[2000-02-07-WCW-Nitro] David Flair vs Terry Funk ('I Quit')

[soup23]

These guys have the audacity to air highlights of Clash 9 before making Funk and David come out there. Some utterly bizarre booking where they make David look courageous for not backing down here. While Funk cuts a promo on Ric Flair, David starts beating him right across the head with a chair. Funk is able to take over and beats David’s ass. He piledrives David on the concrete floor and then through a table. All of this has weirdly turned me and the crowd around as they chant We Want Flair. Funk gives Ric five seconds to come out and that doesn’t goad Ric out either. Funk is cussing like a sailor and being bleeped. Funk ends up quitting giving David the win. Arn is in the back cutting an Arn angle that is great and full of emotion as if you expect anything else. A straight angle instead of a match but something that actually worked in some very strange way.

[Loss]

The "I Quit" match was awesome in 1989, but that "Remember when...?" highlight package really makes WCW look like an old folks home because the spots aren't super impressive in a modern context, and it's not the spots that made that match anyway. I do think Flair-Funk can still be presented as a marquee match in a way that's fresh, but that ain't it. This was an effective angle, though ... in some ways. This was around the time you could tell people in attendance for WCW shows didn't really watch the TV for the most part and probably got their tickets before the company spiraled completely out of control. The segment got Terry Funk over as a big time heel, which I don't think was the goal, and the significance of Flair not coming out seemed lost on the live crowd at least. I am glad we at least got a nice Arn promo to close things out though, and the match was compelling at times. Mike Tenay ... just ... no. Just no, Mike Tenay.

[GSR]

We start off with some clips from the Clash IX ‘I Quit’ match between Ric Flair and Terry Funk. David comes out with Crowbar and Daffney but he sends them to the back as he wants to do this on his own. Funk takes the mic and gives David one chance to say ‘I Quit’ before this goes any further, however David tells him he’ll got to hell before he’s quitting. Funk says he knows Ric is in the back so why doesn’t he come out to face him? He knows he’s been World champion 14 times but that means he’s lost the belt 14 times. He says he’ll kick his ass for a 15^th time when David nails him in the back with a chair. Five unprotected chair shots to Funk’s head with David asking him if he quits, and the Funker falls out the ring and to the floor. He reverses and Irish whip into the guard rail and follows up with two piledrivers on the floor with Funk imploring Ric to come and save his son while he’s still alive. Piledriver through a table and Funk pulls out another one from under the ring. He again calls Ric out and tells him he’s going to break David’s neck and gives him five seconds to come down. When he doesn’t, Funk calls him ‘a filthy bastard’ and says he doesn’t need to beat on this kid any more. He’ll quit tonight, but he damn sure isn’t quitting when he gets Ric in the same kind of match.

 

We return from a break and Arn Anderson is with Mike Tenay. He says that guys like Terry Funk and Ric Flair made him proud to call himself a wrestler, but after seeing what happened… That’s one beating that David Flair didn’t have to take. Terry Funk didn’t have to make an example out of a twenty year old kid, he didn’t have to use him as a pawn and Ric Flair didn’t have to let it happen. Somewhere in this building he’s with three broads dancing around trying to be Ric Flair when he should’ve been that kid’s father and stopped it. Every one has been asking him whose side he’s going to take, but after Terry Funk did that and Ric Flair let it happen, for the first time in his life he’s going to bow out, because that made him sick to his stomach and he doesn’t want any part of it.

 

More angle as opposed to match, and for the better seeing that David Flair was involved. Funk can still do crazy, but not quite as crazy as ten years ago. Weird dynamic as I couldn’t work out who was meant to be the heel and who the face between Ric and Funk. The interview from Arn at the end of this was excellent.