The Importance of...5.18.08: The I Quit Match

Posted by Mike Chin on 05.18.2008

“Five letters. Two words.” - Gordon Solie

Chincredible Thoughts
Quick notes on the past week in wrestling

-It's easy to hate on TNA, and trust me when I say that I am not among the company's staunchest supporters. Nonetheless, the last two PPVs have given me a lot of reason for optimism, as the promotion seems to be embracing an old school style of booking that is really different. Sure, there's the absurdity of random draw tag teams and title shot v.s hair ladder/battle royal matches. But at heart, the right things are happening. For two consecutive PPVs there have been solid world title matches, with very little BS, in which the right guy went over. You can certainly contend that the egotistical eight proved pointless in the Deuces Wild tournament, but at the same time, you're hard pressed to argue against the point that the right guys went over at just about every turn. I was worried. Super Eric would end up one half of the tag champions. I was worried Nash would create a clusterf*ck in the main event. Maybe this was swerving the fans by not swerving the fans, but if so, what the hell, I'll take it. These were the right decisions.

-One of my biggest problems with the Randy Orton-Triple H match at Judgement Day is that the steel cage gimmick feels so 'thrown-in.' There's no real storyline involving someone trying to interfere in their matches, who they have to keep out, and no story about one guy running away from the other, and having to be held in. They've hardly even mentioned the cage in the build-up, aside from having it descend on the ring randomly (and quite briefly) on Monday night. All in all, it seems like a gimmick for the sake of the gimmick, which isn't great. It's especially lame given that these guys, specifically in their current feud, haven't had many one on one encounters. Think about it--there was the match on Raw that Regal cut off. Aside from that, they haven't gone one on one since last October, and even that wasn't very decisive, as Trips went over in an impromptu match, then Orton won an impromptu Last Man Standing match. Prior to that, they haven't squared off one-on-one since the 2005 Royal Rumble show. There's still value in a conventional match between the two, and that could have given the room to build, more organically, to a gimmick match. Alas, it's not to be.

-Speaking of the steel cage, I was writing about the importance of it a few weeks ago. But to be honest, this style of match just doesn't seem important enough to be headlining a WWE pay per view in this day and age. In recent years, cages have succeeded for regular TV main events, and hot mid-card feuds. But now-a-days, when it comes to a big time PPV main event, I think the Hell in a Cell, Elimination Chamber and Punjabi Prison have all but rendered the conventional cage obsolete.

And now, on to our regular column...

"Five letters. Two words."

It's every bit as simple as Gordon Solie described years ago. It's still every bit as profound.

There are few specialty matches as important to the wrestling industry as the "I Quit" match. The rules are among the simplest of any match in the business. No holds barred. Falls count anywhere. No time limit. There must be a winner, and that we can only arrive at that winner when one of the competitors says "I quit."

For my money, there is no more exciting and decisive way to resolve a feud than with an I Quit match. Sure, the Last Man Standing Match has its dramatic flair, and lends itself well to brawlers. And yes, the steel cage match lends a match fantastic visual drama. A traditional, one fall to a finish bout tests what wrestling is all about—winning according to the standard rules of the game. Each of these matches has its place, and each is certainly valuable in blowing off a feud. Nonetheless, the I Quit match remains at least equally important in the grand scheme of things.

You can't win an I Quit match by just knocking out your opponent. On the contrary, the I Quit match is about beating your opponent, and humiliating him. Making an opponent tap out demonstrates dominance in its own right. But forcing a man to actually speak the words—to orally concede that he is the loser of the match—that is the ultimate victory.

There have been some epic I Quit matches in the history of wrestling. A classic example of the I Quit match appeared in the Wrestlemania XI showdown between Bret Hart and Bob Backlund. It made sense. The two men had a long and heated feud behind them. What's more, each was a superb technical wrestler, with a trademark submission move highlighting each man's offensive repertoire. The match was a classic blow-off, featuring Hart using Backlund's own crossface chickenwing to secure the submission.

Royal Rumble '99 saw one of the great modern I Quit matches in a Rock-Mankind showdown. Again, it was blood feud in which the score could only be settled by one man giving it up. Of course, this was the Attitude era—a time of innovation, and a time of swerves. Mankind didn't really submit, but the crowd was led to believe that he did, leading to much confusion and controversy, and feud that wasn't quite over after all.

Perhaps the most important I Quit match of the last two decades came when Bret Hart returned to this match at Wrestlemania XIII, for this iconic battle with Steve Austin. Like the Rock-Mankind match, while this seemed to be climax of a hot feud. In reality, it was really just getting the ball rolling, with a different kind of swerve. Stone Cold never quit, but when he passed out from the pain of Hart's sharpshooter, there was no way he could continue, and so the match came to a close. The feud raged on, essentially up through Hart's departure from the company.

In recent memory, John Cena built some credibility early in his main event days when he pulled off an I Quit victory against JBL. This contest was anything but conventional—the very anti-thesis of the Hart-Backlund contest in that neither of these men were much for grappling, and neither had a trademark submission hold (this was, of course, prior to the STFU days). This one saw Cena defy tradition, not using a hold to make The Wrestling God give, instead just beating the guy, and then threatening to beat him some more, until he gave it up in classic chickensh*t heel fashion.

I would be remiss, of course, not to acknowledge the importance of perhaps the highest profile I Quit match of all time—the contest about which Gordon Solie was speaking in the quote to open this column. It was at a Clash of the Champions in 1989 that Ric Flair achieved ultimate victory over his arch-nemesis of the day, Terry Funk, in a dramatic contest that established the I Quit match as the way to blow off a meaningful program.

Admittedly, the I Quit match does have its limitations. It doesn't work for every performer. Can you imagine Hulk Hogan working I Quit matches in the ‘80s? Same goes for Cena today. Despite the STFU getting somewhat over—his style and personality lend themselves far better to a knock down brawl than a more a technically grounded bout.

The I Quit match seems to have slipped from the mainstream wrestling scene. The match seems a natural fit Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe in TNA. You could alternate in Sting, or maybe Christian Cage or AJ Styles for that matter. In the WWE, an I Quit match could be a good proving ground for Shawn Michaels' variation on the figure four. Chris Jericho and CM Punk also stand out as capable submission wrestlers. This sort of match could have a lot of potential to blow off a feud with a guy like MVP. Such a match could function in a number of different ways—giving the heel the ultimate bragging rights, or giving the baddy his comeuppance in humiliating fashion.

Whoever the competitors may be, there's plenty of room for the I Quit contests to make a high profile return. It's not time to throw in the towel on this specialty match.

That's all for this column. Next week, we move to a topic that's much larger in scale, as we take a look at the importance of kayfabe. See you in seven.