Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore by Terry Funk & Scott E. Williams

Author:Terry Funk & Scott E. Williams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: vl-wrestling
ISBN: 9781613213087
Publisher: Sports Publishing
Published: 2012-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

I loved Baba, loved Mrs. Baba and loved Wally Yamaguchi, one of Baba’s right-hand men. But the fact that I loved those people didn’t keep me from seeing that I wasn’t getting everything from All Japan that I probably could have.

Case in point: Wally Yamaguchi would bring me this stack of 12-by-12 cards, which I’d sign. I’d sign 25 or 30 of them, “God bless, Terry Funk,” or whatever, hand them back to Wally, and he’d take them to be sold. During the big shows, Wally Yamaguchi would sit in the back of the locker room, and he’d be like a machine, signing my name on those cards, in what I would have sworn was my own handwriting if I didn’t know better! He could sign those things at a clip you wouldn’t believe—he could actually do an exact duplicate of my signature, and do it faster than I could sign my own name! They were selling these for 2,000 yen apiece. Guess how many yen I saw out of those? Not a one. Was Wally the pirate profiting from my name? Of course not.

I didn’t complain. I looked at it as part of the package. But All Japan also took a cut out of everything I did outside of wrestling, whether it was the record album, or whatever.

And there was always the unknown in Japan. The unknown part of the business is what goes on behind the closed doors, and it’s a very big part of the business. Gaijins have very little understanding of that part of it. I’ll probably never know how many opportunities for commercials or other ventures I lost out on because Baba shot them down.

Baba didn’t make many bad moves, but bringing in Choshu’s entire crew was one of them. And that move set a precedent of doing more Japanese versus Japanese main events. I saw it happening, with fewer American wrestlers involved in the big matches, which I knew wasn’t going to be good for any of us.

A better move was when we offered some good money to Tom Billington, the Dynamite Kid, the most famous opponent of the original Tiger Mask in New Japan. Dynamite came to work for us in 1984 with his cousin Davey Boy Smith. They were a great team, but there was no question Dynamite was running that show.

Dynamite was a guy who would go out there night after night after night and physically destroy himself in the ring. I’ve seen him go into the ring with a melon-sized swelling on his lower back, barely able to walk. He would still work the match and take some ungodly bump. Then he’d get on that bus with the rest of the boys. He really needed help to get to his seat, but he wouldn’t accept any. He’d make it all the way to the back by himself, because he was too damn tough to take help. He’d get to one of those seats, get himself a beer and do the same thing the next night.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.