A brief history of Terry Funk's retirements on the 38th anniversary of his first one.

On August 31^st 1983 in Tokyo Japan, Terry Funk announced his retirement from professional wrestling for the first of many, many times. On this night, he and his brother Dory Funk jr. competed in an All Japan ring against Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy, in what he intended to be his retirement match.

To put this into some kind of context, in the same year Return of the Jedi was the highest grossing film, Thriller by Michael Jackson was the top album of that year, and one week after Funk retired, Braun Strowman was born. Despite this retirement match, Funk would continue to control his narrative for the next 34 years. Terry’s first documented match was in 1965, so he had been going for 18 years, but with any more matches seeming unlikely due to his health, his eventual last match would occur in 2017 making his career 52 years long.

The best source I could find lists 7 official retirement matches, not including his actual last match as it wasn’t advertised as such. This also doesn’t include the many times Funk would cut a promo announcing he would be stepping away but not mention retirement, one such being at WWF Fully Loaded 1998, when he announced pre his tag team match with partner Blackjack Bradshaw that he would be stepping away, apparently not informing Bradshaw who was angered and turned on Funk as a result.

Retirement number one would occur in All Japan in 1983, but would last about 14 months, as he would again team with Dory, this time going to a double DQ with the Road Warriors for the AWA tag team titles.

Number two would happen in at WCW’s Clash of the Champions 9 event in November 1989. This time was an “I Quit” match against Ric Flair in a match rated 5 stars by the Wrestling Observer. Following this match Funk would return 10 months later in an independent match against Jerry Lawler that would go to a no contest.

Number three would take place in September 1997, at an independent event named 50 years of Funk in his famed hometown of Amarillo Texas. This event featured talent from many various promotions held together by the respect Terry had earned throughout his time in the business. In the main event Bret Hart who was WWF Champion at the time defeated Terry in a four star rated match. The only reason I mention this is that his last one was five stars if you keep track of that kind of thing…. The card featured many WWF and ECW stars, notably Mankind defeating ECW’s Sabu and Dory Funk Jr defeating Rob Van Dam. Post Terry’s match he stated that this would be the last time he would perform in Amarillo, but not even this would be true, as in 2000 he would wrestle Lance Storm in the same city on a WCW house show. Retirement number three would last just 11 days, as Funk would go on a tour with FMW in Japan and return to the WWE by the end of the year. Funk had a decent run in WWE teaming first with Cactus Jack as Chainsaw Charlie, then later teaming with Bradshaw as mentioned earlier.

It’s worth noting also that between 1989 and 1997, Terry would build his reputation as a death match wrestler. He was known for hardcore brawls before this, but these years included the FMW matches with a young Cactus Jack, as well as his famed ECW tenure, not to mention his famous exploding barbed wire death match with Onita in May of 1993, the clear inspiration for the Kenny Omega vs Jon Moxley match in 2021. As crazy as this is to say, Funk probably did more damage to his body in these years than any other period of his career.

Following a return to ECW Terrys fourth retirement would occur in June 1999 at an event called AWF One last Dance. His opponent on this night would be Sabu, and Funk won the match. By November Terry would be back in the ring, this time teaming with Dory again for the FMW tenth anniversary event. 

Terry would return to WCW in January 2000 originally in an authority figure role, but after a terrible talking segment with the 2000 version of the NWO, (the worst kind of NWO), he would be back in the ring by the end of the month losing his commissionership to Kevin Nash.

From here Funk would become a key player in WCW’s dwindling Hardcore division for a few months. His fifth retirement would occur in 2005, where he and Dory would lose at an independent show to the NWA tag team champions at the time, Americas Most Wanted. Dory has featured in a few matches I’ve mentioned matches so far, so I’ll take this time to mention that he wrestled over 3000 documented matches in his career, starting in 1963 and ending in 2018, meaning his in ring career is 3 years longer than Terry’s. This retirement would last four and a bit months, as he would return to wrestle Sabu and Shane Douglas at Hardcore Homecoming, and ECW tribute event promoted by Douglas to counter WWE’s One Night Stand pay per view, in a barbed wire match no less.

Now we get to retirement number six, as Funk would lose to Tommy Dreamer at AWE’s Night of the Legends pay per view in 2011. Gone are the days of Terry Funk retirement matches being the main event, this one was third on the card, which was main evented by Ricky Morton defeating Kevin Nash, which sounds like an odd pairing. Terry would return to action two years later, teaming with Dory in All Japan. Are you noticing a pattern yet?

Retirement match number 7 occurred in 2015, and was a loss against Jerry Lawler on a show held in tribute to legendary Memphis commentator Lance Russell. The only other notable names on this card were the rock and roll express, and the rest of the card looks like it was built using the NXT name generator.  Funk might have been the main event, but the events were getting smaller by this point.

Terry Funk’s final match ended up being a six man tag with him teaming with the rock and roll express to defeat Jerry Lawler, Brian Christopher and Doug Gilbert, the brother of Southern legend Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert. It wasn’t officially billed as a retirement match so it’s not technically part of the list, but it is likely the end of Terry Funks legendary in ring career. Despite the trivial tone of this video so far, I want to end with a moment to show respect and wish nothing but the best for a true icon of US and Japanese wrestling.