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This was the de-facto final of the 1979 Real World Tag League.
Two years after the original, finally, a conclusion.
It’s a beautiful match, and one of my favorite watches in recent memory.
A match that feels big as a result of the three match build up over the last two years (on top of all the singles meetings between different combinations), but also serves as a classic example of the not-totally-definable idea of Wrestling Big. It’s a match that feels remarkably important in part because everyone in the match treats it as such. There’s a little more energy behind everything, a little extra on every shot and move, any sort of overused but fundamentally accurate cliche you’d like to use. Simply put, it’s one of these matches that seems larger than life.
The match begins as the last ended, with the Funks charging the villains and fighting the good fight as hard as possible. After three matches, you sort of know how this one goes. An object is snuck in and eventually put to use. Everyone bleeds in one way or another. Abby gets busted open for the first time in the series, and it has a way of feeling like a big deal. Sheik got isolated and worked on at a point in every match, but the Funks finally returning fire on the Butcher specifically is another touch here that makes this feel like such a big deal. Years of build up to Abdullah finally getting some of his own medicine, and that’s sometimes especially literal when Terry or Dory can get a hand on one of the Objects and absolutely get to work.
For as many moments and points of attack in this match that aren’t new so much as better versions of things from the three previous ones, there is one piece of this match that isn’t just starkly different from the others, but also stands out from just about every other thing in wrestling for years and years in either direction.
When Abby gets his revenge on Terry, it’s not the bicep or the forehead initially. It’s the fucking ear. Maybe? He gets him in probably the god damned ear and it’s a remarkable visual. Blood dripping down from underneath the mop on Terry’s head and down his chest, throwing him just slightly off in the way that makes one imagine it’s the ear, but a deliberate series of fork stabs to the side of the head is just as weird and awesome.
The real kicker lies even after that though, when Abdullah also begins stabbing Terry Funk in the hand.
(!!!!!!!!)
Abdullah stabbing Terry’s hand is maybe the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. On top of some all-time “WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS BLOG?” shit, it’s genuinely fucking gross. The culmination of all the horrific attacks from both sides in this rivalry, as it’s not as common as a cut to the head or even the bicep. Nobody stabs somebody in the hand, and so the rare instance of such a thing happening stands out as this grotesque thing, and completely over the line. A true display of wretched villainy, this ultimate thing for Terry to come back from. I’ve written ad nauseum about how my own hand injury opened my eyes to the damage something like that could really cause and how I’ve always enjoyed hand matches more as a result of understanding that pain myself. I’ve never been stabbed in the hand, despite years working in kitchens. This is beyond that. A sort of pain that can be imagined as grounded and human, but taken to an extreme that elevates the proceedings beyond that level. One cannot imagine Terry Funk could survive much longer in this match, both robbed of a hand and attacked on this level, both more tactile and more specifically violent than usual.
And yet, he does.
Just barely, but enough. The stuff of working class hero legend.
Terry sells the hand perfectly for the amount done on it. Always in pain, never forgetting, but just tough enough to still employ it when necessary. It’s the perfect way to do this, communicating the clear and obvious pain, but showing enough guts to be admirable beyond measure. The ultimate babyface is someone in a situation you can imagine yourself in, to some degree, elevated by narrative and succeeding in spite of it through a combination of guts and skill. This is, to me, Terry Funk’s greatest ever babyface performance as a result, succeeding against the monsters of this world in spite of two different all-time nasty injuries.
It’s not JUST the Terry Funk show though.
Off of the hot tag, Dory Funk Jr. once again whips more ass per capita in this series than he has in any other segment of his career. He’s not Terry, but he can try, and does as good of a job as necessary. Importantly, he’s able to thwart Abdullah and The Sheik when they get on their bullshit, and seems to finally have learned a lesson that proves vital in the closing moments.
Dory is able to dodge Abby with one of the taped up Objects, and he nails The Sheik in the throat. Dory dives on top while Abby stumbles away, and just barely gets the victory.
It’s barbaric and desperate and ends as much through raw luck as it does through any sense of the Funks possessing superior grit or force. It feels exactly correct for a feud like this, while also delivering a powerful statement on fighting like this, that sinks to a level like this, and on all warfare in general. The Funks fought them on their level time and time again, but only ever paid the price for it. The end comes when Dory finally is able to just avoid it, and turn the reliance on these violent means against them. A tired and desperate survival more than any chest-pounding sense of primal victory. Perhaps the most raw and violent stuff wrestling had ever seen up to this point culminates with a rumination on violence itself.
A wonderful ending to an all-time great series.
HANDWERK 