PWI Weekly for September 4, 2023
Discover more from Pro Wrestling Illustrated
PWI Weekly for September 4, 2023
Remembering Terry Funk + Bray Wyatt, AEW All In at Wembley
It’s no secret that we at the PWI offices can get a tad lost in our work at this time of year. We have officially entered what the staffers here call “list season”—the time of year when we work on and release the installments of the magazine built around the “PWI 500,” “Women’s 150,” and “Tag Team 100.”
It can be an incredibly busy stretch during a “normal” year. But, right in the middle of working on the “500,” we had to pause and deal with the sad news that two of wrestling’s biggest characters had passed away on consecutive days.
There will be plenty more written about these titans of the industry in our upcoming magazines. For now, this edition of the PWI Weekly is a small tribute to the giants that were Bray Wyatt and Terry Funk.
WRESTLER OF THE WEEK
Born May 27, 1987, in Brooksville, Florida, Windham Rotunda entered life with a wrestling legacy already attached. His father, Mike Rotunda, and maternal grandfather, Blackjack Mulligan, had already established themselves as wrestling icons, just as his uncle (and namesake) Barry Windham was doing at the time.
Growing up to play college football at Troy University, Windham Rotunda naturally found his way into the family business and to WWE. After various gimmicks and varying degrees of success, Rotunda and WWE themselves eventually struck gold when the Floridian donned the fedora hat of Bray Wyatt.
The Max Cady-inspired character had briefly been tested years earlier in WWE, by Dan Spivey, under the guise of Waylon Mercy. However, when Rotunda adapted the gimmick, he quickly made it his own—and made himself a star in the process.
A highly creative person, Rotunda seemed to relish every opportunity he had to push the Wyatt character in strange and interesting new directions. And over the years, we got several iterations of the persona. From the Wyatt Family to “The Fiend” and his most recent run, Wyatt was always innovating and giving fans plenty of moments to remember him by.
While he has sadly passed at far too young an age, Windham Rotunda was able to leave behind an incredible body of work … and a character in Bray Wyatt that will last as long as professional wrestling continues to prosper.
A QUICK WORD ABOUT …
There is just no way that we could ever do the career of Terry Funk justice in a quick blast of writing. Frankly, it might be difficult to even condense a year of his storied career into this format. But what we can quickly attest to here is what made “The Funker” the special performer he was.
On the most recent PWI Podcast, our hosts Al Castle and Brian Solomon were joined by Contributing Writer Jason McVeigh to talk about the career of Funk. The three staffers concurred: The thing that made the late Texan so special was his believability. Whether he was making fans run in fear during his deathmatch stints in Japan or making hardcore fans cry in ECW thanks to his passionate promos, Funk made you believe everything he did.
His Empty Arena match with Jerry Lawler and his 1989 feud with Ric Flair are viewed by many as some of the greatest pieces of wrestling television ever produced. Yet, if you ever watched Terry Funk perform in any capacity, then we have no doubt he left you with a special memory. We have plenty of them.
Thanks for everything, Terry.
SPOTLIGHT ON …
At the risk of making this edition of the Weekly a completely somber affair, We’d like to give a celebratory shout-out to AEW for the massive success of their All In event in London, England.
More than 81,000 fans packed Wembley Stadium for what is reported to be the largest paid attendance for a wrestling event in history. While there, those in attendance were treated to an epic card full of top-quality matches. Though the event was marred a little by some unfortunate backstage issues—the kind that have become a bit too commonplace in AEW, as of late—nothing could distract from the feel-good moments, such as home-country heroes Saraya and Will Ospreay picking up huge wins in their respective matches.
In the main event, Adam Cole and MJF clashed over the AEW World heavyweight championship in a bout that put their “friendship” to the test. It ended with them possibly closer than ever before, sending the fans in London home happy.
FROM THE VAULT
As mentioned earlier in this email, we are in “List Season,” with the much-talked-about “PWI 500” issue set to drop digitally a week from this coming Thursday. In his “The Way It Was” column, Brian Solomon takes a look at that inaugural list, which is excerpted in the scanned pages above. Magazine subscribers: Stay tuned for Brian’s always insightful and entertaining analysis!