Snake and Funker to retire!!

Snake and Funker hang up their boots - for real this time?


by Phil Allely

Jake "The Snake" Roberts (aged 55) is having what is billed as his final match on January 29th at the Pro Wrestling Guerilla show in conjunction with WrestleReunion in Los Angeles. Roberts will be facing his protege Sinn Bodhi, the former Kizarny in WWE. Roberts has had a storied career and wrestled across the globe for everyone from the WWE (where he was a top level heel and popular face in the 1980s-1990s, to a stint in WCW as an opponent to Sting, recent years have seen him make some semi-regular WWE/TNA appearances and step into the ring at many Indy shows. Roberts lengthy history of drug dependence and reputation for no-showing events proved to be the downfall of the man dubbed by many as one of the greatest psychological grappers of all time. he could still be a wonderful addition to the WWE/TNA training/development teams if he could beat his inner demons. Roberts of course will go down in the ho]istory books as the man who invented the DDT and for his feuds with the likes of Randy Savage in the WWE

Living legend Terry Funk (aged 66) is also stating that he will have his last match on that same show but Funk has retired several times over the years. The man who helped elevate the orginal ECW, gained godlike staus in Japan with his hard-hitting style and has given his body and soul to Wrestling and constantly returns to the ring to perform in some of the most brutal and barbaric matches known. If this is the last in-ring hurrah for the Funker it will be a be greeted loudly by his loving family who are on tenterhooks each time the OAP sets foot in the ring and attempts his moonsault and bloodspilling ways of old. Funk had some blistering fesud throughout his career, battling Ric Flair, Mick Foley and many other top name perfomers across the globe, he is one of only a hanful of men to have been inducted into both the WWE and WCW wrestler's Hall of Fame.

Both men featured prominently in the documentary film Beyond The Mat, which offered a look at the wrestling industry from behind the scenes and outside of the restraints of wrestling company politics and management agents.