Quotes from Terry Funk

McMahon has made a lot of guys very rich, but he may also be taking years off their lives.

I'm not gonna squeal out that this is my 23rd retirement, my real, real retirement. But you know there comes a time where you need to look to go in another direction in life, and I have entered that time.

Ric Flair is a wonderful person, and he was such a great in-ring performer. He had a great deal to do with the direction of the business. There are great characters that have come into this business, but Flair can't be duplicated.

I came up with all kinds of stuff. That was part of being great and having creativity. I'm not just bragging about myself. I'm just saying.

I will give Cassius Clay $250,000 if he will just get into the ring with me anywhere in a combination boxing-wrestling match.

The crowd is everything in my life. I just love the fans, and I also have a lot of respect for them. They've given me everything I have in my life.

It's been a wonderful, wonderful career. It's been just a great run that the Lord gave me and I damn sure appreciate it and thank Him for it and for Him giving me the body and the ability to do what I have done for years.

I have an abdominal hernia which I tore and had operated on, and it's not the easiest thing in the world to get over. I'm gonna go on down the road, but hopefully I can get over the damn thing.

The truth of the matter is that Dusty Rhodes helped put more money in my pocket than anybody I've ever wrestled. In his time he was the most charismatic and talented performer in the business, and I know he doesn't look like it, but he was a pretty good athlete too.

You have not just weekly ratings, but minutes where they say during a show, 'This guy's boring, get him off.' This has produced a thing in our society where we have no shame and the worst offense is to be boring.

What makes that turnstile turn? That's what made wrestling what it has become. The fans dictate the direction of the wrestling industry.

It's the fans that dictate what wrestling is. That's the one constant from 1917 to 2017.

I have had about 15 operations due to the wrestling profession, and I have a problem with an abdominal hernia.

My first match was against Sputnik Monroe at the Amarillo Sports Arena. It was scheduled for only ten minutes. Sputnik got me down and was on top of me for the first eight minutes. My father came running down to the ring and yelled for me to get up. I don't know how I got up but I did. I was a lot more scared of my father than I was Sputnik.

I think CM Punk is a hell of an in-ring performer.

I like to have Ric Flair in the ring one more time in the MMA or the UFC. I'd like to beat the hell out of him.

There never was one like Ric Flair, and there will never be another one like him.

My father never bragged on me as a football player or when I started ! wrestling. But I always knew he was there if I needed him.

In order to make a name for myself I took notice of the craziest wildest son-of-a-guns out there, and how they would receive a lot of the attention from the local wrestling periodicals. I decided that I would become an oddity, and that's how I have existed ever since.

I take Energol to improve my wind and stamina.

The guys that go into the Hall of Fame are the winners, and the losers are the ones who put them in there, and I would like to see some of the great losers through the years be in the Hall of Fame. I know that that's probably impossible, but you've got to give those losers credit, they made the winners.

I still recall the first time I laid eyes on Ric. Dusty Rhodes and Dick Murdoch were wrestling, at the time, in Minnesota, and they took a liking to this kid who'd been hanging around the matches. That kid was Ric Flair, and they brought him to my ranch in Amarillo, Texas.

Stan Hansen was a tough-as-nails freshman middle linebacker when I was a senior at West Texas State. He was a damn good football player, but he developed some problems with his knees. When football didn't work out he asked me about professional wrestling.

Jimmy Snuka was one of the great performers in the business. In ring performance wise he was phenomenal.