Dory Funk Jr.

Dorrance Earnest Funk (February 3, 1941 – August 4, 2026), known professionally as Dory Funk Jr., was an American professional wrestler, promoter, booker, and wrestling trainer. The son of Dory Funk (Dorrance Wilhelm Funk) and brother of Terry Funk, he was the promoter of the Amarillo, Texas-based Western States Sports promotion. He held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for 1,563 days, from February 11, 1969, to May 24, 1973, the second-longest uninterrupted reign in the title's history behind Lou Thesz. Funk and his brother Terry are the only siblings to have each held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Wrestling journalist and historian Dave Meltzer described Funk as "the consensus pick as the best pro wrestler in the world in the early 1970s" and called him "probably the closest thing to a perfect world champion for his time".

Funk held the WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship once and the CWA World Heavyweight Championship once. He also worked as a booker, notably helping to shape Jim Crockett Promotions' 1983 schedule, including the inaugural Starrcade, and served for years as a foreign talent booker for All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he held the Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF) chairmanship. He ran the Funking Conservatory, a professional wrestling school in Ocala, Florida, that trained a number of future WWE stars. He is a 2009 WWE Hall of Fame inductee, and is also enshrined in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (inaugural class, 1996), the St. Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame (2008), the Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame (1995), the NWA Hall of Fame (2006), the International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame (2022), and the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame (2011), and received the Cauliflower Alley Club's Lou Thesz Award in 2019.

Funk died on August 4, 2026, at his home in Ocala, Florida, while in hospice care, at the age of 85.