Joseph and Colette Discuss Terry Funk vs. Ric Flair

You're going to be shocked (okay probably not) to learn how one of us came to the conclusion that this was the greatest match of all time.

Ric Flair and Terry Funk, two of the greatest wrestlers of all time, put on one of wrestling’s greatest feuds during one of wrestling’s greatest-ever years. This I Quit match from Clash of the Champions IX is their most hyped encounter, but is it their best? Is it the Greatest Match of All Time? According to me, on this day, yes. According to Joseph, another match from their run may be what qualifies. Our four match retrospective on the life and career of Terry Funk rolls on!

Joseph: Against Ric Flair, Terry Funk Battles Time Itself
Colette: Terry Funk vs. Ric Flair Is the Greatest Wrestling Match of All Time

Up Next: Driven by jealousy, Mick Foley has to prove himself worthy of Vince McMahon’s affection (and a shot at Steve Austin’s WWF Championship) by taking on his tag partner, friend, and mentor Terry Funk in a no holds barred match. One of the Attitude Era’s great morality plays! Maybe its only great morality plays! What is morality during the Attitude Era??

---

Colette Arrand
So, big claim by me this week, I know, but I’ve seen this match a trillion times and it always feels like the first — I know it so well that I a) wrote half the essay before sitting down to watch the match for the week and b) found myself struggling to articulate what I found so great about it. But at the end of the day, I really, truly feel that everything I am looking for in wrestling is in this match somewhere. I am still looking, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here, but goddamn what a a match. Would you like to make any bold statements this week?

Joseph Anthony Montecillo
Since we're playing this game, and since I basically mainlined 80% of this feud in a single four hour sitting, I might as well sling some spicy takes around, sure. The I Quit is a classic, I think we've both made that very clear in our respective pieces, and on a list of the 50 or 100 greatest matches ever, it will do extremely well. However, if I had to pick a match with a stronger claim to potentially being the greatest ever, I think I might just side with their match from the Great American Bash.

Colette Arrand
That one is also a killer match, damn. I didn’t write about this in my piece, but I’ve also got a lot of nostalgia for the times and circumstances at which I encountered it. I was maybe five when I saw it for the first time, on a babysitter’s well-worn VHS tape. An early YouTube MV set to “November Rain” filled in the backstory later, after 1998 and Beyond the Mat had made Funk one of the most important wrestlers in the world to me, and I didn’t see GAB until the WWE Network debuted, oddly. 1989 NWA is out of this fucking world though — I am typing this through a veil of tears that you don’t have a Years Best In Wrestling video for the year!

Joseph Anthony Montecillo
God, the absolute mammoth of a task that would be. A year where multiple matches from multiple promotions are considered genuine candidates to be the singular best match ever.