Free More Than Just Hardcore by Terry Funk

running after me with his clothes soaking wet. I was on the other side of the hotel door, and he was so ticked he kicked through the glass door. When he pulled out his foot, it caught the glass and cut his Achilles tendon right in half.
    Stan was a tough guy, and he thought he could come right back in five weeks, after having it sewn back up. Well, all that did was tear it up again, and he ended up out for about three months.
    He never did blame it on me, though, and I was always mighty glad about
    that.
    One of the toughest guys was Amarillo’s Mr. Wrestling. Tim Woods, an accomplished amateur wrestler, was Mr. Wrestling in much of the country, but in Amarillo the mask was worn by Gordon Nelson. Gordon was a hell of an amateur wrestler. He taught a lot of guys the sugar hold, a type of chokehold that could incapacitate a man. I knew the sugar hold before I knew Gordon, but I didn’t want him putting it on me, that’s for sure.
    As Mr. Wrestling, Gordon would take on all comers with the deal being a cash prize for anyone who could last 10 minutes with him. I always admired anybody who did those open challenges, because you don’t just get marks out of the crowd—you get some tough guys. You never know who you’re in there with.
    Another guy who did that was someone I got to know much better in San Antonio years later, named Keith Franke. Keith gained more fame using a name I gave him, Adrian Adonis. Adrian was not a classically trained amateur wrestler, but he was incredibly tough in his own way. His deal was a $10,000 challenge, and he handled it well. Adrian would con the challengers. He’d push them into the ropes and then let them push him into the ropes. He’d smile at them, and as soon as their guard went down a little, he’d deck them, and down they’d go.
    Les Thornton was the guy who brought the European style to Amarillo, and he was a hell of a guy.
    I know it might sound like I’m saying “hell of a guy” too much, but it’s really the truth. These were good people. They were all friends. Hell, they were part of the family.
    My dad also had an actual part of the family helping out behind the scenes. Jack Thornton (the uncle who had slipped into that football game for the Boys’ Ranch, had originally come to Amarillo to help my dad out there. Soon after, he started refereeing and integrated himself into the wrestling business.
    He and my Aunt Eleanor ended up splitting up, and Jack married a woman named Barbara, who had been married to a man named Braum. When they married, Jack adopted her son, Billy. Billy Braum changed his name to Billy Thornton.
    Even after his divorce with Eleanor, he worked for Dory Senior and helped with booking, or paperwork, or whatever needed to be done. Later he went to work for The Sheik in Detroit as a booker. Believe it or not, Detroit was the premiere territory in the country at that time. Detroit was doing $100,000 houses before anyone else had heard of a $100,000 house. They were drawing even more money than New York for a while.
    The Billy Thornton I knew was a strange kid. When he was 12 he stole a car! He was driving around town, and when he got caught, they thought the Boys’ Ranch would be a good place for him. They took him out there, and that was where he stayed until he was 18.
    After that he went to one of the Amarillo TV stations and became a cameraman. And he was still a goofy bastard! He would switch around the numbers on the weather map so the weatherman would be there saying, “Well, in Amarillo today it was 94 degrees,” when it was actually 49 degrees.
    I went years without hearing from him, until I went out to California in the 1980s looking for acting work. There was a big casting agent out there who called me in to read for a part in some TV movie. After I read, she said, “By the way, Billy Bob, the fellow who wrote this, says he’s your nephew.”
    I said, “Billy Bob? I don’t know any goddamned Billy Bob!”
    She said, “Billy Bob