Iron Man Match

An Iron Man match is a professional wrestling match type that is set to go a specific amount of time, usually 30 or 60 minutes, with the competitor with the most decisions at the end of that time named the victor.[1] On the rare occasions of a draw, a sudden death "final fall" may be requested by either side, with the other able to accept or decline, [2] or a legal authority can order the match to go into overtime in the case of any championship match if there is a draw.

Iron Man matches generally operate under the same rules as any other professional wrestling bout, but instead of the match having to be over before a time limit is up, the Iron Man match goes the full length of the allotted time, with each wrestler attempting to score as many decisions in that time as possible.

Some Iron Man matches have an interval between falls. An example of this is the 2009 one between John Cena and Randy Orton which had a 30 second rest period after each fall. The wrestler who has the most decisions at the end of the match is then the winner. A Decision is a Pin Fall, Submission, Count Out or a Disqualification.

Should the match result in a tie, sudden death overtime may be requested by either wrestler as a plot device, and it is accepted or rejected by either an opponent or an authority figure. One note of rejection of the sudden death overtime was when Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle tied 2–2 in a 30-minute iron-man match. Shawn Michaels begged Kurt Angle to go sudden death, but Angle walked off, to the heavy boos of the audience who wanted to see how it would end.

Iron man matches are almost always two-sided (that is, no more than two sides, such as 1v1 or tag team, as opposed to triple-threat or fatal-four-way). However, it is possible for there to be a triple threat iron man, with the wrestler scoring the plurality of decisions being the winner.

Source: Wikipedia