Andrew Lutzke
Presented by RF Video
Terry starts by talking about meeting Flair for the first time in 1972 as Ric was traveling with Dick Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes. They joke about the wild traveling partners Ric chose.
Funk says he knew Flair would be a star and how Flair, Rhodes and Murdoch were all such characters.
Murdoch’s dad ran a bar and was a hard man. Murdoch quit high school football and joined Funk in the wrestling business.
Dick lied and said he was a middle linebacker for West Texas and was able to play on the alumni football games because of it.
(Sober Flair is a strange sight, so far he’s super mellow and rather quiet.)
Murdoch enjoyed messing with people’s heads. Dusty and Murdoch were Flair’s first wrestling running mates and they got in a lot of trouble together.
Flair talks up Verne Gagne’s NFL and legit wrestling past and puts Verne in with Sam Muchnick, Jim Barnett, Eddie Graham and Fritz Von Erich as the men who ran wrestling in 1972.
Eddie Graham was not formally educated and yet was a very intelligent man.
Ric didn’t know Graham well but he respected all the business moves he knew Eddie made.
Graham drunkenly flew his airplane around the ocean with the Funk Brothers and Flair in the plane. They had to scream to make him focus.
Flair figures Graham would have not liked where the business went had he not killed himself in 1985. Ric points out the millions of dollars that Verne lost when trying to compete with Vince.
Eddie and Fritz were two of the first wrestlers who ever gained control of a territory.
Funk figures Florida wrestling failing led to Graham’s suicide. Terry feels that Eddie was planning on shooting someone else (Vince?) and chose to end his own life instead.
Terry says the NWA board did a great job at picking men to carry the NWA World title.
Flair never wanted to go to the WWWF in the 70’s – Funk wishes he had a run there as he was broke after buying his ranch and going into a mini retirement. He spent 45 grand in a matter of months.
Vince Sr. was a gentleman and Flair laughs about how the NWA let Vince on the board despite being the competition.
Vince Jr. told Flair that an 80’s heel can’t get over anymore and he hated Flair’s climb the ropes and get slammed off spot that was done nightly.
The NWA Board’s yearly meeting was always a wild time as most every major name was there and craziness ensued.
Johnny Valentine had a special event booked around him after he was crippled. Jim Crockett booked tons of big names on the card in honor of Valentine. Wrestlingdata.com provides this as the line up for November 9th 1975:
| 1 | Rufus R. Jones defeated Steve Strong |
| 2 | Terry Funk defeated Red Bastien |
| 3 | Blackjack Mulligan defeated Ken Patera |
| 4 | Dusty Rhodes defeated Boris Malenko |
| 5 | Wahoo McDaniel defeated Billy Graham |
| 6 | Harley Race defeated Tiger Conway Jr. |
| 7 | Paul Jones defeated Ole Anderson |
| 8 | Johnny Weaver defeated Gene Anderson |
| 9 | Terry Funk defeated Rufus R. Jones |
| 10 | Dusty Rhodes defeated Blackjack Mulligan |
| 11 | Harley Race defeated Wahoo McDaniel |
| 12 | Paul Jones defeated Johnny Weaver |
| 13 | Terry Funk defeated Dusty Rhodes |
| 14 | Paul Jones defeated Harley Race |
| 15 | NWA United States Heavyweight Title (Mid-Atlantic-Version) Match Terry Funk defeated Paul Jones |
Flair wasn’t a fan of Valentine’s work because he would work a methodical style and Ric feels the style would kill the territory before Johnny got it over eventually
Flair says the four best workers in the biz in 1972 were: Ray Stevens- in a league of his own as a worker, Dick Murdoch, Harley Race, and Terry Funk.
Funk was so talented Dick Slater mimicked him to a tee. Flair stole Funk’s spot of blindly punching at air in a daze from Terry.
Wahoo McDaniel had big hands and chopped the hell out of both of these guys. Wahoo had 6 wives and loved his guns. Wahoo shot up a fan’s car who followed Funk and Wahoo after a show.
Terry says Flair is the best worker ever since he had stamina, long career, hard worker and great on the mic.
The guys erroneously claim to have invented table bumps in 1989 in their famous angle where Funk piledrove Flair on a table live on PPV – (Race had crashed through a table on national TV against Hogan a year earlier and Randy Savage piledrove Ricky Morton on a table in Memphis – I’m sure there are more examples but those two came to me off the top of my head.)
Flair claims that he suffered legit neck damage from the spot (Verify anyone?)
Dynamite Kid had the hard bumping style like Flair and Funk adores the guys who give it all like that no matter what size the crowd is.
The guys joke about how Flair, Roddy Piper, Bob Orton Jr., Dick Slater and Jake Roberts were all in the same territory and it was a non-stop party atmosphere.
Flair recounts the well known story of how Dusty and Murdoch rented a nice apartment in the AWA and ended up keeping a mule as a pet and having it sleep in the guest bed room.
Funk didn’t work in the AWA since the Funks were an NWA family.
(Flair breaks out the snuff at this point to class up the joint – we are treated to him spitting it out on camera for a long time following)
Joe Blanchard would visit his son Tully in JCP and he made sure not to try and keep up drinking with Flair.
Dusty and Flair were best buddies and yet they argued frequently about Dusty’s booking. Flair cites Dusty wanting Flair to work battle royals after working world title matches as an example of things they had disputes over.
Dusty would go to the matches when he was in college and the Funks avoided breaking him in – Dusty found his way in and the Funks embraced him.
Flair drove 1000 miles for a 50 dollar pay off as a rookie.
Ric claims he did 288 hour broadways in one year as world champ. (Chortle!) Jack Brisco worked in well over 300 during one year as champ. (Okay….)
Jack finally got sick of the travel and whatnot and told Graham to get Terry Funk in town ASAP so he could drop the title to him.
Gene Kiniski and Dick the Bruiser were two of the tougher guys to get an hour match out of.
Roddy Piper is a great guy and the wildest son of a gun ever.
Piper has his own Portland wrestling promotion now.
Funk wrapped a plastic bag over Flair’s head and Jim Barnett went crazy in the back, WCW almost lost its TV show and the police wanted to talk to Funk about attempted murder charges.
Terry jokes about how he told promoters that he had a sick horse at home whenever he wanted to quit a territory.
Bob Brown was terrible and Flair hated dragging long matches out of him.
Funk was never in the plans to be World champ during his 1989 run on top of WCW.
Ron Garvin was stiff as hell and Flair needed lots of Neosporin after their matches.
Stan Hansen was blind and thus was stiff as well – Flair was blading once and Hansen clocked him and jammed the blade deep into Flair’s forehead.
Japan was tough to work since Jumbo Tsuruta and the other Japanese guys wanted to get over so they would try and eat up a lot of offense – and lots of suplexes.
Bruiser Brody was a great performer however he loved to eat up other talent – Flair and Funk liked to make the jobbers shine a bit before beating them.
They both agree that Brody’s rebellious mindset would have prevented him from making a WCW or WWF run.
Jim Barnett fired Brody from GCW after Brody tipped over a wheel chair bound fan.
Flair didn’t feel any pressure being NWA champ, he was just thrilled to be on top.
Tyree Pride is added to the list of bad workers Flair had to drag a long match out of.
Flair says Bret didn’t take bumps and focused on being offensive.
Hart would complain about Flair’s chops.
Dory Jr. worked a mat based, grinding style and it would drive Flair crazy since Ric didn’t have a ground game himself to fight back with.
The modern business have pushed the boundaries so far that there is almost no further place they can go.
Ric avoids the “Cauliflower Alley Club” for old timers as Ric feels they bash the modern business too much and Ric’s still making money off it.
Funk feels Curtis Axel will be the next big star and Flair talks up Miz and Dolph Ziggler.
If you run a wrestling school, you should have a connection to WWE or TNA so your graduates have a place to work.
Ric’s daughter who works in NXT was and still is greatly bothered by Reid’s death. (This was taped 10 weeks after Reid’s death apparently).
Flair told Reid to goozle the young star that Japan wanted to push in order to get himself over.
Blackjack Mulligan’s health is failing.
Funk covers how much respect jobbers should be given for their role.
Kansas City was Flair’s least favorite road trip because the pay offs stunk. Promoter Bob Geigel is ripped on a bit.
When Hogan made it big in 1984, Flair and Funk claim they held no jealousy.
Funk believes Vince McMahon was the best man to take over the business in the manner that he did as far as managing a national scope and marketing to the masses.
Eddy Gurrero tried to shoot with Kurt Angle and Angle finished it fast.
The Original Sheik terrified Terry as a kid.
Both guys say they never feared catching viruses from bleeding all the time.
Jim Crockett can be partially blamed for the territories dying since they bought up a lot of talent themselves.
Ric points out that JCP taking a 100 mile flight on a private plane was a real waste of money but Flair loved the plane.
Both guys feel being an agent for the WWE is a thankless job – well paying but long hours and lots of travel.
Funk was offered the booking spot in the WWF many years ago – once he visited New York and saw all the people and the endless travel woes, he quit in the middle of the interview process and went home.
They both approve of increased concussion testing and avoidance in wrestling. Flair says Dory’s forearms hurt more than a chair.
Flair jokes that Funk runs from him now as Funk doesn’t want to keep up with Flair at the bar.
A drunken Terry Funk was attacked by Flair’s dog – Ric’s wife came home to find Funk crawling around on all fours in the backyard with a knife in his mouth and Flair was passed out in the bathtub.
Final Thoughts: This was one of the most enjoyable shoots I’ve covered so far and that encompasses quite a lot of ground by this point. Funk is as sharp as ever at nearly 70 and Flair is so fun to listen to once he gets going on the good old days. The bond between the two is obvious and they provide non-stop stories. I can’t recommend this DVD enough – a perfect use of over two hours of your time!
