10 Best Wrestling Matches That Went Over 45 Minutes

Great wrestling matches come in all shapes and sizes, of which proof was found earlier this year when Goldberg and Brock Lesnar brought the house down at WrestleMania 33 despite going fewer than five minutes.

But at the same time, it's rare that a bout is afforded "classic" status without going, at minimum, 25 minutes to half an hour. This is because, in most cases, there's bound to be more (and better sold) spots, scope for long, drawn-out story-telling and, best of all, a dramatic, nail-biting climax.

If you go for more than 45 minutes - as precious few competitors in wrestling history have been allowed - finding the right balance between gripping, long-game action and a resthold-heavy bore-fest is extremely difficult (hence so few are ever entrusted with that task).

When it works, though - and this is something anyone who watched this year's Okada-Omega NJPW trilogy will be able to tell you - it really works, and some of wrestling's 45-minute+ matches are rightly regarded as being among the very best in the industry's history.

And here are 10 of them that are at the very top of that list.

WrestleMania XII's main event has its critics, some of whom suggest that the 60-minute Iron Man format - for all the pre-match hype - actually dampened what could and should have otherwise been a for-the-ages classic.

And granted: stretches of this bout are a little on the dull side, with both men looking to apply rest-holds instead of going for the kill (which, in terms of kayfabe strategy, makes perfect sense - it's just that we're accustomed to seeing HBK move at a slightly more frenetic pace).

Try looking at it from the opposing point of view, though. Bret and Shawn, in the first time a pair of relatively small men were entrusted to close out WWE's annual show-piece, told the story of two ring-savvy technicians determined not just to win, but to out-maneuver their opposite number.

Whatever its foibles, there is much in this match to take pride in - both from a historical perspective and as an hour-long pure wrestling spectacle, the like of which it is possible we will never see again on wrestling's grandest stage.