#Top Five Terry Funk Rivalries

[ringthedamnbell]

Top Five Terry Funk Rivalries

Top Five Terry Funk Rivalries

Rob Faint We recently lost a true legend in Terry Funk. A former world champion. A hardcore legend. A true gentleman. (I had the great pleasure of meeting him) His career spanned over 50 years and almost 4 ,000 matches. Among those matches there are some rivals that stood out above the rest. Continue reading Untitled

[junker-town]

College football’s Teams of the Week, led by your surprisingly dominant Iron Bowl champ

Team of the week? Auburn was the team of the *month*, and the Playoff race is now a gorgeous mess.

Auburn thwarts expectations like few others could. In Gus Malzahn’s five-year tenure, the Tigers had:

began 2013 unranked and made the national title game

began 2014 sixth and finished 22nd

began 2015 sixth and finished unranked

and began 2016 unranked, rose to sixth, then finished 24th.

In writing this offseason’s Auburn preview, I found myself awfully high on the Tigers, and I deemed it terrifying.

My built-in hedge was the schedule. Even a top-10-caliber team might struggle to go better than 2-2 or 1-3 in games at Clemson and LSU and at home against Alabama and Georgia. And there were enough other tricky games on the schedule to suggest that a 9-3 record would be one hell of an accomplishment.

Well, they went 10-2. They were the best team in the country in November. And they’re on the doorstep of a Playoff bid because of it.

Team of the Week (and Month): No. 6 Auburn (def. No. 1 Alabama, 26-14)

The last time Auburn beat Alabama by more than 10 points, Malzahn was four years old. It was still 15 years from when he would walk on at Arkansas, 23 from when he’d score his first high school head coaching job, and 37 from when he’d score his first college job, an ill-fated coordinator stint at his alma mater. It was November 29, 1969, and Alabama’s Bear Bryant was in the only funk of his Bama tenure.

The Tide would go just 12-10-1 in 1969-70 before Bryant adopted the wishbone, sold supporters on integrating his roster, and laid waste to college football for most of the 1970s. And at the end of ‘69, sophomore quarterback Pat Sullivan passed and rushed for a combined 245 yards, and Tommie Frederick’s 85-yard scamper put away an easy 49-26 victory.

This one wasn’t that easy for Auburn. But against what is, per S&P+, the weakest Alabama squad since either 2010 or 2013 — the last two years the Tide lost to the Tigers — Auburn struck first and just kept striking. Truly challenged for the first time all season, Bama self-destructed midway through the second half, and by the time they regained their composure, the game was over.

Jarrett Stidham became the first quarterback since Johnny Manziel to complete 75 percent of his passes on Alabama, Ryan Davis caught 11 balls for 139 yards, and the Auburn front dominated Bama’s banged-up, disoriented offensive line. The Tigers didn’t need a dramatic comeback (as in 2010) or an all-time special teams play (as in 2013). They just straight-up beat Bama.

What that means for the national title race, we’re not sure. Despite a couple of enormous résumé wins, we don’t know how the committee will handle a two-loss team like this — last year, after all, a two-loss conference champion (Penn State) was kept out of the Playoff in favor of a one-loss non-champion it defeated (Ohio State).

Besides, Auburn’s win means the Tigers now have to beat Kirby Smart’s Georgia a second time to win the SEC. Georgia folded like Alabama two weeks ago at Jordan-Hare, but odds are good that the Dawgs will play better the second time around. Plus, the status of Auburn star running back Kerryon Johnson, injured late in the Iron Bowl, remains uncertain.

But that’s a worry for later in the week. For at least one day, we will celebrate an Auburn team that has managed to not only live up to expectations but exceed them, one that sold out of toilet paper for miles around.

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Other Teams of the Week

2. Pitt (def. No. 2 Miami, 24-14)

Pat Narduzzi is 21-17 in three seasons at Pitt. His Panthers took a larger step backward than expected when they went 5-7 after back-to-back eight-win seasons, but they did further one of the strangest distinctions in the sport: under Narduzzi, they’re now 2-0 against teams in the Top 3 and 19-17 against everybody else. Almost 10 years to the day that Pitt knocked off No. 2 WVU, the Panthers furthered their reputation by manhandling unbeaten Miami. First you say it, then you do it.

3. No. 15 UCF (def. USF, 49-42) 4. USF (lost to No. 15 UCF, 49-42)

When you play in the best game of the season to date, you both earn a mention. What a slugfest this was, from start to finish.

5. No. 4 Oklahoma (def. WVU, 59-31)

Granted, this was a bit on the melodramatic side ...

... but like many big favorites, OU looked the part on Saturday, scoring on its first nine possessions and cruising against a decent WVU. The Sooners still make you nervous defensively, but Baker Mayfield and the Sooner offense is at a different level than anyone else in college football. They are a win over TCU away from the College Football Playoff.

6. Akron (def. Kent State, 24-14)

In 2005, Akron pulled a stunner, winning two late games to clinch the MAC East, then upsetting NIU in Detroit to win the conference title. J.D. Brookhart's Zips attended their first bowl ever.

Over the next nine seasons, they won an average of 3.3 games per year. Terry Bowden pulled off a bowl win in 2015 but slid back to 5-7 last fall.

This year, however, saw a rebound. Akron started 1-3, then lost two of three in the middle of MAC play to all but give division title hopes away. But they upset Ohio by three points at home last week, then cruised to a win over lowly Kent State to clinch the East after all. Bowden has done a hell of a job in resurrecting that program.

7. Ole Miss (def. Mississippi State, 31-28)

On Thanksgiving night, the Hugh Freeze era officially ended for Ole Miss. Interim coach Matt Luke’s tenure finished with a bang, though, as his Rebels reminded everyone of just how hilariously volatile Freeze’s team could be.

Thanks in part to an injury to MSU’s star QB, Nick Fitzgerald, Ole Miss bolted to leads of 10-0 and 24-6. They made big plays. They taunted. They had fun. And then they damn near blew it all, giving up two late scores and needing an onside kick recovery with a minute left to seal the deal. Whew.

8. Purdue (def. Indiana, 31-24) 9. Buffalo (def. Ohio, 31-24)

Buffalo, Duke, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Purdue, Temple, Texas Tech, UCLA, and Utah won must-wins to reach bowl eligibility over the weekend. We’ll highlight two in particular here.

Jeff Brohm inherited a program that had averaged 2.3 wins per year under Darrell Hazell and won nearly three times that many in his first year. The Boilermakers bolted out of the gates with a 3-2 start but appeared to blow their postseason shot with consecutive one-possession losses to Wisconsin, Rutgers, and Nebraska. But they rallied to win three of four and held off rival Indiana, which was also looking for Win No. 6. Tremendous.

Lance Leipold had to learn how to win all over again. After going 109-6 in eight years at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, he took on the Buffalo job and went 7-17 in his first two years. Like Purdue, the Bulls began a competitive 3-2, but they lost four consecutive games by a combined 15 points to all but vanquish bowl hopes. But no worries! They took down Bowling Green and Ball State with relative ease, then burst out of the gates and held on for dear life to beat a good Ohio.

10. No. 17 Washington (def. No. 13 Washington State, 41-14)

Rivalries provide more than enough motivation on their own. Eliminated from Pac-12 North contention, Washington instead fought to prevent Wazzu from reaching the conference title game for the first time.

Mission accomplished. The Huskies dominated for the fourth consecutive year — four Mike Leach vs. Chris Petersen Apple Cups have produced four UW wins by an average of, you guessed it, 41-14 — and sent Stanford to Santa Clara.

[daleisgreat]

The Best of WCW Clash of the Champions

Younger and newer fans of pro wrestling, lend me your ears! I have to let you know how spoiled we are to have so many countless hours of top programming each week featuring marquee matchups/storyline angles. “The Monday Night Wars” between WWF/WCW in the second half of the 1990s changed that and forced both promotions’ marquee shows to consistently put on top matchups and rivalries each week. When I first started watching wrestling in the late 80s the bulk of weekly television put on by WCW and the then-WWF featured primarily squash matches and recaps from the latest big PPV and TV specials. WWF and WCW only had four or five PPVs a year around this time and they usually featured several big matches with many weeks of television buildup. To help fill those three-four month gaps between PPVs, both WWF and WCW did four-five TV specials/mini-PPVs for free on cable a year during this timeframe. WWF had Saturday Night’s Main Event (SNME) and WCW had Clash of the Champions (CotC). Instead of several big PPV-quality matchups over the course of three hours ad-free, these specials were 90-120 minutes with ad breaks. SNME and CotC mostly featured one top matchup, supplemented by other matches featuring top stars, but usually in last minute thrown together meaningless tag matches. WWE released a best of SNME DVD-set in 2009, but today I am covering their Best of WCW Clash of the Champions (trailer)BluRay set they released in 2012.

Dusty Rhodes is the host of this DVD set, and he has a good introduction to the DVD explaining that WCW made CotC free and held the inaugural show to compete directly against Wrestlemania IV as a response to WWE forcing the first Survivor Series PPV to compete directly against WCW’s first PPV a few months earlier. It was a joy seeing Dusty again a couple years after his passing, and he is charismatic as ever, but the rest of his appearances in The Best of CotC are surprisingly lackluster as he sheds no context or insight about the matches he is setting up and merely says a variation of, “here is wrestler A and here is wrestler B, oh-boooyy.” I know I am splitting hairs nitpicking over Dusty’s intros but Diamond Dallas Page did an excellent job with them in the trilogy of Best of Nitro DVDs that I cannot help but feel a little dismayed at Dusty’s performance. Another thing to keep in mind is that even though nearly all 27 matches contained in the Best of CotC (three of which are exclusive to BluRay) have top talent, only a small slice of the 27 bouts have clean finishes. If I recall correctly from watching these at the time I presumed the bookers did this to teach fans that they had to pay the big bucks for the PPV match that did not feature interference. At first I was increasingly agitated to see many excellent matches have run-ins for a quick DQ or tainted victory, but eventually I accepted it as par for the course by the end of the collection.

I want to highlight a few of my favorite matchups on this set. The first match is the main event from the first CotC, and it features one of the first televised matchups of Sting and Ric Flair as the two fought for the NWA World Title and went to a 45 minute time limit draw. The crowd is simply bonkers into Sting as the two put on a clinic in the ring and have several dramatic near falls in the final minutes. The infamous “I Quit” match between Flair and Terry Funk from 1989 is another epic match on this collection, and features a ton of hardcore action and brawling between the two before ECW popularized that style a few years later. Ricky Steamboat and Steve Austin (then with a full head of hair from his “Stunning” days) have an awesome match for the US title with tons of near falls and is one of the few great matches on here with a clean finish. My last top pick on here is a cruiserweight title match between Ultimo Dragon and Dean Malenko that features a good hybrid of Dean’s technical prowess and Dragon’s high-flying acrobatics. Those four matches are the feature bouts that have no cheap interference and left me wanting more. As I alluded to earlier there are many good-to-great matches on here that unfortunately suffer with a awful finish. The Rock ‘n Roll Express and Midnight Express light up the crowd in one instance and Ric Flair carries a young Lex Luger in one of his best matches, but both contests feature cheap DQs. Sting and Flair put on another classic match on here from 1994, but a theme of the match is on Sherri Martel’s presence at ringside throughout, and sure enough she factors into the finish. Two more tag title matches that have a lot of great action with crowd’s engaged throughout, only to be letdown with a lame DQ were Arn Anderson and Ric Flair taking on the Hollywood Blonds and Harlem Heat defending their gold against the Steiners and Lex Luger & Sting. Of the three BluRay extras, only one stood out and that was Ric Flair & Barry Windham taking on the Midnight Express with all four guys being on top of their game and making formula tag team spots stand out in a class of their own to the delight of a rabidly hot crowd.

The matches in here span from 1988-1997. In 1998, WCW introduced Thunder as its second top-tier weekly show to supplement Nitro, and that brought an end to CotC. Seeing how WCW and its production values evolved over the decade was fascinating and they came a long way in that decade, especially in its final few years. While a majority of the matches have awesome wrestling and very engaged crowds, it is regrettably unfortunate to not recommend The Best of WCW Clash of the Champions because of the sheer amount of cruddy finishes. There are four or five standout matches tucked away within that I breakdown above, but you are better suited hunting those down on the WWE Network than shedding out the money for the DVD. Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor V RoH Supercard of Honor VI RoH Supercard of Honor VII RoH Supercard of Honor VIII RoH Supercard of Honor IX RoH Supercard of Honor X ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Sting: Into the Light Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder TNA Lockdown 2005-2014 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28 Wrestlemania 29 Wrestlemania 30 Wrestlemania 31 Wrestlemania 32 The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017