Matt Hardy – ‘Terry Funk Was The Nicest Guy In Real Life, Everybody Loved Him’
On the latest episode of his “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, Matt Hardy lavished praise on late WWE Hall of Famer Terry Funk and recalled his interactions with the pro wrestling legend.
Funk passed away on August 23, 2023, at the age of 79, at a Phoenix-area hospital.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Terry Funk: “One of the first things that I loved that Terry Funk did is when he did the deal that he was the judge in the match with Flair and then it looked so realistic and looked so crazy when he grabbed Flair and he gave him the piledriver on the table and he broke his neck or whatever, and he just looked like an absolute mad man. He would go out and he would create bedlam. I remember he did stuff with Muta, they had the cage that they were in, it was like electric at the time … He seemed like he was just constantly creating bedlam and chaos and I loved that so, so much about him.”
On how Funk was the nicest guy in real life: “Everybody who knew him loved him. Which was wild. And pretty unprecedented in that day and age, because there was a lot of people that would bicker or have an issue or heat with someone else, but everybody loved Terry Funk.”
On a video Terry Funk sent him about his Broken Matt character: “[Funk] said, ‘I want you to record a video to send to Matt Hardy….’ And then Tony recorded a video and he said, ‘Hey, Funker wanted me to send this to you.’ And it was Terry Funk going ‘Hey, Matt Hardy. I hope you’re doing well. I haven’t seen you in a little bit, but hope you’re doing good, miss seeing you bud. I just wanted to tell you, I’m really proud of you for doing Broken Matt Hardy.’ He said, ‘You went out, did something different, you took chances … It’s crazy. I like doing crazy stuff, kind of out of the box.’ He said, ‘I just want you to know, it’s real cool and I’m proud of you for doing it.’”
On being complimented by Funk: “Him complimenting me for, like, thinking outside the box and trying something radically different was very, very cool. So ever since that moment, I’ve just had a huge amount of respect for Terry Funk.”
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