Terry Funk.....True Icon of Professional Wrestling

Courtesy of www.obsessedwithwrestling.com

"In my mind, no one man is bigger than this sport. But if there is an icon, it would be a man who has great ability in the ring and professionalism and maturity outside of it. Let's leave all the petty, backstabbing, I make more than you b.s. and concentrate on talent and attitude..."

The above quote was taken from a 1997 shoot promo on WWE Monday Night Raw by Jim Cornette, who at the time, let his feelings be known to the wrestling fans about wrestlers who were claiming that they were the "Icon of Wrestling," which included Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.

After ripping into each of the above mentioned names, Cornette gave his opinion on who should be considered the Icon of Wrestling, which included Ric Flair, Steve Austin and The Undertaker, all of which you can view in the embedded video below, courtesy of youtube.



Now that almost 11-years have passed since this promo aired, I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Cornette about his choice candidates, except the Undertaker, if we are using the criteria he laid-out that appears in the opening quote.

Ric Flair had great ability inside the ring but outside the ring, lived life like a college frat-boy, lived a luxurious life-style he couldn't afford and exposed himself countless times on airplanes to flight attendants. How is that being mature or conducting one-self as a professional?

Steve Austin was the WWE's top draw for nearly three-years, from 1998-2001, but his unprofessional act of walking out-of-the-company before a June 2002 Raw Event, where he was scheduled to lose to Brock Lesnar, and the domestic battery charge filed by his ex-wife Debra McMichael shortly thereafter doesn't help his cause.

I would love to give the nod to Undertaker as Professional Wrestling's True Icon but for me, Undertaker comes in at a close second by the slimmest of margin to someone else that I feel exemplifies what being the True Icon of Wrestling is all about and that man is "The Hardcore Icon" Terry Funk!

Even though the man is middle-aged and crazy at age 64 and spilled more blood than a blood bank, Funk has been involved in pro wrestling longer than most of us have been alive and in all his time in wrestling, I have never read or heard one bad thing about him. He has never left a company high-and-dry, has never exposed himself to flight attendants or made personal attacks on other wrestlers. He has gone about doing what he loves to do in a professional manner that more wrestlers and athletes in general should adopt.

Funk started his career in 1965 in Armarillo, TX, wrestling for his dad's promotion and in 1975, Funk defeated WWE Hall of Famer Jack Brisco for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, which was the most important wrestling championship at the time, and would hold on to that title for 14 months.

In addition, along with his brother, Dory Funk Jr., the two of them made a name for themselves in Japan, mainly because of thier over-the-top mannerisms and brawling abilities. As a result, the two not only became one of the top drawing foreign acts in the history of Japan but were also the first gaijins (foreigners) to be considered faces (good-guys) in Japan.

Funk was also a pioneer in what is now called "Hardcore Wrestling" before the words "hardcore" and "extreme" were associated with wrestling. In the late 1970's Funk was involved in the earliest barbed-wire match ever recorded as he took on WWE Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes in a grisly match that appeared as the cover story of Pro Wrestling Illustrated with the tag line, "The Horrifying Barbed-Wire Fence Match."

In 1989, after a short-stint in WWE, then the World Wrestling Federation, and being semi-retired, Funk came out of retirement at age 45 and engaged in a classic rivalry with Flair for the NWA Heavyweight Championship that culminated with their classic 27-minute "I Quit" match at Clash of the Champions IX on Nov. 15, 1989.

However, it was what Funk did during his time in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) from 1994-1998 made me give him the nod as the True Icon of Professional Wrestling. The following is what former ECW owner Paul Heyman had to say about Funk on the Rise and Fall of ECW dvd released by WWE in 2004:

"There would not have been an ECW without Terry Funk. He was the only veteran from that era who had the reputation of being legitimately tough but also had the business sense to realize that he had to get the next generation ready for their to be a business and an industry to leave behind. Terry had that mindset because a lot of veterans back then were unwilling to get the young guys ready and were still clinging and clutching to their spot, to their reputation of being THE GUY...THE CHAMPION and Terry Funk just said, 'Oh I Can make him....Oh I can make him too...Oh let me make him, I'll do something special with him' and did with everybody he worked with."

To reward Funk for what he had done to help elevate ECW, Heyman had Funk defeat then ECW Champion Raven in the main-event of the company's first pay-per-view, Barely Legal, on April 13, 1997 to become ECW Champion and symbolize the company's moniker that the impossible dream can happen.

Funk would eventually drop the title to Sabu in their much talked-about and truly violent Barbed Wire match, the one where Sabu's bicep was ripped open by the barbed-wire and closed the wound shut by taping over it with athletic tape, at ECW Born to Be Wired on Aug. 9, 1997.

In Sept. of that same year, before a match with then WWE Champion Bret Hart at a special event titled, "Wrestlefest - 50 Years of Funk," that celebrated the careers of Terry, his brother and father, Heyman presented Funk with a championship belt that was paid through a collection taken up by wrestlers on the ECW roster at the time and the belt declared Funk the Lifetime ECW World Heavyweight Champion.

I think that right there not only speaks volumes about how helpful and inspirational Funk was to ECW but also why he gets my vote as the True Icon of Professional Wrestling.