On a recent edition of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, Rob Van Dam recalled some fond memories of the late Terry Funk and paid tribute to the wrestling legend.
Funk passed away on August 24, 2023, at the age of 79.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his memory of visiting with Funk: “We all got to go out because we were in Amarillo for that retirement match that’s on the Beyond the Mat documentary. And yeah, we all got to go out and visit his farm, which was really cool, good experience. Pretty private, going to the dude’s house, but besides that, I don’t have much that comes to mind other than RIP, Hardcore legend.”
On Funk’s legacy in the industry: “Personally, I feel like, overall, his contributions to the industry were huge, but a lot of it wasn’t to the American crowd. So because of that, a lot of fans in the United States might not remember him. I remember when Terry and Dory … they called him Jimmy Jack Funk …I remember as a fan … the three of them when they were in WWF and had that run for a while. But besides that, a lot of fans that didn’t watch Japanese wrestling or trade tapes or didn’t get to watch ECW might not be able to appreciate him as much, because they didn’t see him as much. But overall, obviously, as big of a legend as can be.”
On the inaugural episode of his “Franchise University” podcast, Shane Douglas discussed what he dislikes about modern wrestling, noting that ‘moves for the sake of moves’ are a major problem. He said,
“Ultimately, what would be my take on what’s wrong with the business today isn’t because of documentaries like ‘Beyond the Mat.’ It’s more so because the business has somehow transcended beyond what wrestling was supposed to have been. Everybody always thinks there’s a better way to create the wheel. When you boil it down to just a circle, there’s only so many ways to draw that or build that. As we get further and further away from those base points that were professional wrestling and storytelling, I think it detracts a bit more and more from each step along the way. As you move away from that, the storytelling becomes less pronounced, the moves become less impactful because it’s just a vomiting up of moves as opposed to putting that move in the right place.”
