The connection of West Texas A&M University to professional wrestling was detailed in a new story published in the San Antonio Express News.
In the article, writer Roy Bragg details the connection of West Texas State University (now WTAMU) to professional wrestling and the Funk family itself. The article details how players from the West Texas State football team became professional wrestling stars in Amarillo while working for the now-defunct National Wrestling Alliance Western States Sports promotion.
According to the article, 12 football players from West Texas State competed in the Amarillo wrestling ring. Of those 12 stars, eight became World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame inductees, the highest honor for professional wrestlers who have competed with the WWE.
Dory Funk, Jr., a professional wrestling coach and one-time star of the Amarillo promotion, said that his father, promoter Dory Funk, Sr., was instrumental in helping bring WT football stars into the ring.
“My father was a professional wrestler and a big name around Amarillo,” Funk told the San Antonio Express News. “He made an impression on a lot of guys on the football program in Canyon. They saw you could be successful doing it and that’s what got them to come.”
Today, the stories of Amarillo's professional wrestlers are legends to the wrestling culture. The wars of the athletes and strongmen in Amarillo's ring continue to hold intrigue and history for wrestling fans all over the globe.
