88.
I Quit Match
Stephanie McMahon vs. Vince McMahon
No Mercy 2003
Truthfully, this wasn’t in consideration when I first started drafting my shortlist of matches. It’s not a match I remember hating when I first watched it back in 2003, and it wasn’t something I revisited often, if at all if I’m honest. Then it came up during Vince’s scandal and controversies last summer. It made me feel gross to think about, which led me to a rewatch as I happened to be working my way through my shortlists. Let me tell you - and perhaps this is a symptom of the time - but this is the trashiest shit you are likely to see in wrestling. It’s Jerry Springer car crash style TV in the worst way. That feeling of it being a symptom of the time is reflected in the crowd response, because the crowd is fanatical through the whole match. Vince gets some of the biggest heat you’ll ever hear. Make no mistake, the live attendances ate this storyline up. Therefore, the argument may be that I’m watching this match with 2023 eyes, not 2003 and thus I am harsher on it in retrospect. I’ll leave that to you.
Stephanie was named general manager of SmackDown in 2002, but by the fall of 2003 Vince had become frustrated by her management style and decisions, notably the hiring of Zack Gowen. In turn, Stephanie also became frustrated by Vince's on-screen relationship with Sable. Speaking of, Sable accompanies Vince to the ring, while Linda McMahon accompanies Stephanie - something that will be important later.
The reason for the match and stipulation is because Vince didn’t want to fire Stephanie because that would be him admitting he made a mistake, and also make him a bad father. So instead he’s going to beat the ever loving shit out of his daughter to make her quit instead, like any good father would. At this point it becomes a little uncomfortable to watch Vince gaslighting Stephanie into saying that the beating she’s going to take is her fault.
If Stephanie loses, she’s out as general manager of SmackDown. If Vince loses, he promises to quit as owner of WWE. Before, during and after the match they hype the drama and importance that this would be the end of one of these two in WWE forever - and here we are 20 years later, of course. For Stephanie she can win by pinfall, submission, or making Vince quit, whereas Vince can only win by making Stephanie quit.
In terms of actual commentary for the match, it goes without saying that expectations should be limited. Neither are active wrestlers, with Stephanie in particular having far less experience as an in-ring competitor. Neither are capable of bumping convincingly, which can sometimes work if you have a competent wrestler opposite. But together it is awkward, clunky, the timing is all over the place, and they constantly repeat spots. Because Stephanie can’t bump cleanly like a trained wrestler can, every fall feels ugly and I think that adds to the weirdness surrounding this match.
Even by Vince's standards he’s enormously bloated for this match. It’s uncomfortable to watch to see this massive human being beat the hell out of his real life daughter, with the mother at ringside. Somehow, despite all this, Linda still fails to emote one bit. Richard Blummenthal must have been jumping for joy when some intern probably brought this shit to his attention in the 2010 Connecticut election. There’s shenanigans featuring Sable and Linda which are also awkward because of Linda’s robot expressions.
Stephanie can win via pinfall, and she gets a couple of near falls off numerous lead pipe shots that the crowd bites on big. Eventually Vince gets Stephanie in a choke using the lead pipe, which leads to Linda throwing in the towel for Stephanie. To say this is not quite Survivor Series 1994 would be an understatement, and I put that blame 100% on Linda whose best acting performance was pretending to be drugged in 2001 because she didn’t have to act differently.
An interesting tidbit is that this match took place around a week before Triple H and Stephanie’s real life wedding, to the point where HHH, Stephanie and Linda all vehemently disagreed with it taking place in case Stephanie got hurt. Seriously, the more you think about this match, the weirder it becomes.
To me this is another symptom of the awkward post attitude era time period. As wrestling’s popularity dwindled in the twilight of the attitude era, WWE in the early 2000s continued to try and push the boundaries with more tasteless storylines. Vince vs Stephanie, Eric Bischoff raping Linda McMahon, Vince beating up a one-legged man, Vince threatening to have Undertaker’s wife raped - all off the top of my head all happened within mere months of one another in the summer and fall of 2003. WWE was desperately trying to cling on to what made it successful, and push it further despite the fact that car crash television was on its way out, and in my opinion the correct move would have been to move the other way.
It makes me happy how far wrestling has come that this will likely never be seen again. For the first time in this list, we’ve come across a match that is not just poor quality, but actually outright unpleasant to watch.
Up Next - what a difference a year makes. From a match of the year contender and a brief world title push in one company in 2007, to this …
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