WWE Raw In 2004: 10 Best Moments

WWE have only put on a handful of Iron Man matches over the years, for the simple fact that there aren't that performers who can go out under the bright lights and wrestle for sixty full minutes. Well, perhaps they could, but it takes a special kind of talent to make such a match an enthralling one.

Chris Benoit and Triple H were two performers whom WWE trusted to eat up sixty minutes of television time with one singular match. The Game had been in that position before, of course, headlining 2000's Judgement Day in an Iron Man match against The Rock, where the Crippler had been in plenty of long matches but never quite went a full hour (at least in WWE).

The two men had been feuding throughout the spring and summer, with the Cerebral Assassin unable to wrest the World Heavyweight Title away from Benoit at either Backlash or Vengeance. The Iron man match was the decider, the definitive way to prove who was the very best on the Raw roster.

While a lot of people were disappointed at the match at the time, revisiting it some twelve years later I can tell you that it is top-notch stuff. Both men went at it hard and incorporated a mix of technical wrestling and brawling, with some added sports entertainment touches for colour.

Speaking of colour, Benoit got busted open, which only added to the drama. The Evolution/Eugene shenanigans may have stopped this from being a genuine classic, but everything up until them was great stuff indeed. In the end, Benoit won the match 4 falls to 3, as he moved past Triple H towards new No.1 contender Randy Orton.