R.I.P. Terry Funk, hardcore wrestling legend

Terry Funk, the legendary pro-wrestler who spent more than half a century wrestling in just about any ring that would have him, has died. Known for his eloquent promos and blood-soaked bouts with Ric Flair and Mick Foley, Funk led a storied career that led him to every corner of the wrestling world and across every period of the sport’s ascendence to mainstream popularity. Per CBS, his family reports Funk died at the age of 79.

“Terry Funk is gone,” friend and tag team partner Mick Foley wrote on social media. “I just talked to Terry’s daughter, Brandee, who gave me the awful news. He was my mentor, my idol, one of my closest friends. He was the greatest wrestler I ever saw.”

“If you get the chance, look up a Terry Funk match or a Terry Funk promo, and give thanks that this incredible man gave so much, for so long, to so many. There will never be another like him. May God bless Terry, his friends, family, and all who loved him. RIP my dear friend—it was an honor to know you.”

Like many of his generation, Funk fell into wrestling at a young age. Born in Hammond, Indiana, on June 30, 1944, Funk moved with his family to Amarillo, Texas, shortly after his father, Dory, left the Navy at the end of World War II. In Texas, Dory Funk would become a promoter for Western States Sports and sired two NWA champions, sons Dory Funk Jr. and Terry, who wrestled his first match on December 9, 1965.

From the beginning of his career, it was clear that Terry Funk was a born superstar. Quickly rising through the ranks of his father’s Amarillo Territory, Funk won his first world championship in 1975, defeating Jack Brisco for the NWA championship. In the days before the WWE, the NWA champion was a national figure who defended the gold throughout the country, facing the biggest and baddest wrestlers each territory had to offer. Funk held onto the Big Gold Belt for 14 months, defending his 10 pounds of gold throughout North America, Australia, Singapore, and Japan.

Funk’s historic title reign and extensive traveling took its toll. He married his wife Vicki several months before he began his career, and the couple had a pair of daughters by 1971. But while he was holding the NWA championship, he and his wife divorced. He subsequently dropped the belt to remarry her.

However, Funk’s traveling would continue, and he’d make a name for himself as a global star. In Japan, he wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling, going up against fellow brawlers Abdullah The Butcher, The Shiek, and Bruiser Brody. Funk would also begin runs in domestic national promotions that were ascendent in the late 80s and early 90s, joining WWE (née WWF), WCW, and ECW.

The 80s and 90s showed Funk’s abilities and versatility as a performer, appearing in future cult favorites like Road House and Over The Top where he leaned into his tough-as-nails Texan persona that carried over into the ring. His now infamous heel turn on Ric Flair, which ended in a piledriver on a table, exemplifies how well he could work the crowd and his opponent. His promo work continued to improve as he wowed viewers, wrestlers, and promoters with strings of insults that were as rapturous as they were intimidating. Often referring to himself as a “living legend” and “middle-aged and crazy—crazy as a fox in a henhouse,” there was no question to the viewer: He was all of those things.

The 90s saw Funk become one of the wrestling world’s most prominent and feared hardcore performers. Forever linked to an image of a steel chair, he cemented his reputation with fellow death match king Mick Foley after ECW’s Hardcore Heaven in 1994, where a match between Foley and Funk concluded with the crowd tossing chair after chair into the squared circle. Few images better encapsulated both men’s devil-may-care attitude as an off-screen announcer pleads, “Stop the chairs!”

Few could withstand pain like Funk, which is probably why he found a kindred spirit in Mick Foley, who could similarly take a chair shot to the skull (a stunt now all but banned from mainstream wrestling) without regard for his health. He defied death nightly in legendary hardcore bouts with Foley, making their long-lasting friendship even more endearing to new fans. Throughout the beginning of WWE’s famed Attitude Era of the late 90s, Funk returned to the ring as Chainsaw Charlie, winning the World Tag Team Championship with his friend before scaring the bejesus out of child viewers who watched in horror as the New Age Outlaws stuffed Funk and Foley into a dumpster and pushed it off a stage.

Throughout the 2000s, Funk would settle into his role as an elder statesman, appearing on WWE television and in indie promotions, such as Ring Of Honor, where he wrestled a new generation of superstars, like CM Punk. Though he frequently joked about retiring, he would continue wrestling well into the 2010s. It wasn’t until he suffered a hernia in 2016 that his health started to waver. Though he was ordered to bed rest, he continued to perform, wrestling his final match in September 2017. Sadly, his life began to unravel from there. In 2019, his wife died, and not long after, Funk was diagnosed with dementia and moved into an assisted living facility.

A 10-time hall of famer, Funk’s accomplishments could fill a book—in fact, it filled multiple. One of wrestling’s most natural and intelligent heels, he withstood a half-century of steel cages and street fights to become one of wrestling’s most enduring and endearing characters.