10 Most Badass Wrestling Threats EVER
6. Terry Funk's Genius Subversion Of The Threat
It is very difficult to play an unhinged character in wrestling.
It's difficult because if the performer fails, there are few quicker routes to utter humiliation. It's one thing to play a Great Wrestler with kick pads. A fast, athletically gifted talent can sell that quite easily, hence why there were thousands of the f*ckers doing it for much of the 21st century. Attempting to appear unbalanced and failing at it is pure am-dram bullsh*t. The arch villainous laugh might be a beginner's course in the WWE Performance Center, but that doesn't mean it should be.
A very select few can do it, and Terry Funk is one of them. Since he pulled off virtually everything else, too, he is rightly considered one of the very best of all time.
Funk was so great at the "middle aged and crazy" moniker he worked with in his ECW years that he was almost scarier the more broken down he became: if he could withstand pain so agonising that it hobbled him, there was very little if anything you could do to him.
As part of his worldwide cult classic feud with Cactus Jack, he cut a phenomenal promo in ECW; in it, and you believed him, he threatened to cut Jack's c*ck off, and said he'd "strap him to the bumper of my '55 Buick, and I'm gonna pull that sonofabitch down the main street of Philadelphia".
The subsequent reveal is even better. Funk was playing his persona up; when he reeled it in, his quiet menace was so much more effective in contrast:
"I've had enough of your body...your thoughts that you're a wonderful professional wrestler. You actually believe that. I'll prove to you that I am the man. April 15th, it's gonna be a hot time at the ECW Arena."
The bone-chilling tonal shift was terrifying, and Funk didn't have to specify a thing. You had to pay for that.