Free More Than Just Hardcore by Terry Funk Page B

daughter, Stacy. I took one look at this little thing and knew my life was never going to be the same again. Four years later, my life changed again, when my daughter Brandee was born.
    One thing that didn’t happen too often (except in Amarillo) but was always a thrill for me was when all three wrestling Funks—Senior, Junior and me— would wrestle together. Dad still wrestled periodically, and when he did, it was automatic box office. It was tough working with my father, because you always knew who was in charge. Still, it was a real pleasure, not just because he was my father, but because I got to be in there with someone who had such a great sense of the people in the audience. He had great ring psychology. I can’t remember him ever having the same match twice, and my brother and I both learned from him. As many times as Junior and Jack Brisco wrestled for the world title, I don’t think they ever had the same match twice, and I have never had the same match twice.
    I think that’s a creativity that’s lost in the business. I can’t ever recall sitting down and talking to Pak Song, Hiro Matsuda, or one of those guys about even one high spot before a match. You did it in the ring. You would have a finish, and that was it. The rest of it, you did by feel. You’ve got to dance, and today dancing is all but gone.
    I was learning from my father and from people like Mike DiBiase to fully believe in what I was doing in a match, or while cutting a promo (an interview of a wrestler, aimed at hyping an upcoming match). When I was a babyface, I truly loved the fans and would go to the extent with fans that you’d see few people go to, because I realized what they did for me. Yet—and this is where the foggy part comes in—when I am a heel I truly hate the people. My brother would continually get mad at me. He’d say, “Hell, you don’t come back down for 10 minutes.”
    And I didn’t. As a heel, I didn’t just walk into the arena. I was the heel before I even got there, and don’t even ask me when that transformation took place, because I don’t know, but I think that is the lure for me of the business—that I can immerse myself in what I’m doing.
    When I get hit, I am hit. When I show being hurt, I am hurt, and when I am beating somebody up, I am beating him up—and I don’t mean that I am out there throwing potatoes (legitimate, full-force punches or kicks).
    Junior and I worked together in a lot of tag-team matches over the years, though. He also learned some, I think, from Mike DiBiase, but he also picked up things from a lot of people, incorporating a lot of styles into his own work. I think he learned a lot about psychology from Johnny Valentine.
    I thought that being a second-generation wrestler helped give me a good foundation for what to expect in the business. It didn’t seem to work that way at first for Johnny’s son, who wrestled for us as Johnny Fargo in the early 1970s before becoming Greg “The Hammer” Valentine.
    Greg was 18 or 19 years old when he started for us and was never happy with his money. One day they were passing out the checks. His was about $500, and he wasn’t happy with that. Well, this was a surprise to us, because $500 for a week’s pay in the early 1970s was pretty damn good, especially for a young guy! He opened up his check and started cussing up a storm, and I looked over and watched him tearing his check up! He threw the pieces on the floor and stomped off.
    I didn’t do anything. Neither did my father, my brother, or Uncle Herman, another old police officer from Indiana like his father. Herman retired from police work and worked in the office at that time. We just sat there. About five minutes later, he walked back into the room, picked up the pieces, put them in his pocket and never said another word about it.
    But Greg was a good man deep down and a tough guy just like his dad. He had that way about him where I knew that he was always going to do all right for