Part of Violent People’s FUNKIN’ FALL series: View the full index.

Dan Rice, a master project manager of Funkin’ Fall, assigned Jon and myself to 1981. So I’m coming to this piece with about 72 hours’ notice. Noting both that I am approaching an entirely different context to Terry Funk, as well as it being due earlier. A hearty eat my butt to you, Dan Riiiice. I had a whole write-up on whether the Jerry Lawler, Empty Arena match was a hoot. Felt good about it.

Editor’s Note (aka Dan Riiiice): Tanner is the project manager. He came up with FUNKIN’ FALL, and he runs it. All I’ve done is organize who has what year, write two already-published pieces with at least two more on the way, create featured images for every year, edit and publish every article, promote them all on social media, and continually harass contributors about the status of their upcoming pieces. But make no mistake, Tanner is the FUNKIN’ FALL project manager. I’m just happy to help.

As far as available footage for Terry in 1980, it is a lot of All Japan. Which is to say, there is a lot of good to great wrestling you could talk about. I’m not a dude with great ego; I know writing straight reviews isn’t my strong suit. I’ll do it from time to time cause screw you. At the very least, people want to read a certain type of wrestling writing in 2026, which doesn’t work for ol’ Sam here.

In the context of 1980, we are going to talk about the heat that the Funk Brothers work on one of wrestling’s all-time meatballs, Tor Kamata. In their match against Tor Kamata and Abdullah the Butcher, there are two carved-out control segments, both of which, if not interesting, paint a picture of who Dory and Terry are. The Funks are one of wrestling’s greatest tag teams ever, and watching these two bits makes it clear 1) why that is true and 2) why they complement each other like an Oreo.

First Heat

Methodical. This is the norm. It is two dudes trying to grind out a wrestler, keeping him from the corner. You get a good grasp of how Terry and Dory are different types of wrestlers just by watching them both work headlocks on our Main Man Meatball Tor.

Dory is slow. Dory will really plant his feet for a headlock. Only seems to move when he decides he wants to move the hold’s location in the ring. Otherwise, he’s rooted into the canvas at a 75-degree angle. Scientifically, the minimum amount of lean to get the most amount of getting your point across. Not everyone loves Dory in part because he’s a real grapple-heavy min-maxer. It mostly works for me, but when people say they like wrestlers who “do the little things”, what they mean is they want very showy pieces of information that tell the audience they are doing a specific thing. Dory is going to always try and give that information while doing the least amount of movement.

Terry? Same hold, vastly different energy. He’s got everything moving and grooving. Tor is able to shrug him out of the headlock a couple of times even, nothing that makes you feel like Terry’s lost his standing, even as he collides into the meat wad, but every time Terry is in there, he is going to get his steps in.

You don’t usually have a team where it is so apparent what makes them complement each other. Here, you get to see them work almost literally the same sequence back-to-back.

This isn’t about Tor, but it is pretty incredible how he plays into each Funk. He goes back-to-back trying to force himself out of their headlocks. For Terry, bull in a china shop. You see Tor trying to bully ball Terry off his spot, into the corner with Abby. It almost works! Every inch of ground, though, you see Terry put his whole body into stopping the momentum. Legs spread, trying to get that base. It ain’t the 75 degrees of Dory, closer to 60 and the legs about two feet further apart than Dory had them. THE JUXTAPOSITION FELLAS!

When Tor’s trying to get out of Dory’s headlock, instead of bully ball, he tries breaking the lock. You could argue, Tor already tried pressing Dory earlier in the sequence and it was a complete failure. Too strong of a base. Going arm strength to arm strength lets Dory play this beat slower. Tor plays right into his opponent’s strength, not in a kayfabe way. Bless his heart.

Tor gets this run of hope spots in there, capping off with Terry doing a little nutty bump to the outside through the ropes. Tor simply moves out of the way of the running Terry, who earlier in the segment they were clashing shoulders so you get why Terry might have been expecting to need to run with force. Tor finally gets that tag.

Second Heat

Team Meatball is dumb as hell and tags Tor back in moments later. Clearly not ready. And I’m generous; either you can say this isn’t nearly long enough to be another heat or Abby coming in feels more like its own hope spot. There isn’t as much to grab onto but I do appreciate how they keep things moving.

First, Terry with a 12-6 elbow that I have watched 10x back-to-back and I can’t figure out the angle. The way Tor bumps to the side makes me think he went straight down onto his leg. Unlike some of these instances where you think “he didn’t make contact”, I have no doubt Terry hit bone somewhere, just not entirely sure anatomically where.

Dory comes in and this time the headlock has a side of punches to the head. Dory takes a simple hold and turns it violent. When Terry gets tagged back in, there is no pretext. Dory wants to use the holds to set up the other offense. Terry, he’s stomping, he’s punching, he’s doing all of it big as possible. The offense isn’t designed to flow in the same way as Dory’s.

Abby interferes and the match continues, primarily breaking down into a brawl. Who cares. I mean, it is good, watch it, for the purpose of this, don’t need to focus on it.

I compared Dory and Terry to an Oreo. To make it clear, Dory is the cookie, Terry is the cream. I could eat a bowl full of cream. I couldn’t eat a bowl full of those dry ass cookies. Together? That is a real problem for my impulse control.

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