry Funk not offered
a booking job at ws W, there wasn't a w c W there never
was. All right, man, well, I don't you know. It's
a little hard to follow. It's weird to me, but you know,
did it not? Would you be willing to work for Eric? Now?
Okay? He thanked me for coming and I went out home. I'm not
sure I made the right call, Funk writes, because I never would have
addicted Eric would have achieved the kind of success he would have by nineteen ninety
six. And that's something Terry did not have a job. He did not
have any offers when Bischoff was in bower at WW. You know, as
the years went he would just take anybody. Funk was not among them.
I also wouldn't have done what he did Funk rights in terms of rating talent
from the WWF, because it would have never occurred to me that it would
work, and it did. That Who's the Boss feeling was also in WW
when I went there in nineteen ninety four. Bischoff at WW a new situation.
What's that I'm just groaning. I'm groaning. Chef had turned WW in
a situation where there were haves and have nots. Bicheff was apparently much doing
what he wanted to do, was pretty much doing what he wanted to do,
and the top wrestlers were doing not what they were told or booked to
do, but what they wanted. And maybe I would have been the same
way if I had had that much power and guaranteed money. I think a
lot of people would that admit then would admit to it, but I don't
think I would have. And that's more about when and how I was brought
up into the wrestling business than anything else. A lot of the guys who
became the problems in WCW had come into the business in a different way than
I did, and didn't grow up with that love for the business and the
bold We are all products of our eras and our environments. How could I
expect Kevin Nash to see things like I did when he didn't see the same
things and learn the same lessons I did. The whole place was just totally
political. Hulk Hogan had come in and brought in a bunch of his friends,
and so began an era of clicks, which happens periodically in this business.
The inmates were running the asylum, and it had gotten to the point
that no one cared about the company or anything except how they were doing.
In that sense, it was almost like a diametric opposite of ECW. WCW
had an unproductive atmosphere at that point. Guys were looking at those big guaranteed
contracts and became an era of contagious concussions. That's a good one, he
used to say all the time, tageous concussions. I finally left WCW in
the summer of nineteen ninety four because I was going nowhere. I was on
a weekly deal, so I just told Bischoff I was going. He nodded,
but didn't seem to register much. And it was upon his return to
ECW Boss after this jaunt over to WCW that a string was picked up that
had been left hanging loose much earlier on the laps Fan Journey. I'm thinking
episode two of the whole thing, actually, and now we're going to pick
that string up and create a forever more intertwining between Terry Funk and the wrestler
who was born not far from where he was in Bloomington, Indiana, the
year he started in the business in nineteen sixty five. Terry Funk's first match
in Indiana being born into this world was mcfoley. And perhaps for all the
great opponents we've seen Terry Funk tussle with and have series with, and cut
great legendary promos against and have programs with, McK foley ended up being the
wrestler that I think he was most associated with in terms of you know what
I mean, as somebody that not only made magic with the Funker, but
was under the learning tree of the Funker and sought to carry on what Terry
Funk had become in wrestling by the nineties into the two thousands and into the
late nineties as well. And in so many ways, it's because of mcfoley
explaining to us through his book and interviews and things, why Terry Funk was
special to him, that we understand why Terry Funk was indeed special, or
that we got our first I think in a lot of our cases, orientation
to why this wild man who we knew has been in the business forever and
was doing insane things in ECW was so much more than that to the boys,
you know, was so much more part of the ECW cohesion that we
didn't see in the locker room. And so this is where it happens.
You know, we talk about the funk Fully relationship and we immediately think hell
in the cell, right, we think Terry Funk coming out to help fully
after he came through the roof of the cage and taking the choke slam to
buy him time from Undertaker and all of that, and that happened, and
that's a great illustration of their bond. But I think I also think of
Wrestlmania fourteen, Bressel Maenia fourteen, they teamed together. Of course the chance
are Charlie run. But the mcfoley Terry Funk bond was really forged in the
mid nineties, in ECW. Yes, the Terry Funk mcfoley relationship is an
ECW story. It belongs here in the ECW part and leg of our journey.
Now, of course, it was let's say, fully calcified and crystallized
in the Rings of Japan, the exploding Rings of Japan, which of course
we will very much get to here on the lapsed Funks sooner than you realize.
But it really was them crossing paths in ECW with its rebel spirit and
its wide open creative lens and ability to go nuts on promos, where Terry
Funk and mcfully thrived and feuding with each other, creating memories and creating headlines
in some cases one ZCW would prefer not be generated about what was going on
in the arena on certain nights between the two as they sought to up the
stakes, up the violence, up the spectacle for this demanding audience. And
yeah, the mcfoley Terry Funk story is an ECW story. And so I'm
going to pass along some excerpts that are going to get us oriented to the
mcfully Terry Funk relationship, because the time is now. I'm going to pass
on to you Boss some pieces from mcfoley's first book, of course, a
landmark in its own right and a transformative bestseller in terms of unleashing. You
know, Terry Funk probably doesn't have a book if Nick didn't write have a
Nice Day, Right, We don't have as much to draw from on a
project like this if Mick hadn't said in motion the wrestling publishing industry almost single
handedly. So we we go back to nineteen ninety because to hear Mickfoley tail
that this was actually the first time that he encountered Terry Funk, though as
we'll discover, he certainly was already quite familiar with his work. The February
pay per view was also memorable in that it was Rick Flair's birthday and I
somehow was offered an invite from Sullivan to attend. I was thrilled to be
in attendance, even after a less than stellar match against Norman Lunatic. The
Funker was there, and he came over to give me his opinion of my
match in his own unique style. For several minutes, Terry rambled on with
a story about the devil who was face down on the guy having his life
saved by the angel. The story was making absolutely no sense until the last
sentence, at which point the story and its relation to me became a parent.
When the lovely Angel was asked why she would save someone as despicable as
the devil, the angel fluttered its wings, strummed its harp, and replied,
don't you understand? Without him, there is no me. Terry then
looked at me and said, in his soft West Texas mumble, West Texas
mumble, Cactus Jack Norman tried to be an angel out there, but you
wouldn't let him because you were not the devil. People can talk about your
bumps all they want, but until you learn to be the devil in the
ring, you will never fully be all that you can. I'm nodded an
agreement with Terry, who seemed pleased to have had me sit for a spell
underneath his learning tree. Dennis Brent was a friend of mine from Dallas who
was currently the WCW magazine editor. He had witnessed the entire Angel Devil parable
and couldn't help but notice the Funker's interested in me. Terry Brent began,
it seems like that it seems that you like cactus because you see a little
bit of yourself and him. It was a very astute observation on Dennis's part,
and it deserved an equally astute response, which Terry quickly provided. I
don't see ship in him a proclaimed but said it in such a way that
I know he agreed with Dennis. Amazing. So we talked about all these
careers with a Hogan and Terry Funk. Terry Funker the worker, the worker,
the workers there working you and you and you, they're working us.
He's a worker. He's a worker worker, that's all. He is,
a worker. What lay it down? Did lay it down? Dust?
You know him better than anybody? Did you? Did someone feel a draft?
I don't, is it already that season? I didn't see shit in
him. He just picture of that moment, can't you. I didn't see
shit in him, so fuck you? So yeah, I mean that's that's
worth remembering that. For a little while there in the late in the Jim
Hurdi era, there was a little bit of overlap between Cactus and Terry Funk,
so he was able to have some interactions with him and get a sense.
But Terry, you know, Ad mcfoley in his incredibly consequential wrestling career
the list of careers where these guys, remember, like Crystal Clear, Terry
Funk played and directing them and shepherding them in a direction that would prove productive
and fruitful for their their entring wrestling. And you know, it turned out
that Terry Funk, pardon me, Terry Funk was definitely a known entity to
mc foley, who, of course was a student of the game and very
good friends with Brian Hildebrand, the former w wficial Mark Artis, who was
also from Pittsburgh and came up in the same training circuit as mcfoley and Shane
Douglas under Dom de Nucci. And so they would get together with Mick and
Brian, who is an early tape trader savant, and watch tapes from all
over the world. Wow. And among the tapes that Brian Hildebrand would show
McK foley would be the Terry Funk All Japan matches of the late seventies in
the early eighties. And I don't know about you, Boss, but even
though we're still in this journey, I look back nostalgically on watching those those
matches and doing those shows. For sure, Mark and all Japan Man.
Absolutely, I mean, seriously, like that's I mean, it's already nostalgic,
like you know, just enjoying, like that's like being introduced to that
stuff because he was so great. He was stuff different, right, Yeah,
yeah, because I had seen the eighty three retirement match, but there
was a lot of stuff I hadn't seen that we watched too, So yeah,
it was it was a discovery for me as well. But he's watching
Terry Funk tape, and he's watching Terry Funk tapes, you know that the
American wrestling fan hadn't really seen if Terry Funk. We talked about and delineated
very clearly how different the essence in the aura of Terry Funk was in Japan
versus America. And that's the Terry Funk that Brian Hildebrand is urging Mick Foley
to watch for pointers and, among other things, how to throw those punches.
I mean, by now we settled on the idea that Funk knows how
to throw a punch, yes, and he knows how to show punches that
look really sharp and like boxing punches early in the match and as the match
drags on the kind of whirling windmill shots you'd get in a drunken bar fight.
Just he knows, he knows how to make his punches do a lot
of work for him. I've never seen a wrestler that's gotten as much mileage
out of punches. Jerry Lawler is a close second, but Jerry Lawler's punches
were one note. Funks punches could tell you what stage of the match we
were in. Yep. Funk's punches could tell you where he was at in
terms of how much punishment he had taken it. He got so much more.
There was a right, I mean, there was a there were there
were levels and dynamics to his definitely punches. Yeah, he wouldn't just do
the spot where he'd pulled down the strap and throw the down town. His
punches would be sprinkled throughout the match and would be adjusted based on how he
was feeling in the ring. He was he was being the guy who was
in a fight, you know, yep, And it came through. So
so McK foley took to the Dais on a ring roast that k f Abe
Commentaries put together for Terry Funk years ago with a bunch of his compatriots.
We've excerpted from this before. On the lapsed Funk and Nick fully gave a
great speech at this thing kind of stepped out of I don't know, propriety.
I don't really recall from Sean Oliver's book if Mick had to get special
dispensation from WW to do this, But it was the kind of thing that
he would do. They would say yes too, because they know he'd do
it anyway and just be pissy about it, you know. But he always,
you know, stepped out of that. He always went out of his
way to do things for Terry Funk, like you know, be part of
occasions for Terry Funk. Can lend his name. Two occasions were Terry Funk
and this certainly was no exception. And it's here that he well tells the
story of learning the Terry Funk punches from watching the tapes with Brian Hildebrand and
then coming around and realizing there might not be as much magic there as meets
the eye moral wrestling matches. It's amazing. I mean, the hours would
go by and Brian rows to take out these matches from Terry Funk in Japan.
At the time, I was having a lot of trouble learning to throw
a decent punch. And he would say, watch how Terry Funk doesn't and
man, I'd watch those punches and it was like magic. It's like Houdini
stepped into the ring. And then I got to work with Terry and Japan
in nineteen ninety one, and seeing his brother Dorry Funk. What an honor,
and I was actually pleased looking forward to that first big Terry Funk left
hand. I mean, it comes time and I'm waiting for it, waiting
to admire it. And Terry Funk proceeds to punch me as hard as he
can in the forehead. I thought, holy shit, put the ear muffs
on, kid, Okay, it's too late in the ear mups. Okay,
how old are you ten? How do you feel about Santa Claus?
You don't believe in it? Well, that day in Japan, young man,
it was like someone told me that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny,
and the tooth Fairy didn't exist all at one time. Wow. Generally,
generally, dissolution is I talk to myself. Hell, I could do that.
Billy talks about art, and I kid you not. I was thinking
about Michael Angelo and the Sistine Chapel on the way here, it's actually gonna
think of that now, Graham. It took that. Ryan Marr took Graham's
with the other gram wardrobe. But I would compare Michaelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
seven years. I didn't really slept there. He lived there seven years,
and I think, you look at this. It's in the Vatican, is
it? It looked up and you're thinking, how the hell did he do
that? Which is what I had been thinking about Terry Funk before I worked
with him, And then it became very, very simple. Terry's style was
you just simply hit people as hard as you can. There will be conversations
about where Terry stands in the all time list, whether he's up there with
Flair or Harley Race or Billie's Superstar Brahm or the Van Erks. But I
maintain and even Brett Hart would can see that Terry Funk is the stiffest there
is, the stiffest there was unless somebody proved to Mom, no, guy,
he's just so that's the secret. God damn it. You go in
there and you start wrapping people on the fucking head to get their attention right
exactly, and then and then you know you can't hit him as hard anymore
because you're fucking hurting. He doesn't insert yes exactly. He does it in
service of the notion that we, as wrestling fans, should be allowed to
believe. Yes, we should have the option of choosing to believe that what
we're seeing is a real fight that shouldn't be taken away from us prematurely.
And uh and so, yeah, some people are gonna have to get wrapped
upside the head sometimes to keep that up. You know, he was in
there with Johnny Valentine. He was in there with Wahoo. Yes, yes,
so he was in there with the people that would eat you alive,
because they if everybody else on the show looked fake, they could give a
fuck. What they cared about is the people have to build and saying that
motherfucker was real and that that was how to stay paid in wrestling. That
was how to build legacy in wrestling. That was what it was to be
a great wrestler. And Terry Funks a and yeah, a new generation including
mcfoley, had to learn that by getting wrapped upside the head. Because Foley
was on the move in nineteen ninety four, and you know, he had
come up in the TWA working with Eddie Gilbert. He was involved in Memphis
as well. Was mcfoley coming up, and as we talked about, he
actually wrestled Terry Funk in nineteen ninety one on some of these fledgling at Northeast
indies that started to crop up. You know, the TWA's one of them
we saw. It's similar to when we saw Terry Funk wrestling Jerry Lawler on
American Independence in the early nineties, a reprise of their Memphis feud from the
early eighties doing it now in this sort of newly constituted post WWFNWCW consolidation US
independent scene of the nineties, and that is where mcfoley had opportunity to actually
share a ring and tag matches and other settings with Terry Funk before crossing paths
with him in ECW. One of the shows, of course, with a
Joel Goodheart TWA shows we've talked about, and as mcfoley said in his book
to me, Joel shows with a circus equivalence of seeing a guy get shot
out of a cannon thirty times on small shows and little high school. Joel
would force feed this repetitious menu of violence for so long that most people look
like they would never want to attend wrestling again upon leaving, and he remembers
mixing it up on one of these cards. I'm not sure if this is
against Terry Funk. He said. The match was actually ruled in no contest
when I became so badly wrapped up in barboire I couldn't get out. Good
Heart was excited about the match and all the media attention that he was receiving
because of it. A few weeks later, the barbed wire match, he
told me of the master plan, a two to three false match with Eddie
Gilbert. He's talking about, pardon me mcfully talking about a match of Eddie
Gilbert and TWA and me with each being match being a gimmick match. Together,
we came up with the match a false count of anywhere stretcher match the
loser is the first one unable to get up in a steel cage match,
sort of like the Three Stages of Hell. Remember that one from Foley from
a Austin in triple h. Yes, different matches across three falls and steel
cage match. Do all those in one night would certainly be challenging, So
McK foley sort of working the same scenes Terry Funk was working trying to find
his place in the business in early nineteen ninety one, and so come ECW
nineteen eighty four is kind of the year we're settled on here. In this
episode of the show. Not only does Urnate Erson come through Bobby and Bobby
Eaton come through the Public Enemy and Dory Funk Junior cross paths and share the
ring with the Funker, Shane Douglas and Saboo, but so too does Cactus
Jack. And so we're going on Mike Tyson twenty four. Mike Tyson does
too, right, I was going to get there, yeah, all right,
shortly after he was sprung on bail uh a bail of hay. Yeah,
you got that right. What where are we going? What this again?
Twenty four, twenty four, twenty twenty four? Kind of what is
the time code? We're looking at? Thirty four to thirty four, thirty
four thirty thirty four out. Okay, this is August thirteenth, nineteen ninety
four e c W Arena, and I believe this is the first e c
W one on one meeting between Terry Funk and Cactus Jack. Three two one
play Oh, there's a man who really enjoys his professions. Another guys five
minutes away from that bang it heads with cactus jacket. He didn't come out
with Paul ripping out chef fully interesting. Yes, how the hell baby jackets
cactus reached probably red, yellow and blue ropes on these w Whatever that is
about God seems fully so fucking fairly, you know, like the kid he's
like, the time for talk is over. Seven pounds, please welcome the
living legend, Terry. There we go, Living Legends number. I don't
know if the fight out there yet. Weigh a police Catherine with somebody who
was London full of w C W Stan. I think someone who's coming in
with the anti violets message. I said that the waiting is it's not for
act sitting back there watching, and I think we both agree there's been far
too much milince already. Jerry, I recently learned to appreciate the value of
family entertainment. Are you in Philadelphia? Pretty well? But what they want
and what they need right now is one hell of a scientific match. That's
amazing. Pray don't it's a by golly, Jerry. I think we're the
two guys to give it to him, checking that he does. So we're
gonna say a scientific matchup between scientific matchup. See that's what he did.
He came in and had you know what, Jerry, you and I we
wrestle in Japan an a tag team. We wrestle in Florida and a tag
team. But tonight, thanks d c W, the first time we ever
stood doing a two the way it's supposed to be. I got a lot
of respect for you, and it's gonna hurt me to have to kick your
asshole over the East c W O re look, harnlet has been dropped,
but not as bad as it's gonna hrk you. By god. You know
That's what I love about Cactus. He's always been a dreamer hat in here
and I have a feeling we are about this is like as great as milfos
and w c W. And despite the facts given, realized that this guy
is actually one of the best. As much as you want to pigeonhole him
for they'll be the stunt man and getting noticed because he's willing to fire off
the apron and land a concert. Fuck you, that's just because no one
given time to the stick. It's a better plan than that he's one of
the best start. Yeah, well, he pulled out this character as someone
who's acting like he's got the superstar schene around him, you know, and
he's looking to clean up Cactus. Another guy that's Steve Weston. He had
that brain opinion that Pitt stop at the c W between the show side of
himself, that New York he actually sent their teeth into get a chance to
show against the stile, I fetch chops by Cactus wakes up the fencer back
to the Coloradodo. So you're gonna play this one straight, boss, I
fucking love and hold off of the series of enoughs. And then since Cactus
couldn't ups in the yips and Sam hard to the floor fun out after a
while, Derek fuck goes right out after him. Not so much for technically
and fuck if you're table again, attacking practice went on the floor. So
now yeah, you got you have Nick Foley taking the violin pups but doing
it almost under protest right faith off Caractife Jack could feel suddenly the appeal level
is not what Cactus Jack is wanting to do to himself, but when he's
taken to a violent place, it's it's not him doing to himself. It's
someone out stated to him. Right, guys up the laws Cactus. Terry
reading after lost the swarm of East w faithful still a one cow show.
I don't think so. It's have always been a long Chamer shoot. I
know Terry fuck is God in Philly. This winner at the bottom of the
corner school. It's horrify looking at She's been there a million times. I've
seen her a bunch of times. She listening a red hair. She's she's
been there every all, every match we've watched today. This is they were
gonna have. They are scientific. Still S is not the national They throw
the brown sleep the sleeper hold in the audience and that fully sits down and
just drops down just ten football the lands in the still a proground. Oh
the fully launches almost put the floe, flip over the dar groll over the
front row, chop to the upside the head. So you're seeing, you
know the funk. You're always Donalds there go get it wrong, he said,
all I like building out me out. Why don't think anyone to Still
they want to go back in the ring had forty o'cld and goes the fucking
Foley. It's the Opprobterry Bucky. He looks. We looked so tired,
so sick of this ship back just keep it, just do a fa just
let me retire. Oh, there we go. He never had he not
learned his lesson. You're from losing his ear. Jamestown is going off for
from someone. Hey, maybe through the rope spots. Those are much more
sad. Man gets what I happened here. That's the problem in Germany as
the ropes for ices. There's Germany's fault. Gotcha said that on a lot
of things. That's true. Bunker out at Falling on podcast, Cactus laning
and big left hands. Go in and see a racetra hat guy, the
fore roll, you see every das day and you see the hell street.
This scientific wrestling at its best. Not what do you remember? Not remember
that being a thing in the nineties. No, oh god, it's so
bad, and not go this add to the stale support. Then again,
Uncle taking the cactus on a tour of the ring posts on the outside,
ran some back into the fia fuck rof cactus back into the ring. M
oh no oh I the kenemy well the dage foreheads they even a bloody war
olo were set of the seas on the funk with note growing this round sat
going out wait before out of the tradition were back out after this is August
thirteenth of ninety four. Okay man, that was July sixteenth. All so,
even if they got a clean victory over Hendi, they're still fucking yeah,
they're still pretty killing that. Yeah, the public animly you're working in,
Terry did the teeny You're just trying to go into a funk a pardon
of all. Tactus Jack just kind of sits down in the corner I had
going after him too. Aren't they alight? No, they're kind of like
that. There's totally silence. People are very interesting this as a yeah,
because they've already gotten their drops totally Terry. One of the things doctor said
is he said he is in a place where you know, got out of
the client to killing yourself and then had to thud it because they guy the
actor Pori with their friendly table. Probably he's going now that's a good knock
shout outs used to have any he says the show of Verse and stuff that
I don't have the same match a super party. They're trying to get Jack
could cover bottle. You know, they'll do the tables of the match one
two kickout, but Jack doesn't ponents that meant nothing as much offense. They'll
get their stuff out of us. Yeah, the legends, Oh Johnny Brune
levels, I wish you're like, that's necessarily that the say is it gonna
disqualified it? He's already fucking let all this should happen. Now they're attacking
mcphone out. Terry Punk has been laid out, one kick in. They're
trying to get Cat Distriver on top of funking rock o' rock is gonna count
the three that valid. That's aw We've had no decision indifference to say the
least or the least a better cry. They raised Cactus's hand and he says
nope, and so they attacked him. They already attacked him though, I
think they fucked out. I don't think public enemy. We're shows sat John
terror On fucked up? You fucked up? Where's the chair down? Terry
fuck is death? Jesus Christ. This is awful, but it's got something
of significance on the tail there, so the latch we can presume is over.
Even though an official get a roster the cat. And now Terry Funk
is grabbing something at one side and can't quite make it out. It's twisting
his nipating a piece of table and he's just wrestling with this piece of table.
So is McK foland, and they have both broken off pieces of table
and the people pop through that. My friend, Now they're friends because they've
got table. Oh they're right. They're coming together to attack the public enemy
Rock. They have now become bedfellows that fullys going hardcore all of a sudden,
exclusively on a day. I'll be a old betty. We'll stay in
next time. I don't I think we've put it after this? Are we
off? Are we off? Jelly? I don't know you signed off already.
That's a wrap fellas, yea the keeper. No, they came back.
They continues a false finish Trickleach does those to this day. I can
see him. Punk came out at the Friver series. Remember they show up
the little thing in the corner thinking the ship the ap Cat. I can
give you a copyright that's still going on. Cactus Jack battles with johny Bringer's
Doctor Greenside. All right, Funck after Rock go Rock. We've got him
a crop to bad drop. It looks like the funker balls they've got their
net cap. At LEASTI would take turn to the time. That's right.
I guess Jory wasn't good on that. To this feud, I guess that's
the takeaway. Oh Terry bunks Rock over the head with a frying pan and
shave the right and again and again. Christ is the fans bring their own
weapons. The people have like, sh I get this off. People still
putting h Imagine something brought a fucking you shure UZI, who's this fucking Terry
Funk grabs it Uozy and it completely destroys Rocco Rock. Terry playing fucking drums
on Rocco Rock's head. But he's like makes rock a rock Swiss cheese those
styles. She said, this is like watching the back go too of my
not try intended to buy some on the money. D e t by Cactus
was just watching that and I was trying to pile Trying Rock though on the
fucking riding pan. What is that ansome for chairs like that? I wouldn't
be the only time on that day that rock O' walk will go headfirst in
your frown pipe, oh cactus. And then they put the public nay on
top of each other, and this time captains black pants that's been lot's just
as valid hit them out. So the problem responds very positively, Oh oh
it's raining chairs. O my god, Like why do people fit like there's
no concern with any safety of those guys that have been in the mind the
side. Look at those chairs. It's disturbed bos to chairs over the road.
The call the head of you was that buried with the l roads and
it's absolutely disturbed down Look look at the look at the cop of the Bata.
Dude, I don't look at the room. I mean that is a
full heap of chairs. What about it? I what about it? As
talking about hardcore, I I got nothing that left to say. Hey,
if it's been hard poor heaven had a night of laft w you just lay
yeah right, good knowing man, We thank you. You're telling you this
is joy than that and the exeed. I'll be all right. Where's the
play? A t deceased to get these guys that are that a concerns could
tell someon the pust bout them was U rolling ship forming the crowd for the
kill somebody to crowd. They're trying to kill you. Thats Broco Rocks trying
to get interest rightful the chair. Joey Gooch has the money. I am
actually leased they will be died. You don't know what you've started that you
think, do you? I won't, fatherly, God, I really ship
up. I said we're the shutters. Ever, sen I can't walk about
the will that small shairs on Jesus? Oh you know what you have to
put this one for us of the lad Oh totally. This was built folds
with all the chairs up disturbed. This is the line from this one.
I never want to help him again. A lot of times I've seen this.
I've remember saw it thumps now that there was a copy of the time,
ready to sweat up through jobs. Yeah he did great, he did
a great job. Huh. I know, yeah job. The cat was
out offer. And it's weird. The fans are not like they're they're almost
stone faced. Like you don't see anybody screaming for blood. You don't see
anyone really animated. They're just like standing there. Probably try to pretend they're
not the ones who through the chairs is probably what it is. They're also
probably you know, they're probably a bunch of fucking you know, sociopaths.
Is Terry leading us to a dark place? Boss, Yes, it's happening
in the small building in South Philly. What's being unleashed, what's being allowed?
Extremities? Extremities? Oh my god? And that the man that clip
would be played a million times. They had like you know, ECW home
video commercials they put together selling the tapes, and that was the one man
they showed that one like you gotta see what led to this? And unlike
the other match that with a ring filled with chairs, Terry and Dorry versus
public enemy in the Barbier, there really wasn't a moment where Terry calls for
the chairs, right, they almost looked like it looked like funk did,
I'm not funny, Folly did. Well, that was a mistake. And
this is like just an absurd amount of chairs and a lot of them were
steel, unlike the Barber match, where a lot of them were plastic.
Not that it makes it much difference, but you are throwing a heavier metal
object through the air. It's just they're experimenting and they're testing the boundaries and
nobe, no one knows enough yet to make them pay for it, you
know what I mean. Nobody is realizing that this is actually that they're replicating
here, and that it's it's taking on a life and animus of its own.
And it's into that sort of cauldron that Micfoley and Terry Funk do their
make their greatest mischief together, you know, importing as much of that hyper
violence that they were practicing in Japan at the time to America and ECW the
place that would come closest to being able to countenance that level of insanity.
And this, this moment, after their first one on one meeting, which
ironically started with a pledge to keep it scientific, ends up with an ant
hill, a life size scale ant hill full of steel chairs in the middle
of the ring with the publican and be buried underneath. So Foley's here and
he's figuring out what it means to be in ECW and to work with Terry
Funk, and he describes the experience and lent some helpful context in his book,
and this excerpt Boss that I hope you could share with the people.
I made my return to the ECW Arena at the end of September. I
had no belt to spit on this time, so I assumed I would avoid
any further controversy. I had already agreed with Todd and Paul E to make
ECW my top priority. At that time, the company was booking only four
shows a month, and I agreed to appear in all of them. I
was excited about the show because it was to be my first singles match ever
with the Funker, Terry Funk, the same guy who four years earlier jokingly
claimed not to have seen shit in me. I had been a friend of
Terry's for years, and he was pretty much my hero in the business.
He had seen it all and done it all, but he still had the
decency to respect all all the other wrestlers, and he never failed to be
polite to the fans When the bell rang. However, Terry was a different
man. He would become a wild eyed mad man at every show, no
matter how small the crowd. He could be that out of control madmen one
moment and kindly old uncle Terry the next. Even at the age of fifty,
he took a tremendous beating, and even years later, at fifty four,
took a worldlessly entertainment beating from me so bad that I apologized to him
for days about it. Cactus, Now don't give me that shit, he'd
say in his soft spoken mumble whisper. That's part of a business, and
I was glad I could do it for you. Terry was the king of
storytellers, and I always listened closely for bits of information I could use.
You had to listen closely when the Funker talked. He spoke so damn softly.
One time on a propeller plane flight, I sat across the aisle when
he talked. While he talked for two hours, I nodded and laughed the
whole time, not wanting to tell the Funker that I couldn't hear a word
he said. This evening in Philadelphia, he had offered some especially prophetic advice,
Cactus. Just remember every match is a great match until it begins.
Wow. The fans were, as in most cases, at the ECW Arena,
extremely excited about the evening show. Now I use the term quote arena
unquote lightly, as it more closely resembled a larger auction barn in actuality.
When I started with ECW, we often had to clear the building in time
from midnight bingo. I could most accurately describe the ambiance as a rocky horror
picture show for wrestling. There was a dollar store next door to the arena,
and they did a brisk pre show business on pots and pans and various
other culinary utensils. That's where the wrestler got it from. That's awesome,
you know, That's where they must have gotten that shit from. The fans
would then bring their purchases to the arena, where they would generously hand them
to their favorite wrestlers. I became so used to swinging these cheap aluminum objects
that one time I grabbed won it and was in mid swing by the time
I realized I had a cast iron skillet in my possession. Approximately two weeks
later, the recipient of the skillet blow, the Sandman, was able to
wrestle again. I am often asked what the strangest foreign object I ever used?
Was no doubt about it. The two man kayak that was that was
once handed to me at the arena tops the list, or maybe the Leonard
Cohen album I use On Mikey Whipwreck, Terry and I were scheduled to be
on last Like most ECW shows, we would have to try to follow a
lot of strange and exciting action. By the time we got out there,
we knew the fans would have seen a variety of chair shots, panshots,
stop sign shots, and in crowd brawling, out of out of the ring
dives and obscenity laced ring interviews. It wouldn't be easy, and in retrospect
main eventing and ECW never was. Keeping in mind Funk's theory, every match
is a great match until it begins. I grabbed the mic Terry. I
called them my cactus warble. It's gonna hurt me to kick your asshole over
the ECW arena, but not as bad as it's gonna hurt you. I
handed Terry the mike. He smiled that lovable, old old uncle Terry smile
and said, that's what I've always loved about your cactus You've always been a
dreamer. Terry and I then shook hands and tore into each other. As
two veteran hardcore warriors, the Funker and I didn't have to rely on cheap,
violent stunts to get a pop out of the crowd. We knew how
to work. No, we didn't have to rely on it, but we
did well. We did anyway, giving the crowd the same variety of chair
shots, panshots, stop signed shots, and out of the ring brawling that
they had already seen for the past three hours. We did throw in one
atted bonus, however, it was actually a combination of two moves we discussed
earlier, but paired together for maximum audience enjoyment. A hangman, A hangman
complimented by a busted eyebrow. Terry threw me into the ropes and I caught
my head and neck in perfect textbook form, even if I doubt the existence
of such a textbook. My legs were kicking, but my head was in
perfect position. I looked up with my right eye and saw Terry throwing that
big left bad His fist went off like a rifle against my eyebrow bone.
The blow helped knock me out of the ropes, and I lay on the
cold concrete floor. No protective mats in the acw relishing that rare feeling of
pain and satisfaction. That's correct, the mcfoley story, pain and satisfaction.
My life is a wrestling fan. I was in Mexico, off the grid.
There work if they work in you and you and you they're working with
He's a worker. He's a worker, worker, that's all he is.
It's fake. What's going on here, over, Jenny, fucking thing sucks
doing live, no doubt, no doubt, No one to thre wrestling fans
treat the game you No, I went back, I went back. No
nothing that being. It's over, Jenny, it's over. I hate a
lot doing live. No, you're getting that ass, Larry, pretense,
petents, potts, pots for tase. You are, say you're getting that
ass, Larry. You're out here fighting. You are a fucking anti right.
I'm about to come in a hurry, no doubt, one, two,
three, fucking smooth. It's over. It's a fucking things sucks.
I wouldn't dance Irish in Mexico. Off the glaring hurry. What's going on
here? It's what's going on here at wrestling fans trade again, you're getting
that ass, Larry. We take that motherfuckers. Ten years have lapsed and
you never know when it's coming. You need to know every chamber is loaded.
That's right, elapsed collides with the price. The fucking family feud theme.
Jesus of this bam his fist went off like a rifle against my eyebrow
bone. The blowout me on the road, Uh pain and satisfaction. We
have fans rocking and rolling right when a tag team called the Public Enemy hit
the ring. Seeing that the pe the phizz Ed had pooped on our party,
Terry and I banded together to fight them off. After a minute,
they went down and Terry told me to get him a chair. There were
no more within easy reach, so I called to a fan to throw me
his yep. He willingly obliged, and a chair sailed into the ring.
Then another flew in, then another, then another, and another and another.
It was literally raining chairs as the plastic seating devices that were not plastic
bow were coming from all angles and all my years, it was the damnedest
thing I'd ever seen. I stood there in wonderment of the spectacle until one
of the chairs bounced off my head and I realized it was time to leave.
In a scene that would be replayed weekly on ECW TV for years,
the ring had been bombarded with over two hundred I don't know what two hundred
poll two hundred chairs with the Public Enemy literally buried innernath Let's say it more
like fifty chairs. When they emerged from under the sea of hard plastic,
we had next month's main event already booked. Funk and Cactus would be taking
on the public enema, and you know, among the people Mick Foley might
have been able to consult about medical attention for the flying errant chairs had him
in the head. ACW Ring is a gentleman that Todd Gordon called the locker
room doctor at ECW Terry funk Ah. As he says in his book Gordon,
that is, Funk was one of those veterans who had a good handle
on how the US healthcare system worked and didn't work for wrestlers. I'm sure
one of our younger guys was sitting with Funk complaining about a neck injury,
which Funk Hastuteley told him was nothing to ignore. Compression spinal injuries are common
from workers getting dropped in their heads every night, and ignoring a seemingly innocuous
pain could have consequences. The worker said he didn't have insurance and it would
likely be too expensive to handle do the rental car dealscent. The kid was
perplexed, as was I. The worker told him he didn't need a bride
to the doctor. Funk smiled and slid closer. Listen up, Grasshopper,
get her rental car and by the top insurance. Funk said, might cost
you fifty bucks, but it's worth it. Then leave the rental place and
run that sum bitch right in a stop sign, grab your neck and wait
for the ambulance. A Funker. Listen, listen, try to commit suicide
and see what happened. I think we both know what happens. Then well,
you could be a George Bailey and fail at it. You know that's
true. A guardian angel in the form of Dor sor I don't know,
Jack, Jack my or it could appear. Well, what maybe the French
angel, the French angel came here? Am I not? I thought I
was Dad. So we talked about Terry, you know, despite really embracing
the raw raw spirit. Dave Sheldon, the Angel of Death, the Angel
of Death, David, What was it, Dave Sheldon? Oh, Dave
Sheldon Goldberg. Oh that's tremendous. Oh my god, the Angel of Death.
Why don't we make that joke during the end of the cinemat episode.
So we're sitting there waiting for us. Oh, Jesus ready disc twenty five
boss, because as we said, Terry Funk is embracing the raw, raw
rebel spirit of ECW and promos and such. He also kind of went to
WCW for months and months during the homely I got number twenty five, go
over to A one thirty nine fifty one, thirty nine fifty one. All
right, So another that's cute up. What we're going to be watching is
Terry Funk's return to ECW. Oh after leaving for WCW, And the only
thing that was bigger than Terry Funk and ECW was him returning. His returns
to ECW were always so well received. I think the fans kind of went
through a period of, oh, well, you know, we had the
Funker while we had him, and of course, you know, if one
of the big two comes calling, we expect to lose him. Like uniquely,
they did not hold it against Terry Funk when he would leave and come
back from WWW to WWF, But when he came back, it was always
a while to say, why was he Why was he forgiven? I don't
know, why was he never criticized? I don't know. They're probably because
ECW didn't make him, So who are you selling out? He came here
and made ECW. Can't you know you can't sell out? You have to
If you're selling out, that means the company that made you, you're running
away with the bag. Whereas no one can say ECW made Terry Funk.
I feel like that was part of it. Plus he had a unique respect.
I mean the crowd. For all of the criticisms you can levy at
the bloodthirsty ECW crowd, they did understand heritage. They did understand legends who
worked extra hard to stay relevant in the current style, and they saw in
Terry Funk what we see in Terry Funk, which is the greatest school.
So I think that had a lot to do with it as well. So
after we went ninety four for a while we talked about how he worked through
the war games and things like that through the fall of nineteen ninety four.
Terry Funk made his return to the ECW Arena on February twenty fifth of nineteen
and ninety five. And it's also something that involves one Cactus Jack mcfoley boy
still very much there as well. So if you're ready, we'll hit play
Yeah, three two one, play, so as Cactus jackers is the Sandon
in love red white and blue bead Hey, why don't red with jose at
up to see? Did not take those from weren't those lex lugers? What
was that? Weren't those lex lugers pants? Very much? So? Yes,
you see, Sandman is getting beat up against a box that has like
a cover and almost like an edicians reveal box, Cactus Jack pushes a Sandman
behind the black curtain that's covering the box. It is what is what I
think is gonna happen? Gonna happen? Oh my god? What the fuck
is who we think is? The Sandman emerges with still the black cloak over
his head, but we can still see the red, whiteness and bold pants.
Yeah, so despite having the blanket or the black curtains still over his
head and standing in the wudn't get a punched by Cactus Jack's head? But
didn't? Didn't we leave them as friends? What my god? They aren't
they friends? When all of a sudden, where are the fighting darks?
Jack pulls back the door and it's practice. It's Terry found wearing the same
red, white and blue pants that set him on the door. I fucking
it's something a ship caps standing on the one there be sad to see the
fun we gave. I don't understand why are they fighting? Where do they
get it? They've heard exchanging punches with Cacus. I still don't understand why
are they fighting? God's wing? But but he gets around, we'll explain
a little. But because they loved they were together, they were tag team.
So I don't understand. Yeah, we didn't cover every single beat.
All right, it's funk on loads for the series of jabs. And here
comes Sandman in the sand pants, now a Singapore caning cactus. Jeff,
Jesus Christ, I guess you could call that a DQ and something. I
guess so that sounds like a d Q to me. There's no ref Well,
Jesus, what the fuck is that guy? Well, that's mikey Ripreck,
who was kind of cast. Is this Jack's hardcore understudy? And just
like this, you know, scrappy JABBRONI I mean he looks like he's wearing
a mix of like a a Bill Cosby sweater and scrubs nurse scrubs. Oh
and now cactus pining funk over the heads. The fuck are just standing there
taking it screaming a cactus. He says, come on again, come on,
cactus, done again, son of a bitch. She snapped it away
from cactus and now he's oh no, he's hauling off on cactus is done
pace of ship. Motherfucker. No, I want to come home. She
was a Sands manager at the time. I think she was real that sure
about this body stuff. Ain't got that, Mark Harry Security Gain went there
the littly claim the siting on the terror phone. You've got that, said
of the snap Acust's phone. Oh, Terry Diggs, the microphone and the
phone head. But boom good the fuck ston hits the morning in the jumpsuit.
What if it's not Chuck Austin or Marty Joey would put it in the
fucking gun good grad Steve Austin for that movie I know? Is it the
cousin of Steve Austin, Chad Austin? Maybe I took him from or to
be laying Austin ruling the worst here to be identically outfitted Terry Funk and Samuel
and Terry Funk has it out for a cactus track to see the least.
I feel like we're missing I don't know, like a Fourth of July party
and asking plans. Is this what Funk was wearing when he setting a shed
of blaze because he couldn't find fairy out? And here's Tommy Dreamer, And
now we begin the association of a Tommy Dreaming and Terry Fake. Oh God
Jesus, yeah, Dreaming absolutely hollered off on Sammy Dreamer was an aide to
these of every cry by taking Singapore canes across at unclock. What a you
do? Times Ayana comes face to face with this mentor Terry Funk and Terry
Funk Pete rushes Tommy drum right across the rail and again Stoy's down says Funk
is like a day off. Now we grew up in Yonkers taking slaps across
the face from with dad, but he's unfortunate. Simon completely blind sids Tommy
Drew over the cane shop. So we're setting up a cactus and Tommy versus
Simon and toy Funk food here that was a legendary Knight, and yet Funk
the first time Funk came out of a box. Was there an explanation while
the dogs was there? I don't care about throwing in the fans. Oh
he's waving people on to throw things. Oh my god, why did I
do that? Why does he tap the truth? It can even sty from
back. He's tears as he takes just a day for the horful fence because
they take an umbrage with them, and that would be part of the reason
that it came back. Hen tacked the Jack because Tack the check fop he
was actually a real respectable pro wrestler. That's the nic to focus out to
prove that that's this. You think, good king, It hatou to be
the candid you're taking serious international effecting the slow chair, Oh great things help
me? Oh God, no, man I the reader would not they see
the day when Jack is called for health, Crack his Jack. He kind
of dropped it up and he's not the slad job. Jesus were great Jack
and Cracked and Jack were directly school together. They were creat by God.
Get out a get nag at anythimes, but can't get some flat can see
school the same. They just falling sign for the Corpse of Cactus JACKI s
BS dipsided Loach through venison st the name the stuffing Dad championship, Big Dad
Grannis tens and figure trethe chaz a for that off like gang me in cans.
She's a dast for life for her. He came with the steel check
you can I fuck give a fair man here in the caves get give you
a fu the bloody cact this jacket. I think he went ahead and bast
had him and any I want to hate a woman out pride, grandchick,
I've been out of the ball hard figure joint boards with me and wig and
rage the crop cracking all levels of them, more than the Northern franchise used
to gratify the forces with her head cat to g a w sha, this
is trust what stuff like the cave. Also those little man's dark and data
take the thrift, come off and in treating the treating you say all joined
fourthun the negotiation, coming along with me. They would surely eclip the legend
of the boar orset woman. I sweating any choice I hate that would happened.
Women would have the most powerful grew up in the rest flag ads three
kags is goot a what a frad Just get a get a jack kats jack
chares dig legs take a three Kac this is doing to be the fuck officer
Lamb, Jennifer Shovin d Let's do it that damn it, you know,
the fucking gat ce Ss, the patient, count Love, Krek can step
do this? Cramp sin Man and something to end that he might stuck again.
I can't tag Judy, don't want anyway, Tina help hete fighting off
the sad man carry fuck who Joey he named Joey Styles. Indeed, so
there it is Funker's back. And you had a question that I didn't answer
there about the box, right, Yeah, what the fuck was that doing
there? Let's see what we can learn, oh boy, because this is
one of the more legendary moments in ECW. Here when Funk comes out of
the box and look he does the same exact thing with Chainsaw, Charlie and
an idea. I'm sure WWF convinced themselves that they didn't steal from ECW.
That's that's as old as as wrestling. That gimmick. We just happened to
do it, you know, two years after ECW did it with the same
guy, uh, Todd Gordon. One of the best examples was Funk in
a box, a clever reveal of Terry Funk's returned to E c W.
During one of Sandman's matches against Actus Jack, Sandman had a concussion and couldn't
wrestle, so we needed a replacement for him. Okay, we knew Funk
had to make a surprise returns. They'll be playing he couldn't wrestle, but
he can go in there and do what he did. He was doing quite
a bit. Yeah, we knew Funk had to make a surprise return,
so be planned to bring him out during the match somehow, ostensibly to face
Cactus. As Sandman's replacement. We'd plan to have him come out of a
box sitting at ringside, which is a classic wrestling ploy, so much so
that wrestling manager and historian Jim Cornette famously proclaimed anything that comes out of a
box instantly gets over with the fans, and particular craft mac and cheese and
pizza sounded good to us. Gordon writes, We'll have Sandman get thrown in
a big box, and when Cactus reaches in to pull him back out,
he'll be pulling out Terry Funk Instead. We added a fun little swerve to
it. Hack, which was Sandman's nickname and of course, the name he
went by in WCW would first open the box to reveal DC Drake was one
of the Eastern Originals, Eastern Champions of Wrestling Originals and quite honestly a disappointment
for fans who would be expecting a worthy opponent to Cactus. Drake was dispatched
in minutes by the ferocious Jack. So yeah, we missed that. Earlier
in the matt there was actually bassa a first chapter to this story, okay,
where they went into the box for Sandman's replacement and it was this this
wrestler J. C. Drake, and the crowd just groaned like you wouldn't
believe. They used a similar psychology on Raw Monday where they promoted the return
of a former ww champion Big Time and Gender Mahal came out, But that
was just the let down to set up the Rock coming back, and so
people went absolutely insane kind of knowing that, like there's no way that they
would deliver this as the promise, so it just adds even more intrigue.
Then after the fans were booing and shitting on the match, Gordon wrote Sandman
could get thrown in the box and Funks reveal what happened, We told Hack
the plan. On the night of the show, Hack arrived at the building
with two sets of identical loud American flag pants, one for him and Terry
Fun each to wear. He had two red T shirts as well. Cactus
would reach into the box and retrieve who we'd all think is Sandman in his
loud and easily recognizable sweats, though his face would be shrouded under a blanket.
Cactus would continue to work with Sandman until he pulled off the cla often
revealed Funk. It was the addition of that twist the identical outfits that gave
us an audience explosion from what was already a guaranteed pop. Plus the earlier
disappointment from the DC Drake reveal added fuel to the combustion. But that's Hack,
always thinking, always working. He's a worker, daddy. So there
you have it, Okay, So yeah, now we're gonna hear Terry Funk
explain what you had curiosity about. Why would he come back if when we
last saw him in ECW he was allied with Nick Foley, although he did
wrestle each other, right, we've seen a match between the two, but
then they teamed up. They were like together as public enemy beat the crap
out of it, right, they had to sort of join forces, and
then they got chairs rained down on the ring. Funk's going to talk a
little bit here upon his return to ECW about what this might all be about.
Ask you one question, do you know? Doing you out there?
No doing? That's mixed? He that's cactive Jackson. Do he have any
brains? How could he possibly have any brains when his mother's a fool and
his father is a total jerk. He's a total jerk because he said time
after time and you wonder why I'm so mad at me? Time after time
he has said that he wants to emanate Terry Funk to be at Terry Funk.
He thinks he's going to be the next Terry Funk. In other words,
I'm down to two. I'm no longer all around. Well, he
is wrong because he will never amount to anything like myself. You see how
he tries to emanate me is by being a fool. He does not know
a wrestling hold. Want he thinks because he lost the ear in the ring,
that's something important. He thinks because he can run in the ring,
and some terribly obnoxious, foolish things that don't even resemble wrestling. That he
is somebody. Look at his body. He's a fat pig. That's all
he'll ever be. Douglas, don't you understand that you have made a tremendous
mistake because birds of a feather flock together. What you're saying, Douglas,
You're saying that Cactus Jack is somebody. Cactus Jack is a nobody in a
professional wrestling world, and he comes out here on television. Doesn't he know
that this is ECW. Doesn't he know not to act like a w CW
wrestler or WWF wrestler by going, well, who does this guy think he
is? I agree, you have me more than trying to do each and
every one of you ECW fans out there. He is a nobody, he
will always be on nobody. He can never walk in my footsteps, never,
never well, he walked in my footsteps, nor my brothers, nor
my father's, nor in hare footsteps, nor in any decent professional wrestlers footsteps.
The man is a mockery to this profession. I'm telling you from my
heart, and you wonder why I go in the ring and you people back
him don't you realize that he is the biggest charlatan of all. Wow,
got enough explanation for you there. I guess he's sick of a cactus framing
himself as the next Terry Funk because that implies that Terry Funk's days are over
and he's not having that. And further, it's ridiculous for Folly to assume
that if he can imitate just the hardcore part of Terry Funk, that he
can be the second coming, because as he talked about, he doesn't have
the depth of wrestling skill that Terry Funk also has under the hood, and
that a charlatan, a pretender like mcfoley doesn't even discern or isn't even able
to appreciate. He's kind of cutting Rick Flair's promo for him from his book
on Folly before Flair wrote the book. All that stuff you know fully heard
in ECW and was crafted as part of a storyline. So that's that's Funk's
animus. That's Funk's reason to get fed up with mc foley and to return
to ECW to attack Cactus Jack. And here Shane Douglas and McK foley.
Now, of course, allied respond and again I remind you that you know
mc foley's true breakthrough as a promo was on the ECW television screen. And
this is this is perhaps one example. HI hate your guts, Terry Funk.
You're a hanger on. You're everything out his spies about this sport.
You're an old man. Takes time to retire, Terry Budge, no matter
mistake, thinking not ago, hang on MYSELFA gonna turn it on. We
create a legend of wcway it only yourself because I'm gonna tell you a little
bit about history myself. And what I like about it is that everyone's got
a little different interpretation of historical events. And I remember August twenty seventh.
I remember it like it was yesterday, no show. He didn't make it
to the arena. And you know what that said to me, Derry,
you are a hypocritical piece and you've gotta pay the price. You've gotta look
at tact as tack and you've gotta see it yourself. I made a big
mistake, and Dairry Funk, I'll still stand here and say that you are
my hero. And I'm not gonna take your picture down. Why gonna take
you down? I'm not gonna throw your autograph out. I'm gonna throw you
out. And you want to bring up my left ear, Yes, Terry
Funk, I walk. This is on my body before and I'm not sure
the process is out at the end of the trail of blood, sweating,
fears, their wives. You know, slivery pilpful, Cory. It's your
Livertorry. Just the fact that I see me and I see you. He
doesn't have a liver, se Douglas. Douglas wants to talk to you people
and tell you how wonderful that he is. Captains Jack listens to him and
he feeds you full of boot boot that is what he gives you. That's
right. He has never accomplished a thing compared to me, to my family,
or anyone else that has any wrestling ability. I'm gonna whip him like
a god damn gong. You watch me, new people watch me. That's
a promise, they promise, And I've never lied to you yet. We
started covering Terry Funk's CCW tenure, remarking upon how he called it back that
you know nineteen seventy four, good old boy baby face tone. Yes,
that's gone. We now have the screaming, maniacal, bloodthirsty ready to commit
homicide. Terry Funk's DCW the nutbag. What's that? The nutbag? The
nutbag. That's exactly right, and he's ready to kick you in your nut
bag if you step out of line. So, uh, Cactus coming back
with the liver comment, which is a remark on you know, you always
got to shoot a little bit on how Terry liked to imbibe. Okay,
all right, and and just yeah, that's that's the battle lines being drawn
there upon Funk's return. And so it would come to March eighteenth, nineteen
ninety five in the ECW Arena boss A Ready Disc twenty six, Please GUSC
twenty six as Terry Funk and the Sandman team up to take on Cactus Jack
and Shane Douglas or CCW. W'd run about every three weeks at the arena,
so you'd see an angle shot like the one we just saw with Funk's
return, and then you knew the next time you came to the arena you'd
get to see the match, and then it would progress and something else would
be shot typically that would get you to come to the next one. There
was reference made in that mcfoley promo to August nineteen ninety four, Did you
hear that? Yes, what that was a reference to was the knight that
Shane Douglas won the NWA title tournament and then shading the belt threw it on
the ground and renamed Eastern Championship Wrestling Extreme Championship Wrestling. And on that night,
what they're making reference to is Terry Funk was supposed to be part of
the tournament, but no showed the event Ooh, it's something I haven't really
been able to find a lot of collateral about. It's not something that Funk
really mentions. Funk makes kind of a sympathetic remark about Dennis Corluso, who
was on the NWA side of that controversy, and somebody who worked for and
you know, didn't ascessarily dislike you know, who was associated and aligned with
Jim Cornett, who was somebody of course that Funk was still working for for
Smoking Mountain throughout nineteen eighty four as well. So it probably was kind of
a delicate political matter for him, and he probably was very strategic and not
showing up to that tournament. But that didn't stop Shane Douglas and Cactus Jack
from citing that is a bit of cowardice that you know, chipped away at
the deep respect that they had for the Funker. So if you can go
over to fifty six seventeen Boss fifty six seventeen, we'll see how Cactus Jack
and Terry Funk deliver off those promos in that hot angle and just let's just
say, let's just see how much heat, all right, they can add
to this thing. So we're ready there, yep, we'll hit playing three
two one, play what maybe on the surface what may appear on the surface
of the whistlings odd couple, Cactus Jack hit the franchise chain Douglas. They're
not waiting for the all things already in the ring or singing that and Terry
Funk and round the way. We have multiple cameras now, so we're back
in the arena. They're wearing the pants again that hey, it might as
well. Jesus did make a very satisfying crack over the head, did that
Singapore cane And that was you know, remember that incident in Singapore where that
I think it was an American right who got Yeah, Yo, Shane was
swinging so recklessly with the cane that he accidentally turned around and waffled cacked us
his own Parker in the head, and I saw that he's pissed. Act
just taking the umbridge. There's a shoving match, there's finger pointing, there's
shouting. Now we comed up this and foward. I think still being asked
to accept red, yellow and blue robes. Jesus steel chair flying and I
don't know if Terry fun Freud or some fan like my mom threw it.
Actually she was there. Right, this is the era where Tony Khan would
go to the ecw Agrena. He's visible on a I think it does a
nineteen ninety five arena show where Chris Jericho has last ECW and Master. That's
no shit. Back to the part of a way he grew up to start
his own wrestling company and one of the first highlands was christ Jericho. So
now double teaming on our Cactus Jacks or the Sandman and Terry oh fuck,
absolutely cracking and fully in the head with a steel chair. This industry is
about taking chair shots to the head, right, yep, that's simple.
Call me, wake me up when you're ready to take chair shots unprotected to
the head. Absolutely that's nineteen nineties pro wrestling. And now Shane back in
going off with the cane on sand Men in Cactus, pardon me sand Men
and funk Samn's standing on the floor, Douglass reaches over the rope and bunks
him on the head with a cane. If I was fully running clothesline,
now they missed it. Of course, let's let's focus on the woman's At
least we have more than one camerangle. Now you notice that that is true
now cutting to r although we would have been better off having one camerangle for
that shot. That's the thing. Eas W had so many angles, but
they didn't have enough camera angles. So again cactus with the running clothesline spill
into the floor as well as the sand Man, and I don't can que
up another one in the funkers like you've got the memo that they missed the
shot because that one was captured. They landed. They probably intended to land
on that table position of ringside. I hurt. They didn't get the shots
the damn table. Get up? Do it again? Hey did it again?
A sandman too? Here we go, so easy w to just like
take a chair out and sit it down. Somewhere and something. Of course,
let's see what happens. It's gestures. Oh he is that is that
Stanny Kubrick and the ring sun. It's good day, good aye. He
actually used to go us that open. Now is Terry Funk? Here comes
fully a little rope to the floor in the concrete drops anilboat in the funker.
I see Kubrick right there in the front row, in the beard,
and then he's yeah he's a fan. I think he's creating cinema verite over
there. I believe, I believe he's just creating over there. So now
yeah, that you know, Shane Douglass is the throwing down in the NBA
title It's now Extreme Championship Wrestling. You can see the classic logo on the
T shirts. Oh fly gets a start, lunges over the guardrail and front
flips and a sandman in the audience while Shane Douglass takes on a bloodied Terry
Funk on the floor. Christ of course Funk fed Lazier. Yeah, I
mean, listener, he doesn't run the razor. You might as well not
even be there. Here's the East w hat guy fan that was always the
front row. His name's John Ley. He would hang out with the wrestlers
afterwards, go to the hotel room and see him at the days they would
always go to the Zarils. I'm not saying voted back in now as the
Funkers, Cactus Jack and Shoe Douglas pooling their resources on the legend double Irish
wading a double back elbow puts down Terry Funk. I mean it's funny like
so so is is what I mean? I know they're trying to do something
different, but what I what I I guess I don't still understand what this
is. This is not what Terry Funk used to do, and I just
understand why what is more respectful for this than other than the Big two?
What he Terry Funk didn't I mean, I know he did work for them,
as we've said, but he he preferred these this this stuff right right?
Why? I think because it was a crowd that would appreciate you taking
greater risks. It's just the crowd. It's just the crowd response. Then
that's has made him want to come here. That's just sick. It is.
Yeah, it's sending a kind of fan that actually you feel like the
harder you work more likely they would be to keep coming back, whereas you
know, and the other corporate structures has done belook for this W. You're
only allowed to work so hard even if you wanted to, so you couldn't
really, you know, And that's the business fund pull up and the instincts
he had that. Of course, we've talked about this a lot there the
wraps funk that put him at odds with Sam much Nick. You know,
I'm going to go out there and do what it takes to lead an impression
on this crowd so they want to see me again, even if that means
getting big time to heat, attacking people in the chairs, saying controversial things
in the microphone, waving them on to throw things in the ring, saying
that loads of complete guard rail and these spirits acass and DCW was like the
last canvas for him to paint that way where it was like, you know,
it's really in our hands to make sure we do something tonight that leaves
him talking and coming back. Oh my god, draw up the full guardrail
across Chane Douglas's back while he was on all fours in the canvas. Now
he's he's not going to go to w W for WW and be able to
throw a guardrail around. No, I know, I guess I'm like,
it's just it's just like I guess I don't understand why why you'd prefer that
that guy a guy, a guy who's and I know, I know that
he's trying to stay relevant and I and I can appreciate that. I think
he wants a guy alive something that isn't well, you can't keep alive if
you keep doing this ship. You know, I don't think he does it.
Literally three he was the company, I have the option. You know,
he's very much like for the boys, Like I can see Funk Lugging's
idea of the company where a bunch of guys could make money that the jig
t would never hided with, like said, man loved this guy. Yeah,
I'm never Yeah, chairs getting thrown all over the place. Funk is
now put the guardrail in the ring and he's gonna crops Douglas on it in
the ring. Say then close lines him off a heart attack. But instead
of if you want, if you want to call her anvil holding him up,
it's the steel guardrail. There's a woman, Jim the guardrail Nightheart on
Doglas is leg like you's do in the MIDSLF Coliser with Joy all up with
the steel chair. Mhm you mean just carnage. Oh yeah, just total
dis away man felt the weights. I wonder when I wonder what Funk said.
You know, I'm always curious about you know, you can what you
can usually tell, you know guys, you know, wrestler's styles or whatever.
And I'm just wondering what where Terry Funk said, you know what I
want? I want tights that have a that have black Superman trunks but then
stripes on the side. Those were uniquely his. I can't think of I
know, I know, it's just such a but like I mean, I
guess he's probably what like get the at like Target or something, looking at
leggings. He's like, oh, hey, look at this ship. I'll
go ahead and something. I'll go ahead and get this and get over.
He got him over. I remember when Chris Candida would wear him. I'd
be like, you know, he was going for Terry Funk, Like,
yeah, like a mini Terry Funk. That was his son. That's all
you needed to do to evoke Funk was wear those pantscause no one else really
did that's good question. Those are little things that only a journey like this.
Oh yeah, if you're obsessed with then no one would ever take time
with Terry Funk when he was making himself available for interviews to ask him,
right o they I mean because like you know, you see him, we've
seen him wear all sorts of ship. But it's such a peculiar it's such
a I'm not knocking it either. That's very unique. It's a very unique
choice. And I can totally see as you're getting older, the the the
desire to wear you cover up your legs and wear something, you know,
some longer trunks and longer tights and stuff. It's just this particular design.
Like other people who have longer tights of you know, very you know,
their own custom made images. But this is something I could, you know,
I could buy a goodwill Oh all right, Terry Funk Apperdidi team cooler
on the floor. That a toolbox from what walked up the eise like he's
going to hit sand in with it and the whole thing dumps on his head
like Daniel Stern and he's standing there doing the funk like wo woozy cell get
this cop like pushing wrenches around the fuck these these fucking pieces of ship.
These fakers know there's tools all over the ECW arena, but this is taking
it too far. The stops like come home? Can I go home?
Please? Can these guys go home? Is the question? Yeah, No,
there's a bit more to accomplish this Sandman, mind. I listen it
to the backsuplex on the concrete. Yeah, I think I think Samon might
be a little gassed. Too many cigarettes, too much beer. Salmon,
of course, dressed like he's taking his kids to the fair after you having
some stuff. Yeah, I get somehow some fucking funnel cake and yeah,
and some schnaps at ten am, right right morning, a morning, a
morning schnapps and then take the kids to the fair schnop mayor Oh, there's
the Kane Dewey sign there it is. I don't know if that. That's
probably like the second or third one, because it had already been the reference
to Yeah, and that was a big thing. Nick Foleys his promos and
you're turning on the audience would say like, you know, I come here
and do these things to myself for you, and you reciprocate by saying wouldn't
we funny if someone came to might get young son, I said, it's
wonderful promo. That's basically transcribed in his first book, you know, explaining
that as the basis to go into this hole, like I'm gonna deprive you
of the violence you thirst for. Heel for someone. So he d dropped
the chair on Sandman's face and Sandman one ups him by a top ve killotine.
With the chair on Cactus's face, we come to the arena to put
chairs on our faces and hope for the bus. Right. SHOT's it?
You know, that's all you can do? Well, Douglas extensibly after brawling
with Terry funk In, the Batch comes a limping down the aisle and makes
the last second say the Sandman, how to Cactus dead to rights? Oh,
Douglas, crown sand least chair shots Man. They held up a little
bit. They would start swinging a lot harder in a couple of years,
but it's hard to watch help the sort of cascatto dive leveling Sandman on the
outside. So many cops. Phillip D's like, you're not gonna fill the
ring with a the projectile chairs again, Okay, it's not happening. Jesus,
it's the kid, by the way, Michael Fay, Oh my god,
Terry funk emerges from the locker room with a flaming branding iron, christ
in the fucking Oh my god, someone's getting here for the fire that he
hits him with the fucking metal. Yeah, he's got fully out in the
middle of the ring. He peels off some of his shirt and he brings
the flame to Foley's chest, fully squirming. He's being burned. In the
arena, there's Joey. Oh, the flaming branding iron brought down of the
canvas in the tinder box that is this piece of ship building by the way.
Yeah, the cops are standing there looking at a live flame in the
room. Not on the fucking mister a big time. I miss it by
but you're gonna act like he got it on. I understand. I'm try
to pile drive mixed head onto the flaming branding iron. Cover one, two
three and Terry Funk Pin's Cactus Jack. I wonder what Foley's wife thought of
this one. Shouldn't bring the kids to this one. She thought it was
infoida. Yeah, Kane Dewey So despite losing Shane Douglas still hauling off on
standing with the Kings. But this is just this terry fun Cactus Jack is
she has just reached it. Talk about heat, boss, talk about heat?
Are we literally? Are we going to get a shot of the chest
where he fucking branded him bol I don't know if he was going for the
full branding or just the flames. Yes, she ended up this custal caller
and covers up the burned chester. W we do insist on, you know,
complete branding. Listening to the funker here after doing the deed, Oh
cat this Jack one on one me and you you know I can't stand your
flag, you lady family here. You know what I'm gonna do me and
you ate from the fifteenth, I'm want to kill you. That's right,
I'm gonna kill Cactus Jack. I may get the chair, but I'm gonna
kill him. No, I'm gonna tell you what. I might just torture
him and then I'm gonna kill him. No, I may kill him and
then I'm gonna torture him. No, I'll tell you what. I'm gonna
castrate him first, then I'm gonna kill him, and then I'm gonna torture
him. No, WHOA wait a minute, what am I gonna do?
I'm gonna castrate him, kill him, torture him, and then I know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna travel him into the bumper of my fifty
five uick and I'm gonna pull out son of a bitch down the main street
of Philadelphia. That's what I'm gonna do. Do you look at Cactus Jackson?
Do you ever look at his face? Oh? What a faith he's
got. If I had a face like him, might have a circumcised Oh.
I'm looking so forward to this. Shane Douglas. I've had enough of
you your comments about people that I love and I respect, and Cactus Jack
I've had enough of your body, of your thoughts that you are a wonderful
professional wrestler. You actually believe that? Well, I prove to you that
I am the man and I will always be the man. On April to
fifteenth, it's going to be a hot time at the ECW Arena. Okay,
So reference there. Like I said, you go to the arena,
you'd see the match that was the angle was shot for last time, and
then they'd come back with it in this case, it's Terry Funk and Cactus
Jack on one coming off the flaming branding iron. By the way, when
Funk was cutting that promo, he had the charred branding iron up near his
temple, tapping his head. I mean, that's just that's insane Terry Funk.
He doesn't even know what the next word to come out of his mouth
is going to be. Having No, he is not. He does not
your body. He sounds like your face. I was really hoping he'd say
he'd say, I'm gonna I'm gonna castrate him, I'm gonna kill him,
I'm gonna torture him, and I'm gonna eat him. Did he say he
was gonna circumcise his face? He said he was gonna circumcisee his face.
Are you circumcised beyond just cutting a penis? Like? Is that? I
don't I don't know. I mean, I suppose that the that that you
can I mean, you know, I guess the idea that you're you're lopping
off part of the skin and opening it up, I guess. I don't
know. I suppose so we've got enough circumcise face. Oh sorry, go
ahead, I'm gonna circumcise his face, and I'm gonna circumcise my face and
I'm gonna shove my foreskin down his mouth. Oh it's called foreskin. No
matter where you circumcise doesn't matter. I don't care. I'm gonna I'm sitting
here eating foreskin. Now. No, those are pigskins, Terry, big
difference. I'm gonna go ahead, and you know, I'm gonna circumcise his
face, and then I'm gonna, you know, circumcise mine. And then
what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna circumcise Dorry's pecker for a second time.
Yeah, Terry, I hate to tell you can only do it once unless
you really fuck up, Dorince, I'm gonna circumcise you again. Ah okay,
I guess if that's no considered, Dorance, I'm going to circumcise you
again. And then I want you to picture that not coming out of Terry
Funk's mouth, but but written on a note left on Terry's kitchen counter.
Oh what do we get when I well, it looks like we got a
note? What is the uh huh? Yeah, Darren's I am God's my
name Darrence, So I think that's me. I don't is there it's not
Dad right. It doesn't say Darrin's junior. H Nothing on the backside.
I'm gonna say, you want to read not everything's two sided. I yuess
it's it's gotta be me. I suppose, Okay, Darrence, I am
going to circumcise you for a second time. It's the lapsed Funk time,
Terrence, Okay, Uh, I got, Okay, I get. I
mean, I don't know. I mean if Terry says so, I guess
I shouldn't get. You know, you gotta be shitting me now, you're
losing me. Dory Funk saying, I don't know, Dory Funk standing in
a tranced silence, thirty feet from nine to eleven, as it happens,
not moving, getting washed over by smoking soot, standing there like a statue
you had, coughing. I guess huh, he says, fucking second plane
crashes, he goes, that's when you know something really serious has happened,
when Dory can bring himself to go huh. So how would Cactus Jack respond
to Terry Funk branding him with a flaming branding iron and then cutting that screeen
on him in the promo? Well, I think we're here a lot of
screeching. See, Terry Funk. There's one word you'd use to describe me
that I can't seem to get out of my head, Charlattan. I don't
even know what it means, but I'm pretty sure it's not somebody who lives
in North Carolina. But I got a decent idea. That's funny, I
think, Terry Funk, you're out there questioning my credentials. I'm not exactly
philled don here, but there are a couple of things I'm a little sensitive
about. One of them's my family. The other one is my claims for
legitimacy in this great sport, and you've questioned them both. Well, Terry
Funk, you're out there saying, hey, I don't need a goofy name
my cactus jack? What is a cactus jack? You use your full name
anybody who watches this show, Terry Funk, I'm not opening any secrets.
I'm not harboring a secret. I'm Mike full I was born Michael F.
Foley, Bloomington, Indiana, and I don't even know what the hell New
Mexico looks like, but the name kind of fit and I'm stuck with it
for better or worse. So you fans, you want to chant Mickey Mickey,
you do it. You want to chance tactics chack wheat, because I
call myself tack this check for one reason, I earned it. I earned
it, Terry Funk, and for better or worse. For the last twenty
nine years of my life, this has been me. I maybe his comeback,
but I'm always a comeback. Now. Who are you, Terry Funk?
Are you Frankie the Thumper? Are you doing the job for Patrick Swayze?
Or you lasting all of thirteen episodes and tequila and pinnetti? Oh,
Terry Funk, luck to me and realize I'm gonna put you on a perman
hiatus. So you tell me, Terry Funk, who has the true credentials?
You want your credentials one of the greatest competitors in the sport. Like
I said, I can't take that away from you. But April fifteenth,
Terry Funk, two weeks after we wrestle in front of one of the largest
crowds Japan has ever seen, sixty thousand people in the Egg Dome. Well,
Terry Funk, I'm gonna leave just enough of you left to bring you
into my home, the acw Arena, the intimate confines, and show each
and every one of these fans out here and intimate jew of your skull.
Because make no mistake, when Cactus Jack is perched up, buy in that
second turn buckle and you're looking at a two hundred and eighty seven pounds misso
descending on your wrinkled old body. That feeling in your throat is not excitement,
that's all liver So, Terry Funk, you want to play with fire,
Well, I'm not exactly a fireman, but I say there will be
a rebuttal I say, Terry Funk, your ass is gonna be burnt.
And I say, Terry Funk. And while I am helpless to change is
the past, I'm gonna make damn sure that the rest of your miserable life
is spent in the worst way possible. You may have put Tactors Jack's shoulders
down for a three count today, but I'm gonna put your wrinkled old death
in a wheelchair for the rest of eternity. So think about it, Terry
Funk. When day in and day out, this is the face you see
when you kiss your wife, You'll see me. When you say goodbye to
your children, you'll see me. And when they leave your bitter old ass
and you're washed up and you're on your dying day. I hope the last
things that cross through that pathetic mind of yours are very simple. Shouldn't have
messed with tact Jacket. I shouldn't have messed with Nick Foley my life.
That's a promo. Jesus, that's a promo. That's that is that is
that is intense. Appreciate those deep cuts. Oh yeah, but Terry Funk.
Was missing from WWFNWW was the ability to stand in front of a camera
and say, on this date, I'm gonna kill you, and yeah,
I suppose that's true. And there he goes off the hinges. I'm there.
I want to see what's gonna happen next. They've already introduced fire,
They've already filled the ring several times with four hundred steel chairs. They've already
brawled all over the ECW arena and you know boxes. I guess what's next
is limbs being severed. Well, if they could, they would, and
has made reference to their in that promo. They're blowing each other up in
Japan at the same time on the death match circuit, which of course we
will get to here on the lapsed Funk. But while we're in ECW,
we're going to turn to the match he mentioned and just the uh the knockdown,
drag out battle that was the April fifteenth, nineteen ninety five one on
one collision between Terry Funk and Cactus Jack. But before we do that,
did you hear the Tequila and Benetti reference? That's what I'm saying, those
the deep cuts. What do you know about What can you tell our people
about Tequila and Bennetti if anything? Well, I mean that's the we We
actually talked about it. We talked about it, and then beyond it must
have been beyond the mat. Yeah, it's it was just a short lived
TV show. And uh, it was a dog. Yes, you had
Bennetti who was the detective in the prist department, and then you had Tequila,
who was his canine partner who could talk to Benetti. Right, showed
the dog and someone would voice over kind of like a soulful, jive talk
voice for the dog. And I don't know why it didn't last, but
Mariska Hargate was in it. Yeah, yeah, and and and and Funk
played a sergeant and he just he looked like a dufist. Why because well,
number one he completed he was clean shaven, which when Terry Funk like
that, just he does look weird. And I think, no, I
don't think so. I think he was mistashed at least not this not the
episode that I may shaved it the thing I don't know, but yeah,
and I just remember there was let me see if I can pull it up.
The the guy was asking question something happened and and and oh, I
know, like yeah, he says some some mix it like are you you
play robo? Are you robo cop? I think I said no, no,
no, I'm I'm not. I'm not RoboCop. Can I meet robo
Cop? No? RoboCop is is is a fictional character. It's played by
an actor, Peter Weller. Well neither wanted to be fine something like that,
So he plays a total dufist on the show. Yeah so yeah,
short lived television series. And part of you know that, that that duality
of Terry Funk. I mean he's saying these inhumane things about Nick Foley on
this you know, underground renegade wrestling television show and he's still taking acting roles
for like mainstream shows, trying to keep that sag card current. You know,
through the nineties. He's kind of given up on a screen career after
the eighties. I think it's safe to say, or at least Hollywood has
given up on him as being a candidate for I would say, you know,
he wasn't gonna get he was, you know, he he's certainly in
a way he worked more in the nineties than he did. Yeah, he
was on the Western TV show. He was quantum ely Yeah, and he
was on he was on Hogan Show too. Don't forget. He was on
the Thunder Paradise and yeah, Thunder and Paradise. He did he did a
Briscoe County Junior and then he did like for two seconds in Briscoe. I
mean, honestly, he's in a blinking you'll miss at moment in Briscoe County
Junior and the uh, you know, in a bunch of like shitty low
budget movies. Probably he does the Wendy's commercial. I think it was no
eighties eight eighties was the Winn's commercial? Yeah, yeah, that was during
his heyday. Sure, I mean the eighties it's weird, you know.
So in the eighties he had his most high profile stuff, but he he
technically worked more, although I'm sure it was for a lot less money in
the in the nineties, Ad mcfoley, they're kind of poking fun at him
in the spirit of totally you know, you got to you gotta start hitting
below the belt and promo for people to really believe that there's some some minimosity
being created between the two wrestlers, and that's a very nice example of that.
So here's a little bit of sound since we've piqued your interest, and
again it was discussed and are beyond the Mad episode as part of the Lapsed
Funk under the cinemat. But here's a little taste of Terry Funk as the
sergeant in Tequila and Benettio. Could you assign visiting Detective Benetta a parking space,
please, we don't every laugh, Captain, give him detective Burger space.
He'll be in the hospital for another week. Burgers, follow me a
burger again. He fell off Jack's Brats wild Ride You what yeah, mos
Magic Park? Oh he was on the cover. No, his kid lost
your Humpty Dumpy. Had he fell off trying to catch it. He landed
on the Fiddlers Three. He didn't land on the Fiddlers three. He landed
on Miss Muppets. Tough it? You sure Jack Spratt's wild Ride doesn't fly
over the Fiddler's Three flies over Miss Muppets. Tough it? I've forgotten about
that. I mean, what the fuck is that? Honestly? Oh?
Oh he does. He does have a mustache. Yes he does. I'm
looking at him right now. He does have a mustache. You have to
love that stilted nineties television dialogue. Oh absolutely, it's just like you just
know it's a nineties TV show by just like the pauses and the white noise,
yeah, all the rest here, here's this dialogue. But I'm only
you can hear it, though no one else is gonna be able to hear
it. I'll trying to convey what I'm hearing to the solar system. Bubbo
cop is, let's go back a little bit. He has a question for
him. Can I ask you something? The building with a head I've ever
met RoboCop? Well, no, not exactly. A cup is a character
in the movie. Oh, I'd be happy to meet you, the one
such fucking Bozo, I'm sure you would, They say, I'm sure,
I'm sure. I want ahead and let him make an ass out of me.
I want ahead and met both Robo Cop and Peter will Er. What
would a pro wrestler know about someone not being their character? Give me a
break. That's the thing with Terry Funk. There is no person who portrays
Terry Funk on television that you can go out there and meet. I'm not
surprised he was confused there in a way. So let's do it. Let's
jump into the match that's being built up. The heat reaches a full boil,
to say the very least. It's April fifteenth, ninety five in the
arena. We're gonna stick on disc twenty six, Boss, and we're gonna
toggle over to one twenty nine eighteen and take into the one on one Terry
Funk Cactus Jack match that's been building up here upon Funks returned to the promotion
in February ninety five. Alright, we're gonna start and lay out here as
Funk has got a microphone in the ring while Cactus is walking the perimeter of
the square circle. And here we go three two one, play whatever it
was Howry fuck our branded cactus with a planning branding iron physical drawings. I
know, oh, I forget about here. Dutch's just someone in here as
good night Dare. That's the damn good on the entry. But there's one
whole thing wrong with this picture. It's the way it's Seattle layer here.
Why don't you come out here? Okay? Uh cactus check to him in
the seats, Rainy orders packed this jack by as you should never be this
jack, ask another get you you don't sup by. These fans flip on
the back so fuck you at the part of their lungs to Funk. So
we have a bell and yeah, Terry Funk is a white T shirt on
that he wrote cactus my ass on the back end, Cactus my ass.
I don't know what that how that works, but what that even means.
But the challenge has been issued to look at this. Terry Funk is climbing
the rails similarly, but he's doing it in another part of the arena,
saying no on my terms. Here, We're gonna do it my way.
We're gonna go ahead and fight in the crowd. We're gonna do it.
Go ahead and touch myself in this part of the crowd. Go ahead and
follow me into the people practice. Go ahead. When I had dead,
I had ah there It is like nails funk with the right hand amidst the
people, have a fucking crazy scene. This is to be good at this
so absurd bleachers that they're still fun is going? Is the dirt how dirty
it is? Oh? My god? I mean yeah, I'm just here
we go. Yeah, Jesus, Terry cracking folly with chair shots and it's
like so far away from people that most people can't see. Yeah, is
everyone standing out? Is there? Is? There no Titan tronk. There's
no Titan tron and everyone. I don't think there ever was. I'm sure
there wasn't. But when they dressed the building up for a TNN when they
were doing the National Television Show, there's Terry with a handful of Captus's hair
dragging them up to that perch that crows nest or whatever they used to call
it, high atop the arena. We're getting a little tour of the building
here, Jesus, such as it was, It's like what I did?
They just run it out this building. They had it every week or every
month, yea, every month, three weeks just about Wow, what was
it? What was it? Originally it's like a function hall. It's called
Viking Hall for a while then a bunch of deer. They would have like
events and concerts, and they would have bingo that was the thing. And
sometimes they'd have like midnight bingo after the show. So it became known as
the bingo hall. There are you know, people would derisively call it the
bingo hall when they were trying to make fun. Oh, folly risks at
all any you got nothing in return? Comes off the stage with a flying
elbow, funks on a table, funk moves out of the way and fully
crashes classic cactus tract. Take a flight there. It rings further away than
I thought from the back wall here. That could be a wide angle shot.
Yeah, I mean, I know it looks to be about ten fifteen
rows tops. And they know funking tactus used to shoot a lot of wide
angles, so that's true. Up now, Uh, Terry going to work
on the remnants at the table. I was grubbing a chair. I's all
these people. Look at the black t shirts, the jeans. This is
nineteen eighty five. Yeah, seriously, I want you to think about WrestleMania
eleven than it ready to happen. Oh you know what a different world it
wasn't I didn't fill at this time? Yeah? That seriously think of the
WWF at that point and think of how much more enticing this scenes. You
know. No, I mean listen again, Like I've said it before,
I'll say it again. I'm sure that if I had been aware or sought
access to this, I would have loved it. There's no doubt about it.
I fit the time, they fit the move Yeah, oh absolutely,
yeah, there was there definitely was. I mean there was such a you
know, anti authority. And Todd Morton tells a story in his book about
how, you know, Paul Hammond just had the epiphany one day where he
said, we're going to rename it extreme and that word is going to be
everywhere in a few years, and it was totally right. Yeah, it's
the Extreme Championship wrestling before it was you know extreme everything right like right around
the time that took hold. So they whacked each other with chairs, fully
sent head over heels under the guardrail, gets his leg tied up there and
bum because just slamming his knee to the steel. That just like a moody
like give me something where I can swear, you know, yeah, I
mean it was such a This was such an answer to like the Reagan Yeah
interesting, yeah, trying to bring it back to the you know, the
old days mentality, like a push it into the moral majority and right right,
you know, this was a time when you know, Congress was alive
with talk of like we need to get back to values and you know,
right ormanticizing the time that never existed, that kind of stuff, right,
This is definitely a response to that For a generation that didn't identify with you
know that longing for the past, there was a farm it was just having
things that were just unapologenically like oh, back out of the ring table,
leaned up against the gropes and saying, man, pardon me, Tacas Jackson's
funk flying in the way, because you know it is funny. So like
I remember when when when WWE said they were bringing back E. C.
W. I was actually like hoping for something a little more nineties esque pretty
and stuff like I actually wanted that. So again, I do think that
they're probably would have been a time in my youth that I would have appreciated
this more than I do. Now, Oh my god, Jesus, I
just you know, only climbing the top and Funk actually souplex is an entire
table across Foley's head, and it hits the floor and almost hits like ten
people in the front road. Yeah, I just don't, you know,
I just I can feel. I can I guess here's here's the part of
it too. I can feel how these guys are going to wake up.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's good on you to have that on your conscience,
because nobody in this building does I know, they're not even they don't
even get warmed up until they hear it, hear that people's skulls get cracked.
Oh now, oh my god. Cactus has a toilet seat and he's
wrapped it around the throat of Terry Funk. Someone brought a toilet seat to
show up, of course, or someone imagine. I imagine that there was
a fun thing where where fans would probably go through dumpsters and shops see what
they could find, and bring whatever they could to the to the probably to
that dollar across the st Yeah, he's gonna plunger that definitely like a dollar
store plunger, for sure. That ain't a good one. It comes fully
from the apron what's going to do with bulldog Terry to the folded out steel
chair. There's a total brawl here, just I mean so far. I
mean, like the what the male to female ratio has got to be?
What like twenty five to one? Oh my god, Oh Jesus. The
gorilla pressed Cactus off the apron front flip and they landed on that splat concrete
like you used to do the nexty plunge bump. I guess there's just the
psychological thing, you know, where I'm like, okay, I just I
put myself in there in their shoes, and it makes me feel uncomfortable,
the idea of well if I go out there and I hurt myself and the
crowd locks it, I guess I'm doing something right exactly, Well that better
keep doing it. That's exactly it. The perverse the reward system. Un
Chris bust that open now is Cactus takes him on a tour of ringside.
But here's the thing. By coming into this company and meeting that fan expectation,
so many guys got jobs at WWF and went on to make millions.
Yeah, let me teary that. I mean, I'm not I agree,
I totally understand that, and I get it, but I mean in another
way, yes, well that is great that they were able to do that.
You know, the WWE also was exploiting people's poor health choices for sure.
Yeah, they were definitely traffick again as well. I mean, that's
what that's the flip that Vince, that's the switch that Vince flipped. You
know, just said, fine, chairs, hyper violence, nudity, as
much swearing as we can get away with, chair shots all the time,
short patches, brawling, hyper violence, tables. Let's do it. That's
clearly what we all to do to survive this nWo thing. And now fully
with a full rubber made trash can and they're wearing this just crowned the funker
and debris flew every bog a bang bang. Look, Oh my god,
funk found a fucking beer bottle in there. God he broke on his head.
I think he broke it over his head. Think kid hit him like
three times before. Chadow's Philly was bleeding on top of cacti. Jack got
another beer bottle and he's cracking them all. No, smashes them together to
create a jagged edge. He just started fucking just attack the referee, stabbing,
literally stabbing. He's carving the arm of Foley's get his arm in the
bottom rope and for real, Terry is slicing the Oh my god, I
saw the flesh, just like kind of rip off. Why does he do
it? I don't look at the flesh, look at the arena. Look
at his arm cut to one time. Isn't that kind of the symbolic thing?
Didn't get his arm cut in Japan? He did? Now he's doing
a cactus his chest after ripping the shot. Branded where he got branded too?
Yes, yes you did. I branded him. Yeah, that's the
thing he was before it became to this. Yeah, long perverse strokes with
a shard from the funker, the sadistic funker with his taped fists stained with
blood, just digging in. How does he ever explain this to his fucking
kids? In his life, they wanted him to retire in like nineteen ninety.
I think they wanted to retire him, to retire before even It's not
just the cuts unfold his arm, it's the dirt on the arm mixing with
the cut. No, I know, I know everything here says uh,
you know tetanus absolutely, And now he's slapping a ship out of the paint,
brushing across the face head my cellar fucking tosses it. It's awesome.
That turns it on. He's just fucking ranting and raving. Don'tn't care about
talking into the microphone. What does he do with it. He's such a
fucking lumatic and bod, just trying to deck to make cat people believe in
him. Man, he's scary right out. Yeah he is. I wouldn't
want to go home. I wouldn't want to let Vicky working over him up
with short right hands. Now as the funker that cut open, here comes
Mikey Riprack trying to save his mentor cactus Jack, deposited unceremoniously in the floor
by the funk ck. He's like a fucking high school student. Yeah,
that was pretty much the idea hack fire. Here's hack Meyer's emphasis on hack
fuck touttop the front where he loads him up with the rights and throws him
into the rail. This guy, when you just wake up, weren't his
pajama pants? Everybody needs c W seems like they're a worry pajama back.
Do you think everyone everyone e's w dressed up like they were going through the
dunk and drive through after I you know, I say I'd like fucking drinking
from for for twenty five hours. Oh, back in the ring, Funk
going to work on the k new of the steel chair, our fractice draft
fuck trying to snap the leg of cactus. Cactus is more beaten, battered
cut and now the spinning toe hold is on order from the fucker. It's
always so amusing you do all these fucking broken beer bottles and chair shots and
tables and go back to this stupid fucking Oh inside cradle. Cactus is the
inside cradle to counter the spinning toe hold. For two, the spinning toe
hold is like the worst fucking hole. Oh and Cactus, Jesus Terry Funk
into a steel chair. I'm the comeback. Here is mc foley, Samley
Cooper taking notes? Sorry, well yes, one, two, and there's
a sin man for the same. I'm still wearing his fucking red white Ulu.
It's pretty. He keeps wearing it. But Funk gave up on that.
I know he didn't keep going Another d d T in the chair cover
one two three from Paul. I know who's on the floor. Slap on
the canvas. Fuck that ship all right, So Cactus Jack peaks funk.
I used to hate that about Easter w They do the one two three in
the order so often. Not sink in. Don't't even realize the mattress over.
Just talk. You know it's not over yet. We're still gonna make
money Osi there immediately. It's almost like they wanted to make the finish an
afterthought. The way they would do it is cadding Cacus might not be far
from the truth because we were able to talk some pretty big man talents and
doing jobs in Eastern way. The most part of having to go down easier
is you know there'll just be a schmas when the three gets counted anyways,
so get bad notice. So now Samon is standing over the fuller planes,
beer down and the training the ship out of him. Terry Funk nowhere to
be fund. He's such a fucking nothing on I mean sadman, definitely a
guy who could only get a job in the kne cact isn't pouring something on
him? What is he pouring those Dallas is talking about it like it isn't
necessarily beer wine. Maybe is in trouble. Oh maybe it's uh lighter fluid.
Oh sh here comes the funder. We'll get another flaming branding iron in
LECW arena. No, what are they down for? Fire? Mean four,
lady, God, that's an absolute fire ball at the mixed face in
the ref mind looking at him. He's even stabbing Nick with the flames.
Looking him, He's stabbing him with the flame of branding iron. He let
him on fire. He let him on fire. The ref had his shirt
off, ready to put the fire out. You see that? Yeah?
Oh and Tory Funk is out after Nick. Fo I mean this small arena,
just I would be so afraid, like I feel like everything, I
feel like everything in this fucking I would hit him in the crotch. He's
start a step. Look with the fucking flaming branding iron against the rail of
these people. Okay, what point this fucking fully fully grabs it, freak
out swinging. It's how does the ring that light on fire? Look at
this fall or this thing is likely inches from the fans place. It's completely
combustible, this dis building and listen to the people ec dub Indeed, boss
there's a part of me that is saying, yeah, you know what,
they would love. These people would be okay if they died here and this
night. Yeah, they'd make him legends. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
they would remember it fondly, not sadly insane. I mean, it's just
it's just so fucking risky what they're doing here. And you better believe that
if Terry Funk and Cactus Jack are trying to turn up the heat in E
CW and get the spotlight on them, they'll eventually turn up the heat too
far. I'm going to share with you a passage from Mick Foley's Bookoy that
takes us through a lot of what we just saw in terms of his vantage
point and perspective on how all this got so out of hand, this Terry
Funk feud, and you know what actually was real and what wasn't in terms
of you know, actual flame contact with the skin, in terms of broken
beer bottles and all the rest. So warm up the pipe spots, because
we're turning to have a nice day and McK foley taking us through these these
seminal moments with the Funker, Todd Gordon and Paul E started claiming on television
that I was stealing money from the company by wrestling so poorly. That's really
that's funny. I shot back with the claim that as a former WSW star,
I carried enough weight to do whatever I want. Wanted. This got
to Dreamer, who claimed he was going to quote beat the hardcore out of
me to do so. He even brought back my old nemesis Terry Funk to
be in his corner. After after Kawasaki, Terry's body was so worn out
that he needed time to heal and hadn't been into the arena in a while.
It's a reference to their match at the Kawasaki Baseball Stadium, Exploding lasting
match. The match to settle this strange score was set for October twenty eighth,
but began as a goofy concept very nearly ended in tragedy. ACW calls
its annual November show the November to Remember. I later joked that this was
the October to Forget. The match doesn't really work, though, doesn't if
only there was a month that rhymed with forget, Forget October It brother,
it's the Oktoba to Forget. That doesn't rhyme either, not at all.
The match opened with Tommy slapping me repeatedly and daring me to retaliate. I
wouldn't he slapped me again. I wouldn't. He slapped me one more time,
and finally I couldn't take it. I reared back with my left hand
and put on a headlock. The fans were very vocal with their dissatisfaction.
Dreamer fought, fought up, but I took him down again. Hey,
by this point I knew my headlocks. He got up and stopped me and
threw me to the floor, hoping the change in scenery might spark my hardcore
memory. It did. I fired a Dreamer to the crowd's approval. I
had Dreamer reeling and knowing he was about to fall, I reared back and
put on a headlock. Hey, man, he was ahead of his time
when it comes to our headlocks for his idea. Seriously, this was great
stuff. Finally, how he mounted an offense and forced me to retaliate I
did. I threw the blatantly brown nosing bastard to the concrete and stepped through
the ropes to the familiarity of the ring apron. I put up the arm
and the ecw faithful knew just what to expect. The legendary madman Cactus Jack
was about to drop the legendary elbow, except I didn't. Instead, I
stopped in mid stride and led it and led a WCW cheer by spelling right,
by spelling out the letters of the company with my arms, w c
W WCW WCW. It was more than Dreamer could stand. It made his
hardcore blood boil. As the self built innovator of violence, Tommy had some
pretty neat tricks up his sleeve, and he started using them on me in
great volume. I was taking a little bit of a beating and decided that,
in the immortal words of Owen Heart, enough is enough. It's time
for a change. If Tommy wanted to get hardcore, I was going to
show him how it was done. Unfortunately, this was what resulted in the
previously mentioned failed eyebrow experiment, with Tommy's face lumpy and red from my errant
blows. I reared back for the big one. Actually, this one was
only going to look like a big one. I thought he'd punched enough already.
I through the haymaker and howled in pain. Oh, I yelled,
it's my hand. I think I broke my hand. I got on the
house Mike and address this serious health issue, ladies and gentlemen. As you
can see, I suffer tremendous damage to my hand and as a result,
I just can't go on. The pain is too great. I am truly
sorry, but I'm afraid that this match is over. The bout will be
ruled a no contest. We look great. What a gimmick that was,
and you know, as great as it sounds on paper, and it was,
it was. It was very clever. You watch these shows and it's
like the fans are just like, uh, like, where's the violence?
You know? Yeah, right, I'm sure they can't fucking handle this kind
of shit. They were hating him, and there was a lot of fans
that were really going along, but a lot of these w fans are just
standing there like, what what's the next crazy thing? It's gonna happen?
Right? All they want, right, you know, nuance and storylines.
No, they're looking right exactly. And that's again, that's that's part of
my issue. It's it's to me, all that violence is cheap shit.
It's it's just it's it's the Godfather with the hoes. You know at one
point not the godfather of the movie, but I swear to god, I
pictured for a moment there and I'm trying to like figure out why I'm picturing
Brando watering like a garden. Well he does, he does that in the
Yeah. I was like, why is this actually an image in my head?
And then I really yeah, you know, like like through these yeah
where it became about the women instead of the the you know him himself,
and it's like, he's just a joke. Now, yeah, you're like,
no matter how talented you are, not to say Charles Wright was a
wonderful talent, but you're just the vessel for what we really want to see,
which is like buriant violence and sex exactly. And so to me,
that's what e c W really is is that it doesn't really matter, Like
they didn't really care who was out there. Could have been anybody, Yeah,
as long as people were fucking jumping off buildings and you know, and
throwing fire at people. What I lack from this time period, because as
I said, I didn't have access TOCW weekly, was the degree to which
people who showed up at the arena every three weeks watched the television. You
know what I mean, and actually saw these promos and were in receipt of
these storylines. I feel like a lot of people showed up just like last
week, last month, I heard some crazy shit happened. I'm back,
you know, And it's not really about responding to the twists and turns of
the story. Sure they would pop if if the lights went out when they
came back on, somebody knew was in the building. But you didn't have
to watch the TV and follow the promo I mean stories to get that right.
It was like it was like Jerry Springer. It was like, you
know, you don't need to know what's actually happening on Springer. You just
want to see some shit go down. Yeah, I wonder. I just
there's no way to recapture that. I'm sure, like you know, the
people that are there every show, watch all the TV and stuff, But
I feel like that, you know, when you see people respond to things
that happen in the arena, it doesn't seem like they're responding to something they've
been led to respond to. It seems like they're just responding to what's happening
in front of their eyes, regardless of what the backstory, right, I
mean, but that that also you know, in a in a weird way
that that again that to me is could be a reason why they call that
why ECW ultimately suffered because they they actually couldn't get people in on because because
basically what they're doing is this extreme violence. It's going to get old after
a while. It's not gonna that kind of thing you know, it does,
It's not going to keep people's attention for because at some point you're going
to reach a level that you can't really cross unless you start killing people in
the arena for sure. Well, the violence and so you it's going to
get stale and it's people are going to get bored with it after a while.
What I'm saying is they are doing really good storytelling. I just don't
think the fans. That's that's That's what I mean, Like like they there
is a the fan they can't get get the fans to break through. Yes,
the violent, the violence glass ceiling before you know it, like Jack
is jumping off sixty foot balconies right thumb tas and it just becomes about upping,
you know, one upping yourself until you and then and then again it
comes to point where you can't do it without causing real, real harm to
somebody's body or you know, person, characters would get over. I mean,
I went to enough ECW house shows. I'm not denying that, but
it's but I'm gonna argue with you. I was just adding an extra point.
It's like people did show up feeling some kind of way about the characters,
and they would buy their T shirts. I just don't know if the
beats of the storyline was really you know, coursing through the arena. It
was more just like, all right, this guy's awesome. This guy did
some crazy shit. This guy you said, some crazy shit, right,
and we love them or we hate him, and now we're gonna, you
know, watch him do his thing. We're gonna watch him put his his
his brand of violence on display. It wasn't so much all these two hate
each other and they're gonna meet again, you know. It was more like
even the even the Mike Awesome Asato Tanaka series, which of course you know,
did language barriers, wasn't a big promo fewd anyway, but it really
was just like, oh, I remember, they've done crazy shit before,
They're going to do crazy shit again. Let's be there for it. It
wasn't like, oh, this match means a lot because they've been building it.
They did get that. I will say they absolutely achieved that with Taz
and Sabu at the first pay per view. They absolutely made that match be
more about the backstory and the dynamic between the two than showing up to see,
you know, the latest chapter of their hijinks in the ring. So
they It happened a couple of times, but not as much as I feel
like these guys who wax nostalgic by ECW would like to think just because great
promos were cut doesn't mean that that was part of the energy in the building,
you know. I just I feel like there's a disconnect. I could
be wrong, but I just feel like there's a disconnect there because we've heard
already some great promos from from mcfoley and Terry Funk is part of this and
the people need to be waiting for crazy shit and not like right, you
know, and that's that's it. Like if you know, if you can't
get behind the person you're you, you become too reliant on the gimmick.
Yeah right, yeah, it was. It was sort of it was too
rare for ecw to achieve the dynamic where people showed up to the building hoping
a wrestler, one a particular wrestler, one that that as opposed to seeing
something crazy twist and turn a rooting interest. They had that with Van Dam
towards the end, where people really wanted to see him win the world title,
which he held the TV title forever and ever and was just like that
that icy champ that everybody thought should be the world champ and were waiting for
that moment. They wanted to see him win. They wanted to see Taz
win the world title. I remember from Shane Douglass at that innerarchy. I
think it was anarchy rules. Whenever he finally won the world title, they
were good about that with their world title picture. I feel like, but
the rest of the card, I don't really think like anyone cared who won,
Like that public enemy match against the door the funks. Do you think
anybody in that building cared who won that match? I don't think so,
you know, I don't think. I don't know. I don't think.
I don't think they it's weird. I don't think they care. I don't
think they cared who won. I also think they probably just presumed that the
Funks were going to win. Could be that too, but they didn't,
you know, and so you're not. Oh, the public Enemy was pushed
like monsters, though they probably expected public Enemy to win. Maybe maybe in
terms of things. So, but we have many more, much more color
here from Mick Foley. Yep uh. Referee Jim Mullano's voice, stop me,
Cactus, checked, this is ECW There's no such thing as a no
contest. I thought about that and came up with a solution. Then do
your job and count me out. I counted. Milano was feeling daring.
He got on the mic and said, Cactus, why are you being such
a pussy? Whoa hold on here, Jim, Pussy is a fighting word.
Chuck cheese Man had proved that in the Chris Anderson altercation back in seventy
seven. Still it wasn't enough. I continued my walk to the back.
It is pretty funny to have a referee call a wrestler a pussy on the
microphone. This all sounds great to me. With Milano's not counting out,
came Billo Fonso, better known as Phonsie. No not the Fonzie who made
up a story about having relatives in Wakisha, Wakisha, Waukesha. I don't
know, because he was too proud to accept Britchie's invitation to have Christmas dinner
with mister c No. Not the Fonzie who's I get it you're talking about,
Okay, I don't. Not the Fonsie who's crashed into the kitchen stand
outside Arnold's, messed up his confidence so bad that he almost never wrote his
back again. No, not the Fonsie who had to break it off with
Pinky because he didn't want to didn't want to go through life as miss as
mister Tuscadero. This Fonsie was a referee who had earned the hatred of the
fans by actually enforcing the rules. Phonsie had only three teeth in his mouth,
and they were rotten, but he was still a hell of a referee,
and he had the Pennsylvania State rule Book in his hands. Phonsie got
on the mic and in his high pitched, whiny nails on a chalk poured
voice, pled completed my case. Not only is it in the Pennsylvania State
rule Book, but it is Cactus Jack's constitutional right to be counted out if
he so desires one, two, three, four. The fans were getting
hot as this was shaping up to be the worst ECW main event since Cactus
Versus Drake five six, seven. Funk had seen enough. If you count
one more number, then I'm gonna knock your goddamn dick in the dirt.
Phonsie looked at the washed up textan and spoke his mind. I'm not afraid
of the fans, I'm not afraid of Tommy Dreamer, and I'm certainly not
afraid of you, Terry Funk. It is Cactus. He asked constitutional right
to be counted out, and I'm gonna do it. Phronsie looked contemptuously at
Funk and continued his constitutionally allowed count eight bam down went Phronsie to a stiff
left hand Funk gun on the mic and attempted to lure me into a fight,
using the same psychology he'd used on Bullet Bob on Armstrong. Cactus Jack,
You're a goddamn coward, you son of a bitesh I remained in the
back. Your wife is a whoreh still in the back. Your mother is
a horror nothing. Your children are both hors that should have done it,
but nothing I could not be broken. The funker had one more ace up
his sleeve. Huh Bischoff is a homo that did it? Erry comes,
mister w CW. I was out from behind the curtain in a flash to
defend my main I meant business as I hit the ring, but as I
got to the blasphemous funk Dreamer stepped in front and started peppering me with big
rights Bam bam, bam bam Bigelow the crowd bam bam exactly. That reminds
me of VCW. You know why. It was one of the fam one
of the more famous commercials. I remember that they would plug all the home
videos on. It must have been on a tape that I had and watched
a million times at Joey Styles, who did the voiceover, and they would
show different scenes from the these W home video releases on the market. They
were marketing a match where uh Bgelow wrestled Terry Gordy. I think in ECW
or someone wrestled Terry Gordy, and I remember the way Styles said it,
Terry Bam bam Gordy. I think that's the same one where the night Kimona
Juana Leya danced atop the CW arena, and they had Brian Lee chokeslam Tommy
Dreamer off a scaffold through like twenty tables or whatever, like three four tables
stacked. Jesus, those are the days, man. I guess, I
guess, uh I mean? And I was doing my best to make each
one look like look it's most devastating. Some people didn't seem to get the
concept of the match and gave it low marks. I guess if they were
looking at it as a standard match, it wasn't that good. But in
my view, anytime you can get the ECW crowd oohing and eye and getting
out of their seat and their final match using only punches, you're getting something
right. At this point, Raven made his presence known by using his steel
chair on both Funks and Dreamers backs. With Funk down, Raven pulled out
two foreign objects, a ten pound weight and a roll of athletic tape.
Slowly, I lift my foot while he taped the weight to the top of
my foot. This was great unless the funker was also doubling his iron balls
McGinty. He was going to go down. Sure enough, I kicked the
field goal with Terry's testicles, and the wounded Texan was helped to the back.
Tommy was all alone now and about to find out what hardcore was all
about. Raven and I doubled on him until Funk miraculously returned carrying his flaming,
branding iron. Raven and I peeled off Dreamer and led Funk one by
one for shots to the back and stomach. The arena was whipped into a
frenzy. Our quest for righteousness was not to be denied, however, as
referee Bill Alfonso, who had been taken to the back after suffering his one
punch knockout, re emerged with a weapon of his own. It was my
old trusty stand by the fire chair with the fuck ear we go. I
was handed the unlit chair and knocked Terry down with a nice shot to the
head. Dream returned as well and was dropped with a crushing blow to the
skull that was lessened only slightly by the kerosene soaked towel. How are you
were an aftershafe? No, it's kerosene. The rope is soaked in it.
Wow? Would somebody uh? Drathan touched Funk's iron to the towel and
the firechair lived again in the ecw arena. I looked at Funk, who
was flat on his belly. I raised the chair slowly and could feel the
heat on my arms as I came down with my swing. Dreamer made a
die for Funk and used his body as a shield to spare Terry the blazing
consequences. The effect was awesome. Dreamer had seemingly risked his life to save
the fallen Funker, and the crowd loved him for it. Everything was going
great when I heard Terry's voice Pick it up again. Terry mumbled in a
voice so low that I could barely hear it above the roar of the crowd.
I asked, use it again, yes, Terry, he reiterated.
I picked up the fire chair and slowly raise it again. Terry was getting
to his feet, and I stalled to give him more time. When he
was fully standing, I slowly charged him with the chair. I could see
he was bailing out of the ring, so I started a slow swing that
I knew wouldn't come near him. All I wanted to do. All I
wanted was to hit the ropes with the fire chair and give the impression that
I was trying that. I was trying for Terry. Before my shocked eyes,
I saw our plan fall to pieces. What appeared to be a giant
fireball flew off the chair, instantly ignited Terry, who was bent over by
the ring apron. My first thought was to save him. I completely abandoned
my character and my storyline and dove through the ropes to try to put out
Terry brother. Yeah, excuse me. I knew that flames had about three
seconds of contact time before they really did their damage. Terry was up to
at least two. I took off after Terry, but he was running like
a madman. You get a picture of that son of a bitch. He's
like melting at his own skeleton. Oh fuck, I happened again. To
this day, I try to relive these events in my mind and try to
figure out why I couldn't catch him. He's probably probably half him in his
mind. He's like, don't put me out right, don't put me out
right. It's a good angle coctus. He's burning to death. Okay,
I'm talking stolen golf. Don't put me out and then he goes with the
last breath as he realizes he's gonna die coctas. Do you like now,
Terry? Oh? What I have died in this fucking bingo hall cactus.
I went ahead and burned alive. Oh, I went ahead and burned alive.
That's another lapsed funk t shirt. If you ask me, all the
hell what a head and burn my ass? Or as the AI put it
on, went ahead so much, I don't even know where I am.
Oh shit, this is fucking It's insane. This is insane. Was he
moving too fast to catch or was I simply a coward under pressure? The
question still haunts me. I do remember thinking I've got to catch him,
and then wondering what do I do once I'm there. I had no answers.
I wish I could point to a burn on my body and say this
is where I saved my hero Terry Funk. But all I had the show
for it is a heavy conscience. I remember thinking he's gone, Terry's gone
before fate or God or luck lent him a hand. The fire seemed to
roll off Terry's shoulders as if by magic, and Terry collapsed to the floor
and actuality a fireball had not flown off the chair and Terry himself had not
become ignited. Instead, the towel that was on fire had flown off the
chair and landed on his back. The towel had been burning, not Terry
the towel, although I'm sure that was this That was small comfort to Terry
as he was helped to the dressing room. When I got to the back,
Terry was on a rampage. His right arm had been severely burned,
and he was more than a little annoyed about it. The funker was throwing
furniture, and there were some pretty tough guys cowering in fear of the ticked
off Texan and a host of flying chairs, fans and tables. I wish
he was throwing fans. I adore the notion that when things don't go right
in the ring and Terry gets hurt, that he goes to the back and
takes it out on Oh yeah, objects. You know you know that he
does that at home too, Absolutely, God, God damnit, Terry.
What are you fucking doing now? Oh you know, Terry? Women ahead,
Vicky, oh ahead, Oh you know what, go ahead and kill
yourself, Terry. I don't have time for this ship. You're ruining the
house. You're gonna go ahead and ruin the house. You can just throw
trash cans and stationary and and fucking you know, Terry, you can't just
throw the cow jumpside down. He's throwing them. Bitch, we're having God
damn it, Vicky, God damn it, I can't have hair gain for
dinner. She's like, Terry, it's turkey, Terry, I'm roasting a
goddamn turkey. It's Sunday dinner. The kids are coming up. What the
fuck are you doing? What? God damn it? Vision you know,
you know what, Terry, I'm out. I am out. Hold on,
he said in the Cauldron of Intensity. He goes, goddamn it,
Vicky, that his face think of it now? Yeah, I know this
fucking string curly hair, you know, kind of like floating in the wind.
You know, it doesn't actually fucking gope. It's like it's always slowly
being being like manipulated by the wind. It never actually goes fast like normal
people's hair lapsed funk trivia Did Terry go after ECW ahead? Where did Terry
go after winning the World's Championship ad? What did al Snow turn to when
he needed a makeover? Head a head head. Oh shit, uh me?
Uh tables. As I approached Terry, I could see that his wife,
Vicky was crying. Oh life is never easy for a wrestler's wife,
but for Vicky, who had already seen her husband injured countless times, this
night was especially traumatic. I didn't know what to say, and as it
turned out, my choice of words was not all that comforting. Are you
all right? I asked, and was met by a flying chair and a
string of obscenities even my dad would have envied. Goddamn mother fucker, there's
no excuse for that shit, you son of a bet. Oh so good.
I went ahead and fucking killed you again. My words and not all
that soothing. Sorry, Terry, He looked at me with rage in his
eyes. You damn well bell to be sorry, you son of a bitch.
He tried to calm him down, but it was no use, so
she tried to calm me down instead. Terrence is just upset. It doesn't
say Terrence, it says Terrence. Oh fucking hell, it's not even his
name. Terrence is just upset, she assured me in her West Texas drawl.
You just go home, He'll be all right. I went home,
but I was an emotional wreck. I swore to myself that I was going
to quit wrestling, But by the time I reached Staten Island and I decided
that I just wouldn't wrestle in this country anymore. Yeah, this sounds like
it sounds like Terry Funking ninety seven. Yeah, what do you? What
do you say? What are you Brett Hart too? You're not going to
wrestle in America. By the time I got home, I was thinking that
we could probably cut some promos on each other over this. Still, I
was very upset when I told Colette about the night's events. Unbeknownst to me,
Terry had checked out of the hospital later that night and come back to
the arena to cut promos for the next month's match. And that's that's a
key thing to point out. These great promos were seeing these are cut after
they did an arena show, and they stuck around to like three in the
morning shooting promo. Jesus, can you imagine after doing That's why he looked
so fucking nutty like that when we saw that promo on the video, like
he looked he looked, he looked like it was in the middle of the
night because it probably was, and they all had the bandages from the fresh
gig marks from the match. Oh yeah, that's crazy that they would just
like have these kind of like balls to the wall, violent explosive you know,
exertions and then calm all the way down and cut promos hours and hours
later in the empty Buildingsane. Oh they did business. Yes, go buy
Polly's parents house and cut promos too, because he had a That's where Jost
stand up right right. The next morning, I made sure that I called
Terry's house. I knew he wouldn't be home, but I wanted to make
sure that my voice was the first one he heard when he turned on his
answering machine. I went out for the day, and when I came home,
he had left a message. I was relieved to hear that he wasn't
yelling, but had gone back to the whisper mumble that I knew so well.
Hello coctus, this is Terry Funk. It's this guy a total legend,
I mean a complete legend. He can't he can't fucking he calls him
first all he calls he calls fully cactus, but he has to say his
full name. That's correct, It's Terry Funk. And I just wanted to
say that, I that I acted like a damn fool, and I'm sorry.
It wasn't your fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't anybody's fault.
It just happened. But god damn, we sure did give him something
to talk about, didn't we. And I'm sure people are going to be
talking about this for a long long time. Goba, Cactus Jack and dope
any tension to what I said last night. I'm just an old fool.
I mean, this is the greatest human being never walked the place of the
ear. Oh my good. I liked the message so much that I played
it for Collette. I saw her eyes well up with tears as she listened
to kindly old uncle Terry. He really is a nice man, she said
as she handed me the phone. Isn't to murder your husband, which he
had every right to. I saved that message for a long time. Amazing,
so well told, as everything is in Jesus mixed books. But he
also told a version of this story on the day I said the aforementioned roast
of Terry Funk, and I thought, since it's such a legendary story and
says so much about Terry in this point of his life. Are and how
he formed a bond with mcfoley that proved really you know, defining what we'll
play him saying it in his own words as well. Put them together with
the moment at the ECW arena. Paully liked to talk about the November to
remember, I called this the October to forget. Thankfully, I believe I've
met him thirty times. His name is Mike, right, he testified at
our trial the damnest thing. Oh thank you, Mike, from the bottom
of my wallet. Thank you. And if Terry, if you remember,
I mean the guy may have had reasonable cause to file a suit. He
was at an arena. He did get burned, despite what we maintained during
the course of the trial. If you look at it, when those photos
of the ring came back, there was about a foot and a half between
the ring and the guardrails because they were trying to wedge as many people in
that ECW arena as they could, am I right, and now only in
ECW would you worry that the chair you were going to set on fire during
the match would be overshadowed by the table that was set in fire the match
before you went on. So I know I gave that chair an extra squirt
of lighter fluid before we went out, and I don't think I was alone.
But yet, when Terry was trying to lure me back into the ring
after I had feigned a hand injury by saying to me, Cactus Jack,
your wife is a whole cactus, did not materialize your children at that time.
There are only two of them. Your children are bastards, no Cactus
Jack, and Eric Bischoff is a home home somewhere in the courser vants Raven
taped a five pound plate to my foot and I kicked Terry in the nuts.
I move. I cannot believe it have not been replicated since then,
so simple and honest, and I picked up that chair. We set it
alight, and in an incredible act of bravery, Tommy Dreamer dove on top
of Terry just as I was swinging that chair and sacrificed his body. He
could not have gone better until I swear, you know, this was the
point of contention during the trial. I thought I heard the words Terry swore
under oath he never said the words, but I thought he said he knows
it again. I never said that. I've never said that. That's what
I thought I heard. I remember vividly thinking, but how the thing was
a blaze, and I picked it up very gingerly, and I thought,
I don't want to hit this guy. And when I swung it, Terry
jumped out of the ring and it appeared to my eyes like a giant fireball,
flew off the chair and ignited him instantly. Luckily, it was only
the towel that was on fire that landed on Terry's back, so instead of
engulfing him, it only caused I believe, severe secondary burns, severe secondary
burns. And when I walked to the back, Terry was throwing large pieces
of furniture with astonishing ease, using words that even we hear at this roast
have not heard to describe his feelings for me. And despite this intense scene
that had taken place, and in spite of this genuine show and outpouring of
emotion, I remember vividly thinking to myself, what a fucking baby the liner.
I swore to myself I'd never wrestle again. By the time I got
to New Jersey. I swore I only wrestle in Japan, and by the
time I got home, I thought it wasn't that bad. And the next
day there was a voice message and it said, I did I did feel
bad, man, I felt really bad. If anyone saw our pay per
view where I wrestled Abyss. I still feel kind of bad about that whole
Daphne thing as well. Did you see that? And there was a message
on my machine and I said, guess this is this is Terry Funk.
And I just want to say, Ah, I don't know. I'm an
old fool, don't I don't listen to me. But uh we we sure
gave him something to talk about, didn't we. And we did give him
something to talk about, and Terry Funk and I think gave people something to
talk about for a very long time. Had you do notice in that retailling
years later that he kept mentioning a trial boss. Yeah, because at the
time of his writing have a Nice Day, it had not yet fully commenced
in the civil court in Philadelphia. But indeed, a fan in attendance at
this ECW event sued Extreme Championship Wrestling, Terry Funk, Nick Foley, and
a host of others, the building, the management company, I think,
for suffering an injury as a result of this. Now there's a lot to
say about that particular bit of business. One of the most important things to
know is that video of this incident does not exist. This is not something
that has ever surfaced. There are still photographs that you can find of fully
wielding the flaming chair, and it just boggles my mind because one of the
great things about ECW, and perhaps this hadn't quite started yet, but I
think it had honestly, because there's plenty of fancam from ninety five out there
is that Rob Feinstein and our video would go around the country and they would
handicam shoot every ECW house show and put it for sale through our video.
So if you went to an ECW show, no matter where it was,
you could buy it later on, and unlike the I could be wrong about
this because I think our video basically distributed all the home videos for ECW,
kind of like how pro Wrestling teas ends up, you know, doing all
of a dub's merchandise, because they were already connected with the Bucks. So
when you bought a VHS cassette off EASW Television. It was our video that
you know out of Philadelphia that processed the order and send it to you.
And they also would shoot every house show, sell those you got ECW shows,
and in the back they had this big ass merchandise don with all the
T shirts. They also had. They also had a VHS's from all over
the world, not just our video, would bootleg stuff from everywhere, territorial
stuff, international stuff, all kinds of stuff. You could get best of
compilations, and they sell like everything they had with just these white labels,
just these completely plain white labels with black print on them, and you could
look and see like July tenth, you know, Revere Mass, July eleventh,
Winthrop Mass. You know, you could you could look right Jack Show,
and that was really cool. I don't understand why there wasn't a tape
of this show. I don't think it was something that was destroyed or something
that was captured as evidence and never returned. I don't understand, but I'm
convinced it doesn't exist. And everywhere you see people discuss this incident, there's
always the proviso that footage doesn't exist. You'll see like do you think do
you think that maybe because there was a lawsuit that they you know, much
like the you know, the lost episode of yeah, of the brook Knows
Best. And even in that case, we had to use, you know,
a fair degree of supposition as to why that one episode was so hard
to find. You know, we never really found a piece of confirmation that
it's because of that lawsuit that whatever you know, torrents of the entire season
of Brook Knows Best happened to all be missing that last episode. We eventually
did find it, of course, but you know, I don't think that's
the case. Here is because they weren't suit until years after it happened.
So the video would have been, let's put it this way, a hot
commodity. Now. Would ECW have been a little gun shy about putting a
video of this incident in the market, knowing how out of control it got?
Possibly? Possibly, But the fact that no one preserved it and never
thought to release it. I mean, I guess, considering the symbiotic relationship
between our video and ECW, if they didn't want the tape released, our
video wouldn't have released it. But I haven't ever seen an interview or a
confirmation of this. This is important lore here, right, And I'd love
to know if it did exist and just was cabashed, or if just for
some reason, this happened to be a night where handicams weren't at least rolling.
But but it's it's amazing that it went down this way. They also
had a mass I think there is something I just didn't find because this was
a major EASW show. They had major angles planned. It's like this was
just some house show. So another wrinkle to it is while the panic is
setting in and while you know, if you believe the lawsuit, a fan
is burned as a result of Funk hitting the floor with his life on the
line, the lights go out in the arena and it's pitch black, really,
And the reason that happened is because there was a planned angle right after
the fire spot with Funk and Foley where Tommy Dreamer would be crucified atop the
ECW arena when the spotlight came back on. And they would do this a
few times in ECW to a great controversy. In fact, a night curt
Angle came by to see ECW and kind of get a feel for the business.
They did a crucifixion angle involving Raven and sand Man at the end of
the show. That really put a bad taste in his mouth about getting involved.
Yeah, remember hearing about that. It's a pretty famous story. I
remember we went to an ROH show one time where they crucified Seampunk I think
was crucified by Raven. The lights went out, they came back on,
and he was hanging by a crucifix in the middle of the ring. Of
course, they did it in nineteen ninety nine one row with Undertaker in Steve
Austin as well. Of course. Yeah, so you know that tells me
this was a big show, because you don't shoot an angle that intense without
planning to shoot it for television and exploiting it to it to its full capacity.
So I might not have found it. And maybe it's understood that this
was taped and what happened to the tape, but I don't know where it
is, and you certainly can't find footage of this easily on YouTube like you
can just about every other major thing that ever happened in Extreme Championship Wrestling.
So that's all important to TAIL Now. I'm sad to report that after doing
my diligence, the case file has been destroyed in this lawsuit, ah,
due to too much, too many years passing. Eventually, you know,
you can't preserve files forever in these local courts like this, and so I
think it was like in the early two thousand, there's just no hope for
this or the early oughts. It was disposed. But what survives is,
you know, the docket sheet. And what the docket sheet basically does is
give you like a rough idea of how the case played out. You don't
get, you know, the detailed filings with who said what and who argued
what exactly, but you do get kind of a rough outline of what made
the difference in the trial. Now, as mentioned this was this was filed
years later. The dates on it are going all the way back. Let's
see too. This' is all the defend dants here, which i'll read off
in a second. Ninety nine. So this happened in nineteen ninety five,
and it looks like the the process didn't start till January of nineteen ninety nine
in this court. So you think about how many years passed and how much
right at Folly had pretty much put his book to bed by then. It
came out in ninety nine, so there was no way for him to reflect
on the fact that this resulted in an actual lawsuit when describing the incident.
But it did turn out to be quite an inconvenience because now there is a
narrative, in a published narrative about what happened that night that he probably wouldn't
have published if he knew a lawsuit was about to be filed. And who
knows, maybe even the publication of this book sparked something. I don't quite
think so, because I'm seeing filings in January of nineteen ninety nine, and
mcfoley's book came out in the middle of nineteen ninety nine, but it was
it was a fan by the name of Schweitzer, Raymond Schweitzer, and who
I presume to be his wife, Teresha Teresa Schweitzer, who were in attendance,
ensued. They sued not only Extreme Championship Pressing Incorporated, and HHG Incorporated,
which was a company name that Paul Hayman created to process ECW's business and
kind of did it without telling Todd Gordon. And when Todd found HHG on
checks, He's like, what the fuck is this? Paul Hayman was a
defendant alias Polly Dangerously. It says in the court file, Gordon was a
defendant. Terry Funk himself was a defendant, Michael F. Foley was a
defendant, and and these are the attorneys listed. So what basically happened is,
you know, the the claims were argued, a jury trial was demanded,
and there was a trial, and ultimately the jury of their peers found
in favor of ECW and found indeed the the plaintiffs didn't have reason to didn't
have grounds to claim recompense from ECW for whatever injuries they claimed to have suffered.
I'm not sure if a judgment was made as to whether the injuries were
real or fabricated. I'm not suggesting that, but whatever it was, they
weren't found ECW wasn't found liable. And what's funny is there's, like,
you know, a question throughout the course of the proceedings, according to the
docket of like can can this be admitted? Like can we admit? In
admit is in submit, you know, not admit is in allow something to
be true? You know, things of how ECW would you know, pledge
to stop doing dangerous things like there's there's reference to how they had set a
policy in place after this happened where they wouldn't do fire anymore. And is
it fair for the jury to hear that? Is that relevant for the jury
to hear or does it just risk them saying, Okay, well, we're
not going to give these people money because they don't do it anymore. It's
like that if you were the one that was burned, you wouldn't really give
a fuck about what happened after you were burned. That should have a bearing
on whether you get any money. But ultimately, you know, Funk testified
and fully testified, and it was a it was a It was a nail
bier, especially when you consider that ECW was by nineteen ninety nine not in
the best of financial shape. The costs had inflated so much trying to keep
the talent that you know, ECW and WWF were beginning to more aggressively proach.
They were starting to go on to TNN and all the costs involved with
producing a national television show that looked appropriate for the air. They were in
a full rine preview mode, so they had these pay per views that they
had to come out of pocket to produce and pay talent for and make it
interesting. And of course we all know about the ninety plus day lag time
to get your money from the pay per view companies on these things, and
how that can really fuck up your cash flow. So they couldn't afford a
big ass judgment in nineteen ninety nine. They could, They probably could never
have afforded it, honestly, because I'm sure they were looking for millions,
but they got by by the skin of their teeth on this one. And
you know, we've heard the new Jack Mass Transit trial dramatized and talked about
rather on dark side of the Ring, and how Paul Hayman went in that
courtroom and worked his ass off to make sure that the jury found sympathy for
Newjack, even though he fucking sliced this innocent guy's head open for doing nothing
more apparently than suggesting spots to new Jackman. He didn't have the standing and
experience in the business to be suggesting such things, and then asked Nwjack to
cut him, so he did, and he sliced his head open so much
that they almost died in the fucking ring. But uh again, acquitted,
And I can just imagine the workmanship going on in this courtroom from your folies,
your funks, your your tall Hamens, your Todd Gordon's. Can you
imagine, yes, how they performed up on that stand to be a fly
on that wall. But yeah, it got them in a lot of trouble
and really really caused a Branksmanship moment for them. Yeah. Here it is
order that plaintiffs Raymond and Trees, which are hereby precluded from offering any evidence,
either physical or testimonial, regarding the subsequent remedial measures taken by said defendants
of ceasing fire chair stunts during wrestling matches. So they had sought, Yeah,
they had sought, hereby precluded from offering any evidence. Yeah, so
they were not allowed to discuss that. Apparently they were not allowed to discuss
actions the DCW took subsequent to this prior incidents. Oh yeah, order that
plaintiffs are hereby not precluded so allowed from offering an evidence of prior incidents that
involved injuries sustained to other Extreme Championship Wrestling w CWN, WWF and or or
wrestling events if relevant in time. So they were allowed to talk about crazy
shit in the past. Unbelievable that's wild. That's how crazy it got with
the funker in ECW, and it's funny, and later shooting interviews later on
in his life when he was asked to talk about, you know, his
memories of the ECW fan base, of course he had warm things to say,
but he'd also say lawsuits is one of the first things, right,
truly fucking wild situation. This is This is something that was posted in two
thousand on the Internet after this had played out in court, and it's the
author is a Bob McGee. It's a column called as I See It,
and it's somebody who claims to have had a first person perspective on this,
who claims to have been there and kinda I was responding to fully writing about
it. So this is probably the best we're going to get. So actually
we'll start here. This is This was posted on a forum in twenty and
thirteen, if I have that right, by someone with a screen name Mooda
Midnights from PA. And this is how before we get to the Bob McGee
column, which is kind of more editorial than anything in reportage, this is
someone claiming to have an eyewitness account of how things went down that night.
And I shared it with you. Boss, I wish you could assume the
posture of a nineteen ninety five ECW fan. Tell us what you experienced when
the flames flew off the chair. Fellow WCMB poster the purple hayz one and
I attended that infamous card. Haven't thought about it in several years. Some
of the memories of the event are a bit of a blur, but a
few things stand out. We were eighteen years old an ECW arena regulars.
Throughout much of nineteen ninety five, I've usually sitting in the last row,
on the same side as the hard camera, just in front of a platform
stage and the crow's nest area. I can distinctly remember Cactus lighting the kerosene
soaked towel wrapped around the chair in the ring. The chair went up like
a Roman candle, causing Cactus to drop it quickly due to the intense heat
that it was generating. Things got crazy when the towel hit funk. We
watched a large fireball basically in gulf funk and go over the top rope on
the far side of the ring. Almost instantaneously, the lights in the building
went out done as part of the angle with Raven and Dreamer, but we
didn't know that at the time. At that point, we knew something was
drastically wrong, although some still believed it was all part of an angle.
We continued to see a large fireball at ringside on the other side of the
arena while hearing screaming. Additionally, there was an increasing level of smoke in
the arena, which augmented the growing general scene of panic. It was starting
to become complete and utter chaos. It was at that point that I realized
that there were only two eggsits, neither of which was anywhere near our position.
Given that the bleachers were wooden and the building consisted largely of low rent
dry wall, I really began to think that the whole place was going to
catch fire, a similar situation to tragic Great White Concert the fire that happened
in a nightclub several years ago, seemed quite possible. We were able to
jump back on the stage just behind the stands on the camera side to remove
ourselves somewhat anyway from the chaotic scene and, more importantly, the wooden bleachers.
One of our friends and I both said we need to get out of
here now, but the purple haze. One fearing a stampede, wisely urged
us to stay in place to determine exactly what was happening. After what must
have been a minute or two, but which felt like an internity, I
can remember Paul E screaming from the crow's nest area behind us, turn on
the fucking lights. Finally, the lights came back on in the building,
establishing at least some level of calm. One of the guys in our group
started chanting E c W E c W, which immediately made me question his
sanity. And of course that's right there, that's the's the guy that is
the problem, that's fucking do this. That's the fucking problem. The guy
who cannot see the forest for the trees when it comes to reality and fiction.
Okay, that's the problem. On his face, the distant look on
his face. He just is like so naive and thinks that you know.
No. Fortunately, we were among a group of people that hardly yet calmly
left for the exits. After we emerged from the exit at the Swanson and
Writtener corner, I could see smoke emerging from the ventilation fans near the top
of the exterior of the arena. We left the card thinking that it was
potentially the end of ECW. Otherwise, it was a great time. I
can tell you that it was a real wake up call for me as an
eighteen year old who felt invincible. I remember thinking, oh man, I
could die here. Although we attended various ECW spot shows for the next year
and a half, the ten twenty eight ninety five card was the last time
that we set foot in the ECW arena. Since that time, I have
always made a conscious effort to identify the emergency exits immediately upon entering any building.
In any event the purple haze. One may be able to elaborate on
any of the details that I missed, as thought, seeing how you would
have reacted if Terry Funk was on fire, panics headed, and the lights
went out, I ah, oh my god, I would have been horrified.
I probably would have. I don't even know. I don't know if
I've ever been in a situation like that where where I would have been so
panicked. I don't know. I don't know what I would have done surrounded
by ECW arena fans. I mean I would have I mean, I would
have probably just fucking thrown people into the fire for being idiots. So this
is after all the smoke had cleared in the court case. This is published
again online by a blogger named Bob McGee May eleventh. There's a lot in
here. I'm not gonna read it at all, but it's some interesting color,
as many of you undubtly have read. By now, ECW, mcfoley
and Terry Funk were vindicated in the e W civil suit as the jury found
in favor of the defendants ECW, Terry Funk, and mcfoley against plaintiff Raymond
Swimmer. As I mentioned, court records indicated it was him and Teresa Swimmer
that were both plaintiffs in the case. Schwimmer claimed this article reads that he
was burned in October of nineteen ninety five when a flaming chair that mcfoley brought
into the ring to strike Terry Funk actually sent fire flying into the crowd.
He then claimed that he suffered burns over many parts of his body due to
the fire going into the crowd. The fan claimed it because of that.
He suffered post traumatic stress syndrome in nineteen ninety six, which caused an accident
on his motorcycle resulting in the loss of a leg. So this guy apparently,
right, he lost a leg because of VCW. Well, I mean,
he lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and apparently got to thinking about
the role that this night played and oh my god, such a you know,
I just you know, people like that fucking drive me insane. Didn't
work. Apparently didn't work ultimately, And it's referenced here that the incident was
read about by many in mcfoley's recent biography. Uh oh, who's mcfoley's Oh
yeah, because he again he had put this book depressed, not knowing that
it's about to be a lawsuit about this. Yeah, and I'm sure wouldn't
have been as descriptive of as as he was if that was the case.
But but you know, telling ly he says that, you know, I
say that, but you would think if a fan was burned, that Mick
fully would include that detail. Because clearly, when he sits down to write,
he doesn't think there were legal ramifications about touching this incident, right,
and you would think it would come up, whereas you know, all the
same you'd think that would come out. I mean, that's that's the thing.
Someone would have right, like, you know, if you were really
burned, if you really injured from something like that, you you fucking jump
on that ship. Yeah, I think you would actually write you'd want to
get the suit going as soon as possible. It seems like what he was
trying to to sort of put together was a narrative where you know, he
suffered burns, yes, but the burns didn't really didn't traumatize him until it
led to a series of events, a domino series of events where he actually
lost like in an accident, had post traumatic stress. I don't know why
he was on the motorcycle because of PTSD or what he claimed in court in
terms of why the PTSD caused him to crash and the motor cycle. I
wonder if Kerry van Eric was in a building that was on fire before he
I know, like, well, this portatorium was on fire, just not
literally, that's true. It actually it was literally on fire in the sixties
if you remember the Maclaborn. That is true, but it was more about
it was it was justly hotter than it was on fire. So all right,
there's all kinds of innuendo about like roles that wrestling websites played and propping
up certain you know, parts of the story and maybe coming to the to
the aid of ECW in terms of how it was written. Okay, blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. So there's a
photographer shot rings at ECW shows was brought in as a witness for the plaintiff,
showing pictures of the match in question, according to this article, primarily
to provide a frame of reference for the jury to determine the structure of the
building as well as other issues. We heard mcfully there in the remarks the
roast talk about how the photos showed how close to the ring the railings were
back then. So I don't know if he was saying that maybe to excuse
himself, like yeah, if something ended up in the crowd, it was
because these people were way closer to the ring, then you would anticipate.
I don't really know why he said that, but that's there. Okay,
Okay, we got it. Yeah, yeah, okay. People putting out
information that was not favorable to the plaintiff, gag orders, blah blah blah
blah blah blah. Here's the thought He writes, if Paul Hayman legitimately felt
that Raymond Swimmers lawsuit had no merit, Wan ought to ask two legitimate questions.
The first regarding of fact coming from the trial that will be elaborated upon
by somebody he's referencing from his return on a business trip. Why did Paul
Hayman dissolve HHG Incorporated? The corporate armor of VCW as of nineteen ninety five
and therefore one of the defendants in the lawsuit as of December twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety nine. The other defendant and presumably current ownership entity was reported at
the trial to be a corporate entity called SNS Family Partnerships, even though for
reasons only to Paul Hayman, HHD Inc. Is listed still as part of
the copyright tag appearing in the end of ECWTV. The fact of the matter
is that HHG no longer legally exists. Could Hayman have been attempting to protect
his company in the event of the jury In the Schwimmer trial found been reported
that the lawyer for Schwimmer had been seeking Paul Hayman's corporate insurance instead of the
fifty thousand dollars each for Schwimmer and his wife. So I guess he wasn't
asking for millions. He was asking for fifty grand Jesus crust that was initially
sought over four years ago. Paul Hayman would be far from the first corporate
executive or owner in any form of business to engage in such strategy, but
it suggests that A. Hayman was far from being sure that the suit was
frivolous. Second, if Schimer lost it was frivolous, why was it delayed
for five years? Even given the normal slowness of the legal system. Surely
a frivolous lawsuit could have easily been proven as such and readily dismissed within any
court within a year or two. Certainly would have been in Paul Hayman hhg's
interest to do so back in nineteen ninety six, given the National TV deal
a TNN being worked on, then the fight to get on pay per view,
the merchandising deals with a claim for the Hardcorevolution video games. Certainly such
a lawsuit, one that even preceded the aert Kulas trial. The aforementioned A
New Jack incident should have been dealt with swiftly. If the lawsuit was frivolous,
why was it claimed that the lawyer represented the plaintiff's claims that he had
pneumonia and that he was rushed to the hospital to produce another delay in the
trial. Yes, that is in fact reflected in the docket that a lawyer
was hospitalized during the course of this caused causing a delay when it was discovered
that, in fact, this writer says the lawyer merely had a cold and
was out of the hospital before the judge granted a delay in the trial.
Readers can speculating these questions as they choose to make their own judgments. But
I can tell you something about that night in nineteen ninety five at the ECW
Rena from a first person perspective. I was there. What makes it even
more disturbing to me is the seat that Raymond Swimmer and the one next to
it sat in were the seats that my younger brother and I had held for
two plus years and only gave up when ECW instituted Club ECW, a four
pack plan that, for all practical purposes required fans to buy tickets for four
shows in order to get the best seats. We refused to buy into Club
ECWS, not because of any animosity with anyone in ECW. We did so
because of bad experience only three years before with Philly's Tristate Wrestling lens Burger Joe
Goodheart Okay, who did a similar plan, then closed his doors, leaving
fans without tickets and without money. So we refused to buy into the plan.
Otherwise my brother and I might have been in those shoes, given the
chaos of what happened that night. Am I going to tell you that I
can, absolutely, without a shadow of doubt tell you what happened in terms
of swimmers, burns and those moments of the incident. No, But neither
can most people, including many who claim that they can. I can tell
you how incl No, it's David Schwimria. It was morally, if not
criminally, irresponsible to use fire in a building in the manner that it was
used that night. The ring rail protecting the front row and the seats behind
them was less than six feet from the ring that night, as it often
has been for ECW arena shows, The arena, as it always seemed to
be, was packed beyond fire law limits. The flaming material landed in the
crowd. Three ECW employees hit it with fire extinguishers. They apparently used a
fire extinguisher design for what is called a Class B fire, and such Class
B fires he searched or put out by excluding air slowing down the release of
Okay, I don't know what this has to do with anything. When those
three fire extinguishers brought out by ACW staff hit the fire full blast and the
agent used with the agent used within them created a horrible smell, a panic
ensued on the bleacher side of the ECW arena. Boss to be in those
bleachers panic, Oh, I mean shoulder to shoulder sweat, heat, fear.
I think you're all going to die? Where to go? Exits limited
limited people ran out of the building into the street, but there was an
ear reaction from the other side of the building. Yes, what did they
do? They continued with the well known ECW chant as if the fire,
the almost asphyxiating cloud was all part of the show. There's nothing okay with
this, There's nothing okay with that at all. It's Ben Rubert, but
not proven that other people were injured within the stampede. To get out of
that side of the building the incident seemed to be forgotten by most DCW fans
as years passed, but it was certainly not forgotten by anyone who attended that
show. To conclude, it amazes me what has happened to Raymond Swimmer was
used as a political football by a corporation and by those working for its on.
Okay, under any circumstances, whoever was right or wrong? What happened
to Raymond Swimmers a tragedy, he said. If you saw the picture of
him in a news report of the trial in Philadelphia's WPVII channel six, you
wouldn't question that. So that's a archival that I'd love the help of the
Solar system to find. I didn't find any evidence that this was covered very
aggressively at all by the media, but apparently the victim was interviewed by WPVII
Channel six out in Philadelphia back in what would have been I guess, nineteen
ninety nine. But there it is. There. It is Nick Foley and
Terry Funk and ECW going up in flames. I guess the thing that we
don't know again, really what I don't know? There's something fishy here?
Yeah, like what I don't know there's something fishy that there's no that there's
no footage of this thing, or that they that's a huge question. Yeah,
like given people that have this inside track don't seem to address that part
of it right now. They had to call a photographer and it's still photographer
to testify, So that that tells you there isn't video. Everything that happened
ECW is on tape right watching like fucking Rob Van Damic, Chris Jericho wrestle
on a house show and you can see the walls of the building. It
was like, you know, Scott Hall made one appearance that was on tape.
There's so many like one off things that happened in ECW that are on
tape too. I don't know, maybe I'm overstating the degree to which everything
was filmed, but it seemed like there were a major angles planned for the
show. It wasn't the arena there there. I know I can sit here
and say for sure that if they were in the ECW arena, they were
rolling tape. I just don't know why they wouldn't. That's that was the
whole point of the ECW Arena shows was to shoot the biggest angles and to
satisfy the hardest core fans that would come out apparently buying you know, clubbyc
less you know, unless unless, like the video is useless. I don't
know, well I was I want to say, what if what if the
video actually shows this other guy this, this, uh this uh don't call
me David Swimmer guy getting burned, and they were like, uh no,
we got to fucking get rid of we Well, yeah, I mean that's
that's where my head goes. Let's do away with this video please. It's
interesting that that wrinkle that last article of like it actually was forgotten for a
while, like so apparently they really managed this well in terms of how far
word spread and it really wasn't understood. I don't think in the wrestling community
that that that much, or at least, like you know, the the
sheets and stuff, that there was actually legal action coming, which if that
you know, narrative we just read as accurate, really didn't even cross the
victim's mind until he ended up having a subsequent motorcycle accident. But there's also
a reference that maybe they had floated a number to not sue that Paul Hayman
rejected the fifty thousand dollars number. I don't know. I don't know the
full story here, and unfortunately the files uh sort I can tell don't exist.
But yeah, the Funker was dragged into court for getting burned by Mick
Foley in the ECWS, so things definitely heating up. I want to head
to court because I went ahead and got my ass burned by somebody else.
Yep, yep, the fuck is going on. The Funker's on fire,
but you already knew that. And it's time now for him to truly put
his stamp on ECW and to create the moments that would forever cement him as
not just someone that raised hell in ECW and reinvented the wrestling fans perception of
him in ECW, but really created moments closest to classy that ECW would have
ever pulled off. It's time for their first pay per view, It's time
for Barely Legal and oh yes, all that Terry Funk had to do with
that historic night. It of course ends with him bloodied hoisting once again,
despite what many of it may have anticipated, the ECW Championship and a career
capper as the business is about to change again on the back of all these
ECW innovations, if you can call them that, into the Attitude era next
time in the Lapsed Funk it's barely legal and it's Terry Funk's final stand in
ECW. You know, good for nothing egg second down. We did it
our way because we love it that way. We love it that way.
I have this wonderful gun freeling and I've had it all my life. When
it's time to go, I think it's now there's time to go. Hey
there, JP, Hey, it's Mick Foley. And just in the interest
of full disclosure, I'm on the drive through line at a little coffee shop
on my way to OVW Wrestling, so you may hear the interactions. I
don't even know how much it costs. But then there's a little restaurant called
Cheddars and I'll pull in. So yeah, there's a little danger to driving
while cameoing. I don't condone it for anyone, but I think I'll be
okay. But that's a really cool question. Thanks, first of all,
thanks for being a ECW fan and a fan of mine in general. That
was a wow. That was a tough six days for us, because you
never know which way I a jury is going to go. It was jury
trial and it was over twenty years ago. I think I was the I
can't remember if I was the ww I don't think I was yet the WWE
commissioner. I think it was late ninety nine, maybe two thousand, I
can't remember exactly, but I do remember when I heard the news about the
suit. I was in the mountains of New Hampshire and I saw a message
from WWE Legal and when I called them, I really thought they were going
to offer me some type of contract merchandising or something like that. They were
so happy with me, and then I found out they were, yeah,
that it was a lawsuit. So I had written quite a bit about what
happened in my book in ninety nine. I don't know why I thought that
was a good idea. I can tell you that they had the defense,
not the defense, the prosecutor, their main attorney, like he used that
as you know, words against us. But in the end, I think
what it came down to was that the jury they didn't they really didn't believe
the gentleman's claim that the injury he suffered that night, and he did he
had I believe first to be Burns and he was sent home with an ointment.
So he was burned at an ECW show, no question about that.
But I don't think they bought the idea that the trauma he suffered that night
led to a motorcycle accident six months later which cost him his leg. The
turning point I talked to one or two jurors afterwards. They said, how
did you know that was going to happen? I didn't know what it was.
Was the guy the prosecutor? He said, or all these words true?
He read the story about me and Terry and the fire incident. I
said, well, there's one slight difference. And he jumped up like he
had me, and he was like, well, are you sure on a
Bible? You took an oath and you said everything you was true, so
help me God. And yet you were admitting there's a factual error. Is
that true? He said yes. He goes, would you mind, mister
Foley telling me what part of this isn't true? And I just thought it
was like a softball being loved to me. Hold, I'm going to pay
for my money here, I pay my coffee, all right, she's not
ready yet, or she's ready? Payoff would be worth it, I hope,
And I just said to the guy, I said, well, honestly,
Terry never did call Bischoff ahomo. And the whole courtroom erupted in laughter,
and the judge even had to ask for an order in the court.
And I think that really benefited us, as did the Pennsylvania rule. And
I don't know if it's like this in many other states. Hi, there
three forty five. Just I think I have five. Just keep the five,
okay, thank you all right. So in Pennsylvania it's whoever is more
liible, and as a fifty one forty nine, even if someone did believe
that we were forty nine percent, that's for you, all right that it's
thank you so much. You have a nice day. Oh I just burned
myself, all right, have a nice day. No, I'm good,
Thank you all right. I think I thought I turned that burning pretty well.
Must have been my ECW training, all that stuff in Japan. So,
like I said, I am now driving while cameoing. That's a penalty
in any state in the country, but I'm only doing it for like thirty
thirty yards. I don't know. If it had been another state, maybe
they would have ruled that we were you know, partially responsible and that we
owed the gentleman some money, but luckily that was not the case. But
those were a tough sick days to be spending on trial. Yeah, so
I really thought that everything I'd worked for might be gone, but luckily it
wasn't. Thank you JP for your question. I don't get asked about that
at all, you know. I used to bring it up once in a
while at my shows when they did the one man shows, but I haven't
talked about it in about ten years. So that was fun. Hope you
enjoyed as much as I did, and have a nice day.