Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Terry Funk More than Just Hardcore by Terry Funk Wrestling / Terry Funk. Meet the prime minister of hardcore wrestling. Known as "The Hardcore Icon" and "The Funker", Terrence Funk (born June 30, 1944) is a semi-/maybe retired American Professional Wrestler who is a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion , a pioneer of the hardcore style in North America, and one of the ECW Originals. He also has made appearances in Japan with AJPW and (around 2011) NJPW and Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), as well as in Puerto Rico with the World Wrestling Council (WWC), the WWWF/WWF/WWE and WCW (both during the later NWA/WCW days and near the end of WCW's run), as well as MLW, SMW, Ring of Honor, TNA, Juggalo Championship Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerilla and MANY others. He's known as a member of the Funk Wrestling Family, which includes his late father Dory Funk Sr. (May 4, 1919 – June 3, 1973) and his older brother Dory Funk Jr. (born 1941). (As a bonus, Terry and Dory Jr. are the only brothers to date to ever hold the NWA World Heavyweight title.) In addition, there is his acting resume, starting with Paradise Alley in 1978. He may not look like much, but he's taken bumps men a third his age would not consider, let alone attempt. While not quite the living embodiment of hardcore (that would be Abdullah the Butcher), he ranks pretty close; the Funkasaurus is a walking museum, proselytizing the heritage of the sport as it originated in mid-20th century fairs. Unsurprisingly, he has a love-hate relationship with modern pro wrestling, despite numerous attempts to break into it (even making light of his hypocrisy in Forever Hardcore ). He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009. Oh, and too many Ten Minute Retirements to count. He was last noted to have partnered with The Rock 'n' Roll Express against Jerry Lawler, his son Brian Christopher and Doug Gilbert in 2017, so he's a Long Runner, too (if not the LONGEST-runner). Terry Funk : More Than Just Hardcore. Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. was born June 7, 1965. He is an American professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor and voice actor. He has worked for many wrestling promotions. Shortly after he was born, Foley's family moved to Setauket, New York, where Foley attended Ward Melville High School. From May 7 to July 1, 1999, Foley wrote his autobiography, Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks. It became hugely popular and topped The New York Times bestseller list for several weeks. The follow-up, Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker than Wrestling, was published in 2001 and debuted at number one on the Times list. Foley has also written three children's books, Mick Foley's Halloween Hijinx, Mick Foley's Christmas Chaos, and Tales from Wrescal Lane. Terry Funk: More than Just Hardcore by Terry Funk. Terry Funk: More than Just Hardcore Terry Funk with Scott E. Williams Sports Publishing Hardcover 256 pages March 2005. After the runaway success of Mick Foley�s Have a Nice Day: A Tale Of Blood And Sweatsocks (Mick also wrote the foreword to this book), there was a deluge of wrestling autobiographies that hit the market. Nothing wrong with capitalizing on a hot trend (or making a buck!), but some of the people writing them barely had their feet wet in the wrestling business, and thus � not much to talk about. Not the case with this book. Terry Funk is a hardcore legend to some, but mostly, he is just a legend - period - in the world of professional wrestling. Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcor e is a revealing look into Terry Funk the person and the persona while simultaneously being a history lesson on professional wrestling. Terry takes you all the way back to when his father was a famous wrestler on the regional circuits, how the wrestling life was like circus life: one big family. After some really good stories as a kid growing up in the business - watching his dad wrestle, the traveling, the characters - Terry then goes into his time at West Texas State and all the future wrestling superstars that came out of there (Bruiser Brody, Stan Hansen, Tito Santana etc.). It�s amazing how many stars came from there. After that, it's how he got his start working for the local promoters and driving 250 miles for $25 payoffs. Such was the life of a wrestler back then. After busting his rear for many years, Terry delves into his time being NWA champion and all the hard work traveling to the territories making the local guys look good. He made a lot of money that year ($400,000), but it would take it toll on him in his personal life with his wife. After a year, Terry drops the belt and deals with his personal life. He gets his act together and goes into the politics of wrestling in Japan, his many tours, and his famous match with Abdullah The Butcher. The book is so red-hot with all the funny ribs and backstage stories that you don�t even realize that the '50s, '60s and '70s flew right by. By the '80s, the wrestling business would change drastically. The death of the local territories was imminent, and Vincent K. McMahon would take his regional WWF from the northeast to around the globe, and Terry was a part of it. He talked about his time in the WWF and his infamous angle with Mel Phillips. In 1989, Terry went to WCW (the former NWA). He talked about his time on the booking committee and his hot angle with Ric Flair. He also talked about how screwed up WCW�s backstage organization was; little did he know how bad it would become. By the mid '90s, hardcore wrestling got popular, and Terry goes into the birth of ECW and his barbwire match with Sabu, and his time with Mick Foley and the death matches in Onita�s FMW. Before you know it, he�s back in WCW. These were the dying days for the company, and we get treated stories of atrocious booking, terrible TV, and even worse promoting. When it�s all said and done, ECW would fold and WCW would crash and burn into the annals of the worst demise of a wrestling company backed by national TV and huge finances of Ted Turner�s money. Then Terry Funk goes full circle. After a short stint in WWF as Chainsaw Charlie, he ends back up working the independents; working in front of small crowds for small pay (sometimes even having to chase a few guys down to get his check). Overall, this is a great book. Through the humorous stories and the tragedy (his father's death) we get to learn that, indeed, Terry is more than hardcore. 10 Facts Fans Need To Know About Terry Funk. "The Hardcore Legend" Terry Funk's career has spanned numerous decades, leaving behind many fun stories and facts about the icon. Terry Funk is a legend of pro wrestling. Throughout his lengthy career -- which, you’ll soon find out, is even lengthier than you think -- he’s been a top draw in the old school National Wrestling Alliance days, had an epic feud with Ric Flair in WCW , and put on supremely violent matches with Mick Foley in ECW and WWE as well as in the independent and international scenes. But perhaps you’re not as familiar with Terry Funk as you’d like to be. Well, in that case, here are the broad strokes of the Funker that you need to know, from his career in the ring to fun trivia about his work outside of it. 10 His Career Has Spanned Six Decades. Terry Funk originally made his debut in 1965, in the NWA affiliated, Texas-based promotion Western States Sports -- which was, at the time, owned by his father, Dory Funk -- in a singles match against the incredibly named Sputnik Taylor. His last match to date was a tag effort alongside The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express in 2017, meaning Funk has wrestled in six decades with a career lasting over 50 years. 9 He Was In Road House. Because he’s always seemed like such a “career wrestler” unlike, say, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or John Cena , it may surprise some fans to learn that Terry Funk has done a bit of acting in his day. In addition to his roles in Sylvester Stallone’s pro wrestling movie Paradise Alley and in Sylvester Stallone’s arm wrestling movie Over the Top -- and a surprising number of TV roles -- Funk also played a bouncer in the Patrick Swayze classic Road House . 8 He Was A Tag Team Specialist. Even though he put on many singles classics with the likes of Ric Flair and various incarnations of Mick Foley, older fans would remember Funk for his tag team work alongside his real-life brother, Dory Funk Jr (renamed “Hoss Funk” in WWE). Together, the Funks would end up capturing Tag Team Championships across various NWA affiliate promotions -- Texas, Hollywood, Georgia, and Florida -- and managed to win the All-Japan Pro Wrestling tag team tournament World's Strongest Tag Determination League a notable three times. Also, the Funk Brothers’ 1980 League match against Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta ended up being hailed as Match of the Year by the magazine Tokyo Sports . 7 He Only Ever Held One WWE Title. Despite the fact that Terry Funk has had a few stints in WWE over the years -- in the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s -- he only ever won a single championship for the company. In 1998, at WrestleMania XIV , Funk and his partner/rival Cactus Jack took on The New Age Outlaws in a “Dumpster Match” for the Tag Team Titles, but had the titles held up on Raw the following night when it was revealed that Jack and Charlie put the Outlaws in the wrong dumpster. Seriously. Also, for some reason Funk worked under the name of Chainsaw Charlie. 6 He’s A Hardcore Pioneer. While he was an icon of southern wrestling -- a violent scene itself -- in previous decades, in the 1990s Terry Funk helped innovate the hardcore deathmatch style of wrestling that would gain popularity in the states thanks to ECW and other promotions. One of his biggest contributions to the genre was his role in IWA Japan’s King of the Deathmatch tournament, the first of its kind, where his brutal final round match with Cactus Jack in a baseball stadium would live in infamy. 5 He Choreographed A Rocky Fight. Terry Funk didn’t just act in movies -- he also did some work behind the scenes. For the climactic street fight between Rocky Balboa and his angry protege Tommy Gunn in 1990’s Rocky V the filmmakers tapped Terry Funk to help choreograph the brawl, further establishing the Rocky franchise as an extremely pro wrestling series of films despite being about boxing. Also, Sly Stallone sure did get Terry Funk a surprising amount of movie work in the ‘80s, didn’t he? 4 He’s A Former World Champion. Terry Funk has held top championships all over the place during his lengthy career, many of which were for the NWA. And not just the regional titles like the Florida Heavyweight Championship, either -- in 1975, he defeated Jack Brisco to capture the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and held it for nearly a year and a half. In ECW, Funk held the ECW World Heavyweight Championship twice: once during the NWA affiliate Eastern Championship Wrestling days, and one when the company broke away and rebranded itself as Extreme. 3 He Recorded An Album. Japanese fans were super into Terry Funk, so Japanese label Invitation got the Funker to record a novelty album called Great Texan which is not even the least bit as Texan as the cover makes it out to be. Largely co-written by Jimmy Hart, no stranger to wrestling-themed albums , Great Texan features eight tracks that include a smooth ditty about hanging out in Roppongi and an absurd song called “Barbra Streisand’s Nose” that sounds like a hybrid of “Beat It” and “Monster Mash.” The opening track is a wild ride that sounds like the theme song for a Lupin the 3rd -esque anime starring the Funker. 2 He Brought Hulk Hogan To WWE. Hulk Hogan has been such an institution of pro wrestling that it’s easy to forget he had to start somewhere, and that start happened with the help of Terry Funk. Hogan was already wrestling as Terry “The Hulk” Boulder and Sterling Golden in regional promotions to some success, but was preparing to quit wrestling when Funk sought him out and introduced Hogan to World Wrestling Federation boss Vince McMahon Sr. 1 He Retired Countless Times. The most important thing to know about Terry Funk is the most paradoxical: not only does Funk refuse to stop wrestling, but he also refuses to stop retiring . His first retirement happened in 1983, after a tag match between The Funks and the team of Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy, an effort made infamous by Terry Funk’s incredible and memeworthy post-match speech . In the decades since, he’s wrestled too many retirement matches to count, only to quickly come out of retirement -- also too many times to count. Michael Cavacini. Audible Review: More Than Just Hardcore by Terry Funk. Terry Funk is one of the most influential wrestlers of all time. With a career spanning decades, you’d think that his autobiography, More Than Just Hardcore, would be fascinating. While this Audible Original was an easy and entertaining listen, it didn’t blow my mind. There weren’t any shocking revelations, dirt on other wrestlers, or anything of that nature. What you get here is the story of a man who is content with the life he’s lived. To me, that makes for an inspiring audiobook replete with life lessons. I went into this book hoping to learn a great deal about Terry Funk’s days in the NWA, ECW, and the WWF. I got all of that and more. What I found most interesting about this autobiography is it was written before the Chris Benoit tragedy, and Terry talks about how much he likes and admires Benoit. In the book he talks about wishing he had worked with Benoit, and these moments are interesting in hindsight. I’m glad Terry Funk took the time to write an autobiography because I feel that he’s an underappreciated wrestler who is often overshadowed by the larger-than- life personalities he shared the ring with. If you’re looking for a wrestling autobiography that’s enjoyable despite its lack of revelatory content, then More Than Just Hardcore is worth buying.