The Funker v The Dog!

Terry Funk v Junkyard Dog (WWF, 8/18/85)

Pretty much a Terry Funk pandemonium special. I guess that sort of WWF midcard match won't have a massively high ceiling for some folk, but the floor on it will pretty much never be low because of his ability to make just about anything interesting. Mid-80s WWF Terry Funk is maybe the goofiest Terry Funk. There'll always be that hint of danger to everything he does no matter how comedic it might be, but he seemed to veer more towards the stooging there than he did in other places. In comparison, Puerto Rico Funk was the wildest because I guess he could get away with starting riots with impunity, so everything he did in Puerto Rico was just INHERENTLY dangerous. He never tried to suffocate anyone with a plastic bag in the WWF so I suppose he let loose a bit more working for Crockett. ECW Desperado Funk was probably the most sympathetic but there was nothing funny about a 50-year old man being wrapped in barbed wire. In that 80s WWF run he was more about the comedy, a man on a mission to be as ridiculous as possible. I cannot get enough of it and obviously this ruled. He starts the match by jabbing JYD in the guts with a branding iron, but pretty soon throws some headbutts and of course that's a no-no against the Dog. At one point he ends up on all fours facing the corner and I really wanted JYD to headbutt him in the arse and sure enough he headbutted him in the arse and Funk went face-first into the bottom turnbuckle. It wasn't just that he brought the comedy bumps - he brought the genuinely mental bumps as well. His first big one was a slam over the top rope and the camera angle made it look extra wild. Later he gets tossed over the top again, this time landing clean through a table by ringside. Not like your usual table bump where the table breaks in two; he landed flush in the middle of it and the thing remained standing around the outside, Funk just sitting in the middle like a vagrant, stuck inside a ring of debris. When he tries to slink away up the ramp at the end he falls backwards down the stairs, then throws abuse at the hecklers. A master of his craft. Seventeen stars.