BruiserBrody.com

Dory Funk Jr.

Dory and Marti Funk are out in Ocala, Florida. They were the first people to respond to my email about the project. My fellow filmmaker and friend, Tim Roper flew out to Florida to interview Dory and drive up to Atlanta and interview Abdullah the Butcher.

Dory brought us to his BANG! Wrestling facility where he trains and puts on wrestling shows. It was a great little space with a ring in the middle. His wife, Marti, let us tape Dory's interview in the ring. She also insisted that Adam Windsor, the Royal Stud, sit with Dory for the interview. Windsor, it appears, is Dory's protege and BANG! Wrestling's biggest star.

Dory was reticent to talk about anything to do with Puerto Rico. Marti told me that he had been pulled into a shower stall by Jose Gonzales as well, but he was not willing to talk about anything like that on the record.

Dory seems very laid back and easy going, but you can see in his eyes that the wheels are always turning. He is a very deliberate person. His wrestling has always been that way as well.

I really enjoyed my time with Dory and Marti and they had a lot of great things to say about Brody.

Bruiser Brody was a hero of mine when I was growing up. I loved wrestling and he was my favorite. He and Abdullah the Butcher were the only wrestlers that legitimately scared me. He was the real thing.

During lunch break in Jr. High a teacher let me set up a TV and VCR in his classroom and charge a quarter for students to come in and watch wrestling matches from my collection. Bruiser Brody was by far everybody's favorite and his matches with Abdullah had everyone believing wrestling was quite possibly "real." Even the girls who chimed in from the doorway, "Wrestling is fake!" Shut their mouths when they got a glimpse of a Bruiser Brody match.

In 2000 I was working in the film/video industry. I was steadily growing tired of working on industrial videos, training videos, commercials, all these really boring projects. The juicy ones like music videos and short and feature films were few and far between. The fact of the matter is that I was tired of working on other people's projects, other people's dreams. I decided that I wanted to do something of my own. I wanted to shoot a documentary. I just needed a subject.

I watched RAW and Nitro when I happened to catch them, I watched as much ECW as I could get my hands on. But, I just really wasn't into wrestling in a hardcore way at the time. I was helping my mom clean out her attic one day and stumbled across my huge box of wrestling magazines. It happened in Hollywood fashion, the first magazine I pulled out was Wrestling Ringside #20. Paul Orndorff had Big John Studd down on the mat in a hammerlock. I flipped the magazine over and there was one of my favorite wrestling photographs of all time. Staring up at me was the proverbial crimson mask of Bruiser Brody. The light from above shone down on me, the angels sang. My documentary would be on the life and death of my childhood hero, Bruiser Brody.

I had $8,000 in my savings account and was foolish enough to think that could get me somewhere. I talked with a fellow filmmaker and friend, Tim Roper, and he agreed to help me out. He had no interest in wrestling, his mom had been Haystack Calhoun's waitress once, but he saw merit in the project.

Many wrestlers have their own website and I emailed a bunch of them. A week later on the same day, two people emailed me back:

Hey Emerson
a worthy project to say the least our phone number is 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx call me anytime starting on monday
afternoons are usually best
take care
Marti Funk (mrs dory funk)

HELLO EMERSON THIS IS JIMMY SNUKA.
JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW I WOULD LOVE TO HELP YOU OUT WITH THIS BRUISER BRODY PROJECT OF YOURS.
LET ME KNOW HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO ARRANGE THIS INTERVIEW. OVER THE PHONE, VIA EMAIL, OR IN PERSON. AND WHAT THE COST WOULD BE, THINGS LIKE THAT. ANYTHING TO HELP YOU OUT BROTHER, OKAY?
HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.
YOU MAY EMAIL ME AT THIS EMAIL ADDRESS FROM NOW ON.
TAKE CARE AND HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY.
JIMMY

I was ecstatic. I showed my brother and my dad, who used to take us to WWF shows in Oakland and at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. They were excited too.

Jimmy Snuka ended up wanting $750 for a videotaped interview. He conducted his business, at the time, through his daughter. I couldn't afford that.

Dory Funk was willing to talk to me.