The “old farts” at the National Wrestling Alliance were against Terry Funk capturing the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship, Bruce Prichard has revealed.
Funk captured the title at an event in December 1975 by defeating Jack Brisco, ending the year-long second title reign of Brisco.
During a recent edition of his “Something to Wrestle” podcast, Prichard revealed that many higher-ups within the NWA were against the idea of making Funk the champion. He said,
“When Terry Funk was NWA World Heavyweight Champion, the fundamentalists, the old farts that sat in their office smoking cigars and go ‘Aw this is wrestling,’ they didn’t want Terry Funk as NWA Champion because they thought he was too crazy. They thought Terry was unreliable. They thought Terry did too much off-the-wall stuff. Terry was doing this stuff long before there was a WWE that emphasized it, so Terry wasn’t doing one thing different here.”
Funk’s 424-day reign would end on February 6, 1977 at the hands of Harley Race. Funk’s brother Dory would also have one reign with the title, which he would hold for 1,563 days.
