[NWA Bracket] Round 1 match 10: Dory Funk Jr. Vs Dick The Bruiser

[Hyorinmaru]

Dory Funk Jr

He is credited with the invention of the Texas cloverleaf submission hold, and runs the Funking Conservatory, a professional wrestling school. His students and friends participate in a wrestling show, local to Ocala, Florida, called !BANG!. To date, he was the second longest reigning NWA World Heavyweight Champion of all time, holding it for over 4 years. PWI Match of the Year (1973) vs. Harley Race on May 24. PWI Match of the Year (1974) vs. Jack Brisco on January 27.



Dick The Bruiser

Afflis, along with fellow wrestler and business partner Wilbur Snyder, purchased the Indianapolis NWA promotion in 1964 from its longtime owner Jim Barnett. Afflis renamed the territory the World Wrestling Association (WWA) and promoted himself as its champion. While he ran it as an independent promotion with its own titles and champion, the WWA had a working agreement with the larger AWA (owned by wrestler Verne Gagne), sharing talent and recognizing their championships. This agreement benefited both promotions and led to the Bruiser having multiple AWA Tag-Team Title reigns, primarily with tag team partner, The Crusher, who was billed as his "cousin". The Bruiser was the first to christen Manager Bobby Heenan with the nickname of "The Weasel" during his run in the territory. Afflis' WWA ran from 1964 until 1989, when Afflis finally tired of losing talent, TV, and fan attendance to the World Wrestling Federation. Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996). PWI Tag Team of the Year (1972) with The Crusher.​

 

[Gelgarin]

I'm leaning towards Dory Funk, not because of what he did during his carrear, but more for the impact he had as a trained (second only to Stu Hart in my eyes).

30 seconds with wikipedia reveals him having a role in training Matt and Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle, Edge and Christian, Chris Sabin, Christopher Daniels and half a dozen others. I also know he's been involved to some extent with the training of quite a number of Japanese talents, but I'm going out on a limb and deciding that spending the next couple of hours compiling a list of names that almost nobody will recognise is not a profitable way of promoting the guy.
Lets just say that he trained a lot of people, and leave it at that.

Trainings a very good way to leave a legacy, since it allows one to shape the future of professional wresting to come. My first barometer of discerning legendary status is usually to say "how would the industry be different if __________ had never existed". In a recent discussion with my roommate however, he pointed out that, if I put such weight on training, then in the future I'll end up having to make the case for Al Snow as a legend, so I'm going to push the issue aside for the time being as I rethink my position.

Anyway, on the carrear side of things, Funk gets a pretty good case made for him anyway. A four year NWA championship is not to be sneezed at. He's held enough other gold to make a magpie drool (can birds drool) and he's done more of less everything that there is to be done in professional wrestling.

So year... Dory II was pretty damn impressive. I certainly rank him above Dory Funk, Dory III and Dory IV (If they become wrestlers it'll be like the US version of Tiger Mask). I'll never understand the tradition of giving your child the same name as you.



The Bruiser... I have considerably less to say on. He ran, or helped run is own promotion... but so did Dory Funk. He had some gold... but considerably less than Dory Funk. He's a hall of famer... but Dory Funk was in the same class.

Unless he had some second life that I'm unaware of, it's hard to find a single nice this to say about Dick that can't instantly be countered with the response "Dory Funk Jr was the same or better".

I'm voting Dory in this one.

 

[Hyorinmaru]

I voted for Dory Funk. he held the NWA title for 4 years which is something to brag about. Add to that the fact that he has hi own company which allows him to pass on his knowledge and the fact that PWI gave him the match of the year award 2 years in a row nd he comes out as the bigger legend.