The greatest Iron Man Match?

[Guest BionicRedneck]

I agree, but its still resting. That was my point.

 

Hart/HBK didnt have that much resting, it was just building to the big stuff. The pacing for the HHH/Rock match was a bit stop-start.

[Guest godthedog]

flair/steamboat had a ton of resting too, but it was INTERESTING resting because the guy in the hold kept trying to outpower the other guy, reach the ropes, reverse the hold, etc. same thing in the first 20 minutes or so of bret/hbk: each guy is visibly TRYING to regain control of the match. the only exception to this is a chinlock spot about a third into the match where shawn doesn't really do anything. also, most of the resting is done in the first half of the match.

the resting in rock/trips is incredibly obvious and poorly done (i.e., even though trips gets a fall from the sleeper, it goes on way too long). there's a spot in the bret/hbk match where they fight over a sleeper, & it's timed nicely.

[Guest BionicRedneck]

Exactly.

 

Thats the post i have wanted to-but could never be bothered/couldn't put it into words- to post on this subject.

[Guest Respect The 'Taker]

this is really depressing...i've spent months pimping the bret/flair iron man match every way i can (ALWAYS mention it in anything relating to iron man matches, best bret matches, best flair matches, best matches PERIOD...even did a rant on it, which i never do), and when this topic comes up the match isn't even on the poll. nor is it mentioned in the 23 replies. either i'm not paying my job or nobody's paying attention.

 

let me say once again: bret hart v. ric flair from the boston garden house show is the single greatest iron man match of all time, and one of the greatest matches of all time period. it easily beats bret/hbk and rock/trips in workrate, psychology, drama, and especially pacing.

 

other forgotten iron man matches: bret/owen from the summer of 94 & steamboat/rude from 92 (although i haven't seen it).

 

of the choices...after i see it once, rock/trips loses a lot of replay value because there's lots of pointless brawling inbetween those falls, & after half an hour both guys seem burned out so the match...slows...down...so...much. bret/hbk i can watch over & over again and study because they do actual wrestling & for the most part it looks great. hbk has enough mini-comebacks & crazy bumps to keep me interested the whole time.

This post was based on the most well-known PAY PER VIEW Iron Man Matches, there have been countless others all over the world, but im not gonna sit here and implement them into my poll when only a few have actually seen them.

 

And i still stick to my opinion, that WRESTLING wise, HBK-Hitman did more for me than Triple H-Rock, although it's bloody close.

 

This has been the Taker Mark

[Guest papacita]

HBK/Bret is one of my all time favorite matches, so I choose that.

 

HHH/Rock was good...as a matter of fact, I think that at the time it was the best match since the beginning of the attitude era...but I don't think it matched up to HBK/Bret...

 

And that's NOT counting the dumb ass ending.

[Guest CanadianChris]

I chose HHH/Rock...wrestling-wise, it doesn't quite match up with HBK/Bret (although, who outside of Flair/Steamboat could?), but I thought it told a better story, and was more interesting because of all of the falls that were scored. The HBK/Bret match was flat out boring when I watched it (I was 21, to answer that question), since the longer the match dragged on without any falls, the more obvious it became as to what was going to happen. And the finishes to both matches sucked ass.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

I could never get into the HBK/Bret match at all, and while the Rock/HHH match had it's down points(most notably the aforementioned botched DDT), it still seems like the better match to me because it managed to hold my attention more than HBK/Bret did.

 

Oh yeah, the endings to both were really, really ghey...

[Guest The Man in Blak]

I'd vote for the cosmic Steamboat/Rude match at Beach Blast '92...but it's not even an option. Que?

[Guest Austin3164life]

The reason Rock/Triple H's Iron Man goes above the HBK/Bret one is because there were falls and it made it more of a "Who Will Win" match, whereas towards the end, you knew Shawn was going to win the match, especially after the overtime call.

[Guest undisputedjericho]

HBK/Bret is too boring. I tryed to watch it about a year and a half ago, but after about a half hour of nothing, I fast forwarded to the ending. I liked HHH/Rock far and away better than the original.

[Guest converge241]

Im really surprised its such a close vote. I like both but i think that rock - hhh is worlds above WM12. Its just too ridiculous in modern day to have no falls when matches are so much shorter. I know its because they didnt want to "do the job first" per se. And it seemed to lull at times. I love the psychology in the rock-HHH match where HHH gets another pinfall right away when Rock is still wiped out from last fall. I like how they worked a countout and dq in there as well. One of my favorite matches ever.

[Guest Si82]

It's gotta be The Rock vs. Triple H. I really love that match and I love the slightly screwed up ended. That was probably the last time I markes d out for Undertaker. Man, I only wish that The Rock had kept the title, which he should have as the bell rang after the tomestone. However, I used to think the same as Mr. Barron regarding the Hart/Michaels bout at Wrestlemania XII. The first time I saw it it bored the shit outta me and I felt left down after all the bulid up. However, I watched it again recently and I actually enjoyed it. Granted, it has a lot of rest-holds but it was still a decent bout but not ***** material in my opinion. I would say closer to ****.

[Guest godthedog]

However, I watched it again recently and I actually enjoyed it. Granted, it has a lot of rest-holds but it was still a decent bout but not ***** material in my opinion. I would say closer to ****.

i agree. it seemed like they were doing a great match at half-speed, cause they either a) were too tired or B) afraid of getting too tired. they were *almost* really clicking, but not quite.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Bret/Flair and Bret/Owen are way better than the two matches offered up for voting. Between those two, i've gotta go with HHH/Rock over HBK/Bret, which is hard for me to do, as HBK/Bret is way better from a pure wrestling standpoint, but there were a few spots in there where a fall would've made perfect sense, but it didn't happen. HHH/Rock had a few too MANY, IMO, but the only thing which hurt it was the ending. Rude/Steamboat's 30-minute Marathon Match absolutely kicks righteous ass. Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada had a pretty good 60 minute draw, but the one that sticks out to me is a 60 minute Joshi match I saw. I'm still fairly new to the style, but I'm almost positive one of the competitors was Manami Toyoda. I'm sure someone can answer this much better than me. The match was an hour of wicked workrate and crispness from hell. Second-rope german suplex anyone? Wild shit. Those girls can GO.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

Well....

out of that poll: HHH and Rocky win. Only because they aren't selfish tried to put on a good match. HBK and Bret out did them, but points are taking away for not wanting to do the job at any point in that match.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

Bret vs Flair is a better ironman match, having just seen it last night. That and Steamboat vs Rude is better. See what happens when people aren't selfish and allow each other to beat the shit out of each other and sell it perfectly?

[Guest .3.0.7.]

i cast my vote for rock - hhh, because i watched the wm12 iron man COMPLETE for the first time earlier this year when i dubbed it off a friends' tape, and it bored me to hell for the first while. there were a lot of good little spurts, but the submission 5-minutes-in-one-hold thing kinda killed it. the crowd wasn't super-hot, either, which kinda left the atmosphere as flat. the rock - hhh match kept me in suspense, the falls were all believable and made sense, and the pacing of the match was really good, even though there were a couple of boring spots. the endings both sucked, but i think i liked the rock - hhh ending better because i was marking like a mofo when that bell tolled.

 

i would probably venture to say that bret - owen, bret - flair and steamboat - rude were not included because the first two are rare and hard to find, and the third one exists in wcw and ... well, maybe it's a wwf only thread? i have no answer for that.

 

anyways, that's my three and three-eighths of a dollar.