THE FUNKS vs. THE BUTCHER, THE SHEIK

The Funks vs. Abdullah The Butcher, The Sheik
ALL JAPAN, The World Tag League '78
Dec 9 1978 Kuramae Kokugikan (Tokyo)

It was a grudge match for the Funk brothers. A year before, they fought against The Butcher and The Sheik in The Tag League '77 at the same hall, and the cruelest team stabbed Terry's arm with a fork terribly. That scene gave a shock to wrestling fans of Japan. And in this league series, Terry was injured by The Butcher's attack at the opening match, and Dory also got hurt by The Sheik's foul. But to tell the truth, these bloody pro-wrestling already had reached a limitation at that time. Though I was a believer of ALL JAPAN, I thought that they were doing a same performance every year.

At any rate, it was what is called 'Showa Puroresu'. Showa is the name of an era in Japan, it began in 1926 and ended in 1989, and now it's the symbol of old things. Of course I'm also perfectly a Showa man. This name contains Romanticism of pro-wrestling. The Sheik may have been a typical wrestler of this era. He fought against Baba as the first challenger of PWF championship in Nichidai-Koudou in 1973. Nichidai-Koudou was the former Sumo hall. And Kuramae Kokugikan was it, too. An old-timer The sheik strangely fitted in the traditional fashioned Sumo hall. But the persons concerned of Sumo got anger when wrestlers broke the institution. (^^;

The cruelest team's harsh attacks went too far. They stabbed Terry's ear many times with a nail. The Butcher bit in Terry's face, and Terry shed blood terribly. The Sheik attacked Dory, too. Dory's wound tore again, and his bloody face appeared on TV with a close-up. Boys and girls in the hall screamed. Dory lost his temper, and he knocked the referee Joe Higuchi with a gong (!!). He wrested a nail from The Sheik, and surprisingly, Dory stabbed The Sheik's back of the hand harshly over and over again. The another referee Kyohei Wada decided that Dory lost on a foul. It was very unusual that Dory behaved rudely like this.

As a result, The Sheik went back to his country because of his injury, and Killer Tor Kamata was nominated a new partner of The Butcher. Probably The Sheik was so busy that he couldn't fight in Japan any more, but Dory's punishment was too severe, and they say there may have been some troubles between Dory and The Sheik. And it was true that there was nothing to do any more about bloody pre-wrestling. In the next year, new stars of the new generation, Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody appeared, and these old pro-wrestling gradually became a thing of a past.