WWE backed itself into a corner at Payback by booking an I Quit match between a nearly indestructible Bulgarian Brute and a grappler whose entire mantra is Never give up. So whats the easy, cheap way out of that? Have someone else say the words for one of the wrestlers. The problem with this is the stipulation itself. Eden very clearly spelled it out by saying that the only way to win is to make your opponent literally say the words, I quit. This stip reared its ugly head toward the end when Rusev made John Cena pass out in the Accolade which in any other type of match would have won the United States Championship for him but since Cena never said the words, the match continued. Fast-forward to the end, with Rusev hooked in the STF yelling in (presumably) Bulgarian, and Lana jumped into the ring, grabbed the mic and said that Rusev quit which the ref took to be good enough and called for the bell. So does that mean that Rusev simply should have kept beating on an unconscious Cena earlier until someone ran out from the back to quit for him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpEs7lzA8IU OK, its professional wrestling, not a court case. There are going to be loopholes and logic gaps. But this just defied any logic at all. It might be a plot point to break up Lana and Rusev, but come on.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
