By Bruce Mitchell, PWTorch senior columnist

You may hear that Jack Brisco was the '70s version of Kurt Angle, the great amateur wrestling champion who proved to be a natural at the art of working professional wrestling matches. It's not quite true.

Jack Brisco was a much bigger star in his prime than Kurt Angle was in his.

Jack Brisco, who died Monday at the age of 68, was an NCAA wrestling champion from Oklahoma who became the consummate scientific pro wrestling world championship challenger and champion. His legendary years long chase of arch-rival Dory Funk Jr.'s NWA Title in the '70s was the best and most profitable wrestling feud of its time, and their matches were years ahead of their time.

Eddie Graham's Championship Wrestling from Florida once devoted an entire one-hour show to one of Funk's NWA Title defenses against Brisco. Graham, one of the sport's powers, loved Brisco's smoothness and legitimacy, and groomed him for the NWA Title from the time Brisco entered his territory. This was the rarest of all things on TV wrestling of the day, a NWA World Championship match that spanned an entire show.

The match was so snugly worked, with so many holds, counter-holds, and reversals, that viewed 30 years later it resembles not so much a pro wrestling match as a UFC contest (a good one) that went to the ground early. Adding to the high-stakes sense of drama was the commentary by Brisco (the favorite to win the NWA Title), legendary play-by-play announcer Gordon Solie, and color man Coach John Heath (Heath was an actual high school wrestling coach at the time).

The three explained the nuances of what was going on between the two combatants so clearly (and there so many small and large details to point out in Funk and Brisco's work) that it was easy to understand, even all those years later, why so many fans of the day may not have been sure of the legitimacy of everything they saw at the wrestling show, but they damn sure knew the NWA Title was the real thing.

Gordon Solie was so believable and his idiosyncrasies so charismatic on this show that it stands as the best surviving example of why Jim Ross, and other fans of Solie's heyday, consider him the best wrestling announcer in the sport's history. Solie, Brisco, and Heath explain everything going on in their match with less hype and hyperbole, and more technical expertise, than Michael Goldberg and Joe Rogan do on their matches during UFC pay-per-views.

I've watched a lot of professional wrestling over the years, but I've never seen another wrestler do what Brisco did in his commentary during this match: explain how he didn't quite have a hold on Funk the way he wanted in exactly the way it would happen if the competition was real.

Dory Funk Jr. and Jack Brisco took their match all over the NWA territories, which meant they went all over the world, as a kind of NWA super main event. Funk and Brisco headlined the big holiday shows in the Mid-Atlantic territory, even though neither was based there, because of the notoriety of their feud (and because Championship Wrestling From Florida was shown in more markets out of its territory than any other wrestling show of its time).

When the time came for the champion to cede to the challenger, and for Jack Brisco to finally become NWA World Champion, well, it wasn't that easy. In a situation that has its parallels in the rift between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels all those years later (and its major differences), just as Funk Jr. was scheduled to lose the title to Brisco word came that he had been injured on the Funk ranch when he ran his truck into a ditch.

Brisco suspected Dory Funk Sr., who had brought Brisco in to his Amarillo, Texas territory early in his career in order to use his amateur credentials to prove that his sons Dory Jr. and Terry, who had no such thing, were the real athletes, of staging the accident. Brisco was squashed by one son or another every night on that tour, and resented it for the rest of his career. (Interestingly enough, he didn't seem to blame the sons for the father's politicing, probably because of all the money he made with them after Dory Sr. died). Brisco thought Funk Sr. never wanted Brisco to get that final big win over his son.

When Funk Jr. was ready to come back to the ring, trust was short and a compromise was needed. It was Harley Race who beat Dory Funk Jr. for his very first NWA Title, and as a transitional (short term) champion it was Race, instead of Funk Jr., whom Jack Brisco beat for the Title, on July 20, 1973, in Houston Texas.

Funk Sr. died not long after the controversy. Dory Jr. and Terry have always claimed the accident was legitimate, and Brisco never believed it. Brisco held the NWA Title for a year and a half, once making a deal to sell a week-long title reign to All Japan Pro Wrestling and their owner/top star Giant Baba for $35,000, until the unending schedule wore him out. He lost the title on December 10, 1975, in Miami, Fla. to Terry Funk, who, as the storyline went, was a surprise replacement for his brother. Brisco didn't think much of the machinations behind that decision either, believing the title should have gone to Harley Race instead of the wilder Terry.

Brisco, who also was a great babyface promo, worked main and semi-main events afterwards; mostly in Florida, St. Louis, and Georgia. Brisco, a realist about the business, had gone in with his brother Jerry, also a star of the time, in buying into the Georgia promotion. (They also started Brisco Brothers Body Shop in Tampa.)

The brothers decided they wanted to have one last run together as a tag team and left for the hot Mid-Atlantic territory in the early-'80s. (The Brisco Brothers had teamed together against the Funk Brothers over the years in one of the greatest brother feuds in the sports' history too.)

This time, though, the Briscos were the bad guys, and both Jack & Jerry clearly relished the role. No longer the role models, the Briscos were the jealous veterans who resented the young Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood team for their good looks, youth, and success. Jerry was the punkish, loud-mouth little brother and "Bald Eagle" Jack was the grinning star who didn't seem to realize he was a bad guy now. The two teams traded the NWA World Tag Team Titles back and forth. The Briscos didn't do the business with Steamboat & Youngblood that Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle did (no one could have), but their blow-off match at the first Starrcade was a show highlight.

At the same time this was going on Ole Anderson and Jim Barnett were fighting over a fading Georgia Championship Wrestling business. The Briscos, fed up, secretly sold their GCW shares to Vince McMahon and went to work for the WWF. Once again babyfaces, the Briscos challenged Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis, this time for the WWF tag titles.

One night, in the middle of yet another endless wrestling tour, Jack Brisco, 44, stuck in some snow-bound airport, booked the next available flight home. He had had enough.

[Jack Brisco photo credit Mike Lano (c) PWTorch]

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