Written by Jonathan Snowden
Part of Violent People’s FUNKIN’ FALL series: View the full index.

An imaginary conversation with Terry Funk about Houston, July 1, 1977.

You want to know what I was thinking?

I’ll tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking I was going to beat Harley Race and take my world championship back.

That’s what I was thinking.

You can make the whole thing as complicated as you want. And believe me, I’ve known plenty of people in the wrestling business who could complicate a trip to the goddamned bathroom. But sometimes things are simple.

Harley had my championship.

I wanted it back.

Now look at that young fellow in the ring. That’s me. Thirty-three years old. Can you believe that? I don’t know where all that hair went. I don’t know where a lot of things went. But I can tell you I was one hell of a wrestler.

I wasn’t too bad back then, was I? I don’t say that to brag. I could wrestle a little bit.

Of course, Harley could wrestle too. That was always the problem with Harley.

People remember me for all sorts of things. They remember me bleeding. They remember me getting thrown through things, hitting people with things, setting things on fire. I did a lot of crazy things. Some of them were good ideas. Most of them weren’t. Some were particularly bad ideas that I enjoyed so much I went back and did them again.

But look at me here.

Look what I’m doing to Harley’s arm.

There’s nothing fancy about it. I’m taking that arm and putting it where Harley doesn’t want it to go. And when he tries to get it back, I put it somewhere else. I’m not giving him an inch. I’m not giving him time to think. You can see me figuring things out as I go.

That’s wrestling.

You learn something growing up around my father. It’s that you don’t have to do a hundred different things to hurt somebody. You can do one thing a hundred different ways.

Harley knew that too.

He was a mean son of a bitch.

I say that with affection even though he beat me and Junior for the world’s championship.

Well, some affection.

Look at the way he’s trying to get me in that headscissors. Look at the way he’s working it. You don’t see that much anymore, do you? A man catches you in a hold, and suddenly you’ve got a problem. A real problem. And everybody in the building knows you’ve got a problem.

You have to get out of it.

It ought to look like it’s hard to get out of it because, goddammit, it ought to be hard to get out of it.

Harley understood that.

Now watch this.

See? Right there. I make a mistake.

I come charging at him, and the bastard moves. Out I go. Land on my back. And now Harley has something to work with.

That’s all he needed.

People think you lose matches because the other fellow does something spectacular. Sometimes you lose because you make one little mistake, and you’re in there with a man who knows exactly what to do about it.

Harley puts me in that abdominal stretch, and I’m finished.

One fall to Harley Race.

Now, let me tell you something about Harley.

Harley didn’t care whether you liked him. He didn’t care whether you thought he was the greatest wrestler on God’s green earth. He had a belt that told him he was the greatest wrestler in the world, and if you disagreed, that was your problem.

And he was very good at making his problems into your problems.

Me? I cared.

I cared a great deal.

I wanted that championship. I wanted to beat Harley. I wanted to beat Dusty Rhodes, that yellow-bellied turd. I wanted those people in Houston to know I was the best wrestler they’d ever seen. And I wanted Harley to know it too.

You see the difference?

Harley could go sixty minutes and keep that belt.

I couldn’t.

I had to beat him.

Twice.

And he’d already beaten me once.

---

Now, watch the second fall.

Here he comes with that abdominal stretch again. Harley Race was a great wrestler, but he wasn’t immune to doing something stupid himself. He’d beaten me with that hold once, and he thought he could do it again.

Well, I’m not the smartest man in the world, but you aren’t going to fool me with the same trick twice.

Not usually, anyway.

I catch him in a backslide, and then I give him a piledriver.

Beautiful piledriver, isn’t it?

Harley takes it like a million dollars.

One fall apiece.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

---

Here’s where things get interesting.

Look at Harley.

Look at his leg.

You know, my dad could do things with a spinning toe hold that would make you cry just watching him. My brother Junior could do it too. We all knew that hold. We knew how to get into it and how to make it count.

People talk about finishing holds like they’re some sort of magic trick. They’re not magic. You’ve got to get the man in the right position, and you’ve got to make him stay there. A man like Harley Race isn’t going to lie down and let you twist his leg off because your last name happens to be Funk.

You’ve got to earn it.

And I’m going to earn it. That’s what I was thinking.

There. I’ve got him.

Now watch.

Harley punches me.

Right in the face.

That hurts.

I know it hurts because I’ve been punched in the face more times than anybody has any business being punched in the face. And it was a good one.

But I’ve got his leg, and he can’t get away from me without doing something about it.

There’s a point when a man is putting on that hold where he’s completely vulnerable. You see? But you fight through it.

So I keep turning.

And Harley keeps punching.

Now, you might be sitting there wondering why I don’t let go.

That’s a very good question.

I’ve asked myself the same thing.

You’d think a man would have enough sense to recognize when another man has his number.

And I did recognize it.

Of course I recognized it!

I’m not an idiot.

Well, not all the time.

But every time I turned that hold, Harley’s leg got a little worse. And every time he hit me, my head got a little worse.

So who was going to give in first?

I knew I wasn’t going to.

Or I thought I knew.

That’s an important distinction.

Look at that blood.

Good Lord.

That’s a lot of blood.

You know, you can get hurt so badly sometimes that you stop understanding how badly you’re hurt. You know something’s wrong. You know you’re in trouble. But you’re still trying to do the thing you came there to do.

And I came there to win the world championship.

Not to get my picture taken. Not to shake Harley’s hand. Not to put on a fine wrestling exhibition and have somebody tell me what a wonderful performance I’d given.

I wanted the championship.

And I’ve still got that leg.

Now, listen to me.

Look at the fellow on that screen.

That’s Terry Funk.

He knows how to wrestle. You’ve seen him wrestle. He’s one of the best wrestlers in the world.

And what’s he doing?

He’s letting Harley Race beat his brains out because he won’t let go of his goddamned leg.

That’s not very intelligent, is it?

No, sir.

That’s pretty stupid. Too much time in Florida I guess.

But look at Harley.

He can barely stand!

And I know it.

I know I’ve got him hurt.

Just one more turn.

Just one more.

Come on, Terry.

There!

There it is!

Now watch the bastard!

He punches me again.

That son of a bitch.

And again.

Harley Race could be the most stubborn man in the world. Have I mentioned that? I spent a lot of my career around stubborn people. Most of them were named Funk. Harley might have been worse than all of us.

He isn’t going to quit.

I’m not going to quit.

And Nick Kozak is standing there looking at both of us like he’s the only sane person in the building.

He might have been.

Now watch what happens.

I’ve got Harley hurt. He’s got me hurt. I can’t see worth a damn, but I know where his leg is. I’ve spent the better part of my life learning where a man’s leg is.

And I’m reaching for it.

I’m still reaching for it.

Nick stops the match.

Just like that.

Stops it.

Harley Race is still the world champion.

---

Well, there you have it.

Harley won.

I’m not going to tell you Harley didn’t win. They raised his hand. He kept the championship. Those are the rules, and I knew the rules when I got into the ring.

But let me ask you something.

Did I quit?

You saw it.

Did I quit?

No.

Harley didn’t make me quit. And I didn’t make Harley quit. We were both still trying to win that match when Nick decided we’d done enough.

Maybe he was right.

Matter of fact, he probably was right. Look at my eye. That doesn’t look like something anybody ought to be particularly proud of.

But I was proud.

I was proud because I didn’t quit.

You might say that’s a foolish thing to be proud of.

You might be right about that too.

I’ve been proud of quite a few foolish things in my life.

You know what the funny part is?

I’ve watched this match now, and I can see every mistake I made. I can tell you where I should’ve moved. I can tell you where I should’ve changed holds. I can tell you exactly when I should’ve stopped trying to turn Harley Race’s leg into something resembling a pretzel.

I can see all of it.

And I can tell you something else.

If you put me back in that ring, with Harley Race, and that championship hanging in the balance, I don’t know that I’d do anything different.

That’s the truth.

Maybe I was the better wrestler that night.

Maybe Harley was.

Hell, maybe neither one of us was as good as we thought we were.

---

A Note from Jonathan Snowden

Jonathan Snowden talked regularly with Terry Funk in his later years, about life and wrestling. This attempt to capture his voice comes from the heart. We miss you Terry. Forever.

About the Author

Snowden is a long-time combat sports journalist. His books include Total MMA, Shooters and Shamrock: The World’s Most Dangerous Man. His work has appeared in USA Today, Bleacher Report, Fox Sports and The Ringer. Subscribe to his newsletter to keep up with his latest work.

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