Book Review: Terry Funk “More Than Just Hardcore.”

I like to think that there are certain subsets, certain ratings, for certain wrestling books. The highest level of wrestling books I like to refer as the pantheon of books. Mick Foley’s “Have A Nice Day” is certainly in that pantheon. Both of Chris Jericho’s books are there. Bret Hart’s “Hitman” is at the very top of the pantheon to this writer. As much as I may gush about them, Edge’s “Adam Copeland on Edge” and Tom Billington’s “Pure Dynamite” just miss the pantheon. Terry Funk’s “More Than Just Hardcore”? It is firmly in that pantheon.

Terry Funk. Where does one begin here? The man is one of the ultimate legends of the sport, someone who has been described as if not the best ever, one of the best ever. Mick Foley, who writes the foreword to this book (that seems to be his official job description these days-wrestling biography foreword writer), calls Funk “The Greatest Wrestler I Have Ever Seen.” Granted the two share a great…and almost unnatural…friendship, when viewing the entirety of the career of Terry Funk, that statement by Foley does not seem like hyperbole.

Whereas the last book I reviewed, on Jimmy Snuka, seemed to portray Snuka as humble in SPITE of the damning facts it presented, Funk’s book is down to earth, refreshingly humble, and seemingly honest.

Funk obviously got his start in wrestling due to his famous daddy, but that fact did not define Terry Funk. Where his brother Dory (or Dunk in this book) seemed to emulate his father to the Nth degree, Terry had a style uniquely his own. Terry was a wildman. The early parts of the book describe his experience at West Texas State University, a total wrestler factory. Dick Murdoch. Frank “Bruiser Brody” Goodish. Ted DiBiase. And on, and on. The early parts of the book are good, but can drag a bit at points. Until Funk starts talking about Virgil Runnells, a.k.a. Dusty Rhodes. Funk loves the guys, but, like Al Snow in Foley’s books, Dusty provides (some) of the comic fodder in this book. Particularly, Funk’s depiction of the infamous Dusty lisp. Funk recalls a day in 1965 when he had just purchased his first car, and young Dust was working as a gas station attendant. Terry stopped at his pump, Big Dust took one look at the car, and said, in Dusty speak, according to the Rosetta Stone known as Terry Funk:

“Thay, Tewwy, I jutht dwwem about a cah like thith thum day. If I could juthth get a cah like tithth, it would be tho f-f-fine.”

And that Dusty gag runs throughout the entire book! Everytime he gets to Dusty, for as good, no, great a talker he became in the business, I cannot help myself but laugh at Funk’s description of Dusty’s lisp. Its tremendous.

Funk is remarkably candid about, well, just about everything in this book. He relays his run as NWA Champion and how he became worn out by the travel obligations. He describes the feud with the Briscos (no, not the ROH ones) and how much animosity was there between the four feuding brothers, although Funk tends to take the high side, the lighter end. 

Funk has a great mind for wrestling, so his descriptions of how Vince took over America, and how Baba and Inoki took over Japan are absolutely enlightening. Trust me, you may think, THINK you, as a smart mark, know EVERYTHING that has happened, but you, and myself, do not. Funk’s book is one of those you have to keep an open mind to, not immediately deride something as FALSE. I have this feeling that a guy like TERRY FUNK would know better than me or any readers, barring some really smart and connected people. Christ, with that comment, I just led myself to Sergeant Slaughter.

Listen, Funk is not necessarily 100% here. He has some lapses in memory that some of us assholes….I mean, smart marks…will kill him over. Read the book and find them yourselves, I am not exploiting them. But Funk is generally spot on, and his views on wrestling are EXCELLENT. I am talking his views on booking, how to work, psychology, how to cut a promo, the works. THAT is the excellence of the execution of this book. Funk bares his soul, his heart, and his prodigious brain for the sport…within reason.

Another great thing about this book is this: While, yes, it is ghostwritten, the voice of this book is unmistakably Terry Funk. Reading this book is like the description Foley gave of Funk in his first book. It literally feels like you are sitting under the Terry Funk learning tree as he dispenses just incredible advice upon your exploding head. I have never encountered a book, ghostwritten, that so encapsulated the voice of the guy who was supposedly authoring it. Until this book.

If you read this book, you really feel like you are, as Mick Foley described in his book, sitting under the Funk learning tree. Its unreal. He effortlessly goes from explaining why a wrestler should or shouldn’t do this or that with an amazing parable to comically telling a story about a rib, or a funny scenario. It is uncanny.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the book, as you may ascertain by this point. It is too good of a read for this hack writer to do it justice. What I hope is that you, as an educated reader, will do yourself the favor, and take it upon yourself to read this master work. Think that is a typo? READ. THIS. MASTER. WORK. It is arguably the best work Terry Funk has put forward, and that is some lengthy praise.

Plus, it includes his rationale for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwfoxfNG3Qs