WWE Executive Recalls How Terry Funk’s Promo Ended A WWE Show
Terry Funk’s insults to Vince McMahon and Bret Hart saw a WWE television taken off the air according to Bruce Prichard.
WWE used to run a television show called Shotgun Saturday Night between 1997 and 1999. But despite this being the beginning of the Attitude Era, television bosses were not prepared for the late, great Terry Funk’s verbal assault.
During an appearance in 1997, WWE Hall of Famer Terry Funk was given the microphone to rile the crowd ahead of a match with Bret Hart.
Bruce Prichard, who is currently WWE’s Executive Director, explained to Funk before the show that due to the show being live and the number of viewers, to keep his promo clean and just set up the feud with Bret Hart.
Once on air Terry Funk called Vince McMahon a “Yankee bastard” and told Bret Hart that “your mother’s a whore.”
Prichard was discussing the life of Terry Funk during the latest Something to Wrestle and shared insight into what happened during Shotgun Saturday Night.
“Wrestle Bret, have a hell of a match, let’s get him over, and maybe a little promo beforehand. All I ask of you … ‘This is live … I know it’s late night but we’re live, and we’ve got a lot of eyeballs on us. Please, just watch your language, no hells, goddamns, or s***, please.’”
“When people say, ‘Bruce, whatever happened to that show Shotgun Saturday Night? I say, Terry Funk.’ So yeah, we got thrown off the air — for those comments. I think we had a goddamn in there, we had everything I asked him not to do.”
Pritchard would go on to share how during the match between Funk and Hart, there was an incident that saw the former Brother Love covered in ice and beer.
“And there’s one point in the match [against Hart] where they had the big troughs of beer, on ice, and at one point, he [Funk] grabs me and put me in it. I didn’t have a change of clothes.”
Terry Funk Was “Real Thing” According To AEW’s Jon Moxley
Jon Moxley paid tribute to the wrestling icon Terry Funk following his death on August 23rd. Moxley called Terry Funk the greatest of all time and stated that Funk “wasn’t playing a pro wrestler. He was the real thing.”
Moxley is preparing for a huge main event match with Orange Cassidy and is well known for bringing extreme violence to his matches.
The former AEW Champion feels that had Terry Funk been an active talent today that he would have been part of AEW.
Moxley’s opponent Orange Cassidy feels that Sunday’s All Out Main Event will be “unpredictable” and claims that Moxley has a lot of weapons.
At last weekend’s All In event, fans gasped as Jon Moxley walked around the ring with items sticking out of his head during the Stadium Stampede match. Moxley had items beaten into his skull which created the most shocking moment of the event inside Wembley Stadium.
Whilst Moxley and Cassidy collide later tonight for the AEW International Championship, another hardcore performer in AEW, Darby Allin, has opened up on potential injury.
H/t to WrestlingInc