September 15, 2003 Observer Newsletter: History of the Iron Man match, more
On 9/16 in Raleigh, Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle will do something that hasn’t been done in the U.S. in nearly 17 years. They will do a 60:00 match on free television.
It wasn’t that many years ago when it would have never happened. There was a belief for a while that in these days of shorter attention spans and hundreds of television alternatives, that no television match should ever go much over ten minutes. In the history of Raw, Thunder, Nitro and Smackdown, no match has ever legitimately gone 30 minutes. Lesnar and Angle will be doubling that.
The Iron man match, which is expected, given the direction of past and future booking and what happened at SummerSlam, to be the title change, is one hell of a risk. While most 60 minute matches historically are remembered fondly, very few have been done in recent years. And also, if for some reason the crowd isn’t with it, it’s going to be a long and painful process.
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Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.