In an “I Quit” match, the only way to defeat your opponent is to force him to say the words “I Quit!” Basically you must hurt him to the point that he renounces all his pride and verbally expresses your superiority over him. It’s like making him say “Uncle.” The humiliation of the loser is more pronounced in “I Quit” matches because the loser must admit, out loud, in public, that he is inferior.
One of the most famous “I Quit” matches was between Ric Flair and Terry Funk at Clash of Champions in 1989.
Flair can play the dominant Heel or the submissive Baby-Face equally well. Here he is playing the Face-in-Peril, on his knees in his periwinkle trunks. Funk, as usual, is playing the cruel hard-ass brawler. Flair kneels before Funk, unable to rise from his knees.
Flair sexualizes the action by frequently placing his face (with open mouth) dangerously close to Funk’s crotch. He holds onto the dominant man’s trunks as if he is perhaps planning to pull the trunks down.
To capture the verbal interaction between the wrestlers, the ref holds a microphone in their faces. This allows the fans to hear Funk ordering Flair to submit to him, and Flair panting and grunting in pain, but groaning a defiant “NOOOO!” each time Funk tries to punk him.
Thanks to the microphone, the fans are certain to hear the loser of the match say “I Quit,” which will further add to the public humiliation and embarrassment.
Really any wrestling match could be considered an “I Quit” match because the winner may force a submission from his opponent at any time. The significance of the official “I Quit” format is that it highlights the concept of submission — of one man yielding himself verbally to the other. The phrase of surrender — “I Quit” — may as well be “I give myself to you. Use me as you wish.”
Funk stands over Flair on several occasions, presenting his crotch and dangling the microphone in the helpless man’s face. The microphone takes on a phallic appearance as presses it near Flair’s open mouth, nearly penetrating him.
With his long blond hair (a symbol of femininity) and the stick jammed in his face, Flair is placed in the submissive or female role to the masculine, relentless Terry Funk.
After capturing Flair’s head between his thighs, Funk asks the Nature Boy if he remembers his neck injury, from when he was in a plane crash several years earlier and nearly died. He offers Flair the chance to submit before being Pile Driven, and possibly paralyzed. Flair refuses.
Funk delivers the dreaded Pile Driver. Then the cruel bastard drags Flair out of the ring and repeats the deadly Pile Driver onto the floor!
The tide of the match soon turns when Flair scoops up Funk and crotches him on the metal railing. This symbolizes the destruction of Funk’s manhood. Now Flair has usurped the dominant male position by rendering the other man impotent. Flair has busted Funk’s balls.
Funk is humiliated by his lack of effectiveness. He couldn’t get Flair to say “I Quit!” — (nor to force-feed the microphone to Flair.) Even Funk’s most deadly move — the Pile-Driver — is incapable of defeating Flair, even after being applied twice in a row. Then Funk’s balls are busted and his body becomes limp and weak.
Flair then begins to punish Funk’s legs, setting him up for the patented Figure Four Leglock. Flair does not carry around the microphone (the fake phallus) as Terry Funk had done, but instead adjusts his trunks to show off his own, real, bulge.
Soon Flair applies his Figure Four Leglock (which is proven more effective than Funk’s two Pile-Drivers) and Funk’s emasculation is complete when he screams “I Quit!” He has just become Flair’s bitch, symbolically if not figuratively.
