Speaking on “Busted Open Radio,” Tommy Dreamer looked back on the importance of Terry Funk to ECW during the 1990s.
Dreamer believes that Funk gave the promotion validation that it needed.
“When he came to ECW, he gave ECW validity,” Dreamer recounted. “Like Chris Jericho did for AEW when he stepped up to that podium [at AEW’s first press conference], here’s the face that every wrestling fan knows, and [saying] ‘This is the company that I’m gonna attach my wagon to and help carry it along. All of his famous death matches that he did in Japan with Mick Foley, his famous retirement in All Japan, all the things he has done.” Dreamer noted that Funk’s popularity in All Japan was such that he even released an album of Jimmy Hart-penned songs in Japan.
“I would tell him this all the time: I hated him as a kid,” Dreamer added. “Hated him. Why? Because Dusty Rhodes was my hero. But I realized, when I got into the industry, just how good he was. So you don’t realize it until you got ‘smartened up.’ Now, we’re at least smartened up to his greatness. You get all these bits and pieces [of] stories about him, and you’re just like ‘Whoa.’ All these little things. And his mind was just insane for wrestling, and I cannot say enough great things about an individual.”
Quotes via Wrestling Inc
