8 WWE Hall Of Famers Who Couldn't Stay Retired

by John Bills

1. Terry Funk

Terry Funk
WWE.com

The undisputed king of retiring and returning. Terry Funk was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009 along with his brother Dory Funk Jr., and seven years later the Funker can still be found plying his trade from time to time all over the world. Funk's made his debut way back in 1965, when my parents were mere toddlers.

In the 51 years that have passed since, Funk has announced his retirement on approximately 34,359 occasions, and every single time has returned to the ring. Funk's first retirement came way back in 1983, before I was even born. 32 years later he was taking part in yet another retirement match against yet another un-retired competitor, Jerry 'The King' Lawler.

In many ways it has become one of the running jokes of wrestling, best shown by his retirement and return in between the filming and the release of 'Beyond the Mat', the film in which Funk contemplated retirement, battling Bret 'The Hitman' Hart in one of his many 'final' matches.

Terry Funk is professional wrestling's beating heart, and the Double Tough Texan will probably still be wrestling long after his heart has stopped. It'll take more than death to keep Terry Funk retired, no matter how many times he threatens it.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.