by Terry Funk
In 1981, Stan Hansen was working in Japan for Inoki, and in the States for Vincent J. McMahon’s World Wide Wrestling Federation, based in New York. Vince Sr. and Inoki were still working together, and had been for years. Well, I’d known Stan ever since his West Texas State days. Now he was working for the other side, and he was very strong in Japan.
Junior and I got hold of Stan, and I met with him, without anyone knowing. I offered Stan a deal Junior and I had put together with Baba, to work for All Japan for a period of years, and we made the deal official when the two of us met with Baba in Hawaii. It was a big-money deal for Stan. He ended up making more than Junior or me. He got a bonus, plus $15,000 a week for 12 to 15 weeks a year. That was the biggest money deal in the country, and as I recall, he had a clause in the contract to cover inflation that called for a 10-percent increase every year. That might not sound like a lot, until you get to the point where Stan’s been there for 20 years. That’s why Stan’s shitting through silk drawers, and I’m still wrestling for Joe the independent.
No one knew about it, not even the wrestlers on the card that night, except for Snuka and Brody. We wanted it to be a surprise to everyone, and that was important to Stan, too, because he had to finish up a New Japan tour and then immediately come over and appear with us. That made New Japan a snakepit during Stan’s last days there, because he wasn’t going to do a job before he left.
They wanted him to do a job, even though they didn’t know he was going. He wasn’t going to do one, because we wanted him to be strong coming in. It put him in a very precarious position in New Japan, because the promotions in Japan didn’t pay the wrestlers until after the last match on the tour, and he had to be very careful so no one would know what he was going to do.
We knew the reaction he’d get when he came out with Snuka and Brody, for their match against Junior and me, in the finals of All Japan’s 1981 Real World Tag Team Tournament. And he certainly didn’t disappoint. The finish involved him giving me a clothesline and leaving.
The buzz over Hansen’s jump spread through Japan’s wrestling world.
The final move was to pull Stan out from under Vince Sr., when Stan was in the middle of a main event feud with his champion, Bob Backlund. That was actually Stan’s second big run in New York. His first one was in 1976, when he was wrestling Bruno Sammartino. During one of their matches, Hansen accidentally dropped him wrong on a bodyslam, and Bruno suffered a broken neck.
Stan was sick over what happened to Bruno. Hansen never wanted to hurt anybody. He just worked solid. And working solid was Stan’s path to success in the business. And Bruno knew that Stan wasn’t trying to injure him. I’m sure he told him something along the lines of, “Be more careful, dammit!”
Bruno was pretty messed up and was unable to wrestle for a few months. Truthfully, it’s a testament to Bruno’s physical conditioning that a broken neck didn’t have a much more serious impact on him.
Not long after Stan made his debut, I was sitting at home, reading at my desk one day, when the phone rang. It was Vince McMahon Sr.
“Why did you do that? Goddammit, Terry, why did you do it?”
“Well, dadgummit, Vince,” I said, “you guys took Abby.”
“But you stole Hansen from me.”
“Yeah, and next time, we’ll take your kitchen sink, if it happens again.”
We both laughed. It was actually a very casual conversation.
Stan Hansen could have been a huge star in the United States, if he had not decided to focus on working in Japan as his top priority. Stan could talk, he could move, and he had a great look. He used his stardom in the States to build a successful career in Japan. The Japanese always had their pick of the best American talent because they could pay more per week than anyone else in the world. That held true for years, although I don’t think it’s the case today. For guys like Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody and Steve Williams, it was a better life, because they earned six figures and only had to work 15 to 20 weeks a year.
Some of the guys, Hansen and Brody in particular, got reputations in the States for not wanting to do jobs. It was a combination of the Japanese office not wanting them to do a bunch of jobs in the States, and Hansen and Brody themselves not wanting to do jobs and using the office as an excuse.
I think Brody would have made an excellent NWA world champion. He had a good head for the business, and he did what was going to produce the most money for him. The way it turned out, the best thing for him was to be strong in America, to build himself up for Japan. However, if he had been champion, he would have been one of those champions who damn near got beat every night, because that was what he would have needed to do to build for a strong return.
One thing was always trueBruiser Brody was in business for himself, but if you knew that, you knew everything you needed to know about Brody. He found early on that in the wrestling business, you have to push at times. Brody pushed, and sometimes he pushed too hard, but he had a lot of success with it.
Those guys didn’t need to do jobs. They were making big money. I can’t blame them for saying, “I’m not doing that! They don’t want me to do that!”
Well, of course they were going to say that! “They don’t want me to” sounds much better than “I don’t want to.”
Right after Abdullah left, we were giving Bruiser Brody the big push, but an untimely injury (a broken ankle) made us change plans for a tournament he was supposed to win, which led to a one-time-only match on April 30, 1981.
Junior ended up winning the international championship by forfeit over Brody in the finals, and we knew we had to do something to make up for the Brody match that was supposed to happen, since he had broken his ankle.
We’re sitting there, knowing this is all going out on TV, and we had very little time to come up with something special to put on, to keep the fans from feeling shortchanged, so Dory’s first title defense was against me. It was the only time the Funk brothers wrestled each other.
It was probably the toughest match I ever had. I think by then either of us could have had a match with a broomstick, but wrestling my brother was another thing entirely. I don’t think the fans were very interested in seeing us against each other, either.
It would have been like us feuding in the U.S. There are certain times and places where that would be accepted, but the Japanese fans at that time weren’t buying that two brothers would fight for a title. It did produce some interest and was the right thing to do, but when they saw it, they didn’t quite accept it, because of the way we were portrayed over there. Once the match started, the fans realized they didn’t want to see Junior beat me, or me beat Junior, because they liked both of us.
However, years later, it’s become almost the Japanese equivalent of the empty arena match in Memphissomething remembered as greater than it was. People say, “Wow, you wrestled your own brother? That was something!”
One thing never changed, even in Japanwrestlers were as goofy on bus and plane rides as they were in cars going up and down roads in West Texas.
During one of the first tours of Japan I was on, I was on a plane with my brother, plus Moose Cholak with Brute Bernard. Moose had a horrible case of hemorrhoids, and if you ever saw Moose Cholak, you know how horrible that must have been, because his ass was gigantic. Moose was just bound and determined to show people his hemorrhoids (they looked like a damn fist sticking out of his ass), and as you might imagine, Moose was not in a very good mood.
We were flying from Fukuoka to Tokyo, when one of the jet’s two engines went out. They turned around, back to Fukuoka and jettisoned all the fuel, which looked like a big funnel of smoke flying out of the plane.
Junior saw it and said, “Hey, look at that!”
“I don’t want to look at it, Junior,” I said.
“Look at it!”
He was about to shit his pants and I was, too, and Brute Bernard decided at this time that it would be really funny for him to stand up in the aisle and sing, “Brin
ging in the Sheaves.”
Moose stood up and said, “I don’t want to hear that shit!”
Brute kept singing, so Moose shoved him, and they got into a shoving match right up there while all this was going on.
I remember thinking, “That’s all I want to seethose two idiots fighting, as my last memory on this Earth!”
Luckily we landed safely.
As goofy as he was, Moose Cholak could really wrestle. All people remember is that big, goddamned moose head he wore. Sometimes that thing would go over the ropes before he could get through them. He had a hell of a problem with that moose head.
Moose was ornery, too. If he didn’t like you, you were going to have a problem in the ring. I used to pump him up all the time, just for the hell of it.
“Moose, goddamn, you’re a big, tough bastard, you are,” I’d tell him. Then, he’d get to the ring, and whoever he was in there with couldn’t do a damn thing with him.
I truly believe, although Stan Hansen might not agree, that my brother and I, in the 1970s, established a much more physical level in Japan than what there had been to that point. That was some of the work I was most proud of in my career, and I think Stan and Bruiser Brody saw our success with that style and took it onward, but I don’t think that style really existed much before Junior and I did it there.
We wanted to establish a closeness to reality, like the realism my father wanted to portray in Amarillo.
Sometimes, some of our opponents stiffed us a little in the ring, which, as I’ve said, I’ve never understood. Brody’s partner Buck Robley, in the seat in front of me, turned around to face me on a plane after a 1982 match in Tokyo and said, “Boy, did we ever fuck you on that last match.”
Buck was a good guy, but he had been drinking too much and just decided to start smiling at me and talking shit.
“Yep, we really stiffed you on that match,” he kept on.
“Buck, shut your ass up and turn around right now, or else I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.”
He kept going, so I went ahead and beat the shit out of him, right there on that 747. Afterwards, he was back in his seat in front of me, and every three or four minutes, I’d haul off and just kick the shit out of his seat. And, every time I did, I cussed him.
“Goddamn Robley, you son of a bitch!”
The stewardess never even said anything about it. The plane was completely silent, except for every few minutes, when I’d kick Buck’s seat and cuss him out again.
When we were landing, he asked me to carry some of his payouts for him, because he was carrying a lot of hard cash, and he was worried someone was going to rip him off and take it.
So in one trip, I beat him up and then helped him get his money through, and we’re still friends to this day.
We had some wild times, but the promotional war was very serious. My whole life, I’ve been in competition, whether it was wrestling, football, or whatever. I learned that you constantly had to motivate yourself to compete. You almost had to think of your competition as enemies.
The guy who played ahead of me on the West Texas football team was someone I liked, but I was always envious of him, and I worked my ass off to get where he was. Same thing in the wrestling businesswhen someone got ahead of where I was, I wanted to be where he was.
Is that healthy? I don’t know, but I think it’s necessary, and Inoki was the competition, which made him my adversary and my enemy. He was an enemy I respected, though, and still do, to this day.
Would I have fought him? You’re goddamned right I would have, and I’m sure he felt the same way. If he’d wanted to fight in the street, we’d have fought in the street. If he’d wanted to fight in the ring, we’d have fought in the ring. It was that serious.
One thing I’ll say for himthe Japanese fans were always more appreciative of what they saw in the ring, because both Inoki and Baba were very smart about keeping the evolution in check, advancing things slowly, unlike the States, where everything was always getting wilder.
Inoki and Baba limited what was done in the ring, and therefore people in Japan appreciated wrestling itself more. They had finishes in the middle of the ring. There were no “screwjob” finishes in Japan for as long as I could remember, until the modern era.
Now, that’s not to say they didn’t have disqualifications, or countouts, because they did. But we never did one of those crazy finishes where the referee is knocked out and misses one guy pinning the other, or half the locker room coming out to interfere.
They usually had winners and losers. When you have winners and losers, each match takes on a greater degree of importance, as opposed to the States, where things got to the point that the importance was with the stipulations of the match. If there was some sort of gimmick or bizarre finish, it would typically be in only one match on the card, and even then it only happened a couple of times a year, which made each angle stand out and be something really memorable.
And those two booked that way on purpose.
CHAPTER 16
Working the Territories
I spent a lot of my time in the U.S. during the early 1980s bouncing around the regional territories. I would come in, do a few weeks’ worth of matches, and then I was out. It was a good way to make some money and still get to spend extended periods of time at home, between tours of Japan.
In Memphis, having a main-event feud meant wrestling Jerry Lawler.
I agreed to go there in 1981 after they promised not to steal me blind. That was always necessary when dealing with the promoters in Memphis. Jerry Lawler, who had part-ownership there, was a friend, but he wasn’t the man making the payoffs.
I had a good feud with Lawler in Memphis, culminating in the first “empty arena” match. I had the idea for the match, but I couldn’t tell you where the idea came from.
It was so absolutely absurd, so ridiculous, that it became a cult favorite. Hell, people don’t remember that I was gone from Memphis two weeks after that!
The idea of the match was that I had been saying Lawler always played to the fans and drew strength from them, so I wanted a match where there would be no fans. We had the ring set up and all the chairs set up, but the only people in the building were Lawler, Lance Russell, the camera guys and me. The only way the match could end was with one guy giving up, a variation of an “I quit” match.
That thing continues to live to this day, I think because of the sheer foolishness of it. They introduced us, as we walked down the empty aisle, surrounded by empty chairs. They even played up that they started the tape before announcer Lance Russell was ready, and Lance had to put out his cigarette!
And then I came in and started ranting about Lawler, giving a profanity-laced promo, which doesn’t seem like much today, but was a very unusual thing back then.
They bleeped me for TV of course, but I was on a tear, and when Lance asked me not to cuss, since they had to be able to show this on TV, I looked at Lance and said, “I don’t give a shit!”
A few seconds later, here came Lawler. And the main thing I remember about that whole match was Lawler walking through the curtain, with his crown tucked under his arm and his robe on, as if there was a full house there. It was the most absurd thing I ever saw.
As for the match itself, it was very strange to be wrestling when there was no one making any noise. The only sounds came from Jerry Lawler and me. I figured, since no one was making noise, that I’d go ahead and provide the noise.
Every time Lawler would hit me, or start to come back, I would yell, “Oh no! No! Oh God no, Jerry!”
I don’t know how Lance Russell could have announced that thing with a straight face.
It ended when I submitted, with Lawler grinding a wooden stake from a broken chair in my eye.
I called Lawler a few more nasty names and screamed, “My eye! My eye!”
It was an absurdity, but I wish I had the tape to put out”The Empty Arena Match from 1981First Official Release!” Hell, I could sell
it at video stores and everything! Mick Foley and The Rock did one in 1999, during halftime of the Super Bowl, which might have been even sillier than mine with Lawler.
Lawler and I were also set to do a match in Florida, and I did a promo for it that became rather famous in wrestling circles.
The shot opened with me standing in a shower stall, holding a can of motor oil.
“Jerry Lawler wants to become a Floridian. Not a transplantthe King wants to become a real Floridian. Well, I would like to know exactly how it feels to be a true Florida cracker, so I have Quaker State Super Blend Motor Oil,” I said, pouring the oil over my head, “and I am going to show you people how it feels to be a true Florida cracker. And right here, I have five pounds of dirty, filthy dirt, and that’s exactly what it is!”
I started dumping the dirt on my now oily head, as I continued, “and I have got this dirt entirely over my body, and now, I know what it feels like to be a dirty, stinky, greasy Florida cracker, and it’s something I never want to feel again!”
And all that oil was an incredible pain in the ass to get out. I got that shit in my eyes, too, and I nearly got blinded. I washed and washed my hair. I went home and went to bed, and the next morning, my damned pillowcase had oily splotches all over it, and Vicki had to throw away the whole pillow!
I thought it was an original idea at the time, but it didn’t make the match a particularly big draw, so it became another one of my deals that didn’t work.
Now that might seem like a contradiction to what I was talking about earlier, about not wanting just to insult the fanbase, but the difference is, I was never one of those who went out every week and just ranted about how lousy the people were, because I had more focus on my opponent and how to cut a promo that best fit that situation.
I was always throwing ideas out there. I guess I figured eventually something would work. I was like a weathermanif I kept talking, eventually I’d say something that was right! And the beautiful thing about people is that they tend to remember when I’m right and forget how many times I’ve been wrong.
