Dory Funk Jr.

Dorrance Earnest Funk (February 3, 1941, to August 4, 2026), known worldwide as Dory Funk Jr., was an American professional wrestler, trainer, and promoter whose career spanned more than six decades. He held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for 1,563 days from February 11, 1969, to May 24, 1973, the second-longest uninterrupted reign after Lou Thesz. With his younger brother Terry Funk he formed one of wrestling's defining sibling acts, and with Terry he entered the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009. In later life he built a second legacy in Ocala, Florida, teaching the Dory Funk Method at the Funking Conservatory and helping prepare a generation of WWE stars. He died at home in Ocala at age 85 while in hospice care. A specific medical cause was not made public.

He was born in Hammond, Indiana, son of wrestler and later Amarillo promoter Dory Funk Sr. (Dorrance Wilhelm Funk). The family became synonymous with West Texas after Dory Sr. helped build Western States Sports. Dory Jr. attended Canyon High School area schooling and played college football for West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M), including a Sun Bowl win over Ohio University. With amateur wrestling and football behind him, he debuted in 1963 in Amarillo. Trained by his father, Ricky Romero, and Pedro Morales among others, he developed a hard-hitting technical style built around forearm smashes, suplexes, leglocks, and the family trademark spinning toe hold.

On February 11, 1969, in Tampa, Florida, he defeated Gene Kiniski for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. As champion he worked a relentless national and international schedule, helping establish the NWA title's credibility in Japan through marathon matches with Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki. His classic series with Jack Brisco became a standard for technical world-title wrestling. A pickup-truck accident on the family's West Texas ranch disrupted a planned 1973 title transition to Brisco; after a hurried return he lost the belt to Harley Race on May 24, 1973, in Kansas City. Days later Dory Sr. died of a heart attack at 54. The Funk brothers assumed greater responsibility in Amarillo and as foreign bookers and pillars of All Japan Pro Wrestling, winning World's Strongest / Real World Tag Determination League tournaments together in 1977, 1979, and 1982 and helping train future Japanese stars including Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu.

In the mid-1980s he worked as booker in Jim Crockett Promotions during the period that produced the first Starrcade. In 1986 he entered the WWF as Hoss Funk, teaming with Terry to defeat Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana at WrestleMania 2. He later appeared in WCW, ECW (including a 1994 No Rope Barbed Wire tag with Terry against The Public Enemy), the 1996 Royal Rumble, New Japan with Terry in 2001, and countless independents. He also held titles including multiple Florida heavyweight reigns, WWC Universal Heavyweight, and CWA World Heavyweight championships.

From the 1990s onward his greatest commercial and cultural impact may have been as a teacher. The Funking Conservatory (founded 1991; Ocala base with Bang! / !BANG! TV) and the WWF-affiliated Funkin' Dojo pipeline developed talent including Jeff and Matt Hardy, Christian Cage, Lita, Kurt Angle, Adam Copeland (Edge), Mickie James, Mark Henry, Ted DiBiase, Test, and Mansoor. He returned repeatedly to All Japan, served as PWF chairman, and kept wrestling into his eighties. After announcing retirement around December 31, 2017, he continued occasional matches; his final bout was a Double Hell Current Explosion Death match on August 24, 2024, in Japan, teaming with Osamu Nishimura to defeat Atsushi Onita and Raijin Yaguchi at age 83.

He married Jimmie on June 8, 1960; they had three children, Dory III (a physician in Colorado), Adam Dirk, and Penny, and later divorced on July 6, 1983. He met Marti in 1980 and married her in 1989; they had two children whose names were kept largely private. Grandson Dory IV trained under him. In 2022 he published the memoir The Last of a Great Breed. Asked in January 2026 by the Ocala Gazette for advice to young wrestlers, he answered with rising force: Never quit. Marti told the Gazette he died under hospice care on August 4, 2026; the family held a private ceremony at Good Shepherd Memorial Gardens in Ocala on August 21, 2026, with a public memorial planned for Thanksgiving Day 2026 at the Hilton Ocala to honor Dory, Terry, and Japanese associates. WWE, NWA, AEW, TNA, All Japan, NJPW, and peers including Triple H, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase paid tribute. Specific pathology was never publicly disclosed.