Iron Women are often an area of the history of professional wrestling that isn’t given nearly the amount of attention that it deserves.
Whether that means in competition, stamina or opportunities women competing in “iron” competitions doesn’t appear to be one in which has happened extensively.
In the case of men, the ‘iron-man’ match tests one’s endurance and stamina and is often tied to the term’ hour Broadway’.
Iron Women of the Ring -A True Test of Endurance
A match that pushes the limits on a wrestler’s ability to tell a story that pushes beyond the realm of a brief match in which a winner is determined. It doesn’t achieve nearly what a match does which isn’t tied to sixty minutes in length does.
In fact, in 1994, the film Iron Will tells the story of a young man that must push beyond the most challenging of elements in nature in order to succeed.
As it applies to wrestling there is the same need to push beyond the realm of elements of nature that make being successful possible to have an Iron Will is an easily relateable quality when it came to wrestling.
Women’s wrestling has been surging in popularity and prominence in the last several years. There are many matches that test anyone, man or woman.
One of the more difficult match types is the 60-minute Iron Man match. This is a test of endurance and creativity. In combing through the annals of wrestling history on the Internet, as of 2018, we could only find two 60-minute Iron Man matches with women. If you know of another, please let us know!
First, we have a show from Women Superstars Uncensored (WSU) back in 2009. At the event Uncensored Rumble II, there was a 60-minute Iron Women Match between Mercedes Martinez and Angel Orsini.
Mercedes defended her WSU Championship against Angel here. There was also an additional stipulation to this match.
The loser would not be able to challenge for the WSU Championship while the winner was champion. This match also set the record for the longest women’s wrestling match in history, at an official time of 70 minutes.
Let’s get into the backstory of this match. Angel and Mercedes waged a war with each other over the WSU Championship in 2008 and 2009.
They also were a tag team in WSU that was successful. That notwithstanding, they did take each other to the limit on a regular basis.
They escalated from regular matches to a falls count anywhere, to a steel cage, to a title versus hair bull rope match and finally, the Iron Man. This match did serve as the nail in the coffin of this rivalry. They did not face each other again until 2011.
Iron Women of The Ring
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The next Iron Man match wouldn’t take place until October of this year. This match took place at RiSE Wrestling’s event RiSE 10: Insanity. Tessa Blanchard would defend her Phoenix of RiSE Championship against Mercedes Martinez.
This match would go on to break the record previously set by Mercedes in the previous match. This match would go for 75 minutes. The two women had previously had a 30-Minute Iron Man match at RiSE 9.
Blanchard won the 30-minute match, but Mercedes won the 60-Minute match. Since this event was so recent, it remains to be seen where this rivalry will go next.
If you would like to watch this match, you can join the RiSE Ascent streaming service. They also have DVDs and Blu-Rays available.
There you have a brief history of the Iron Women in wrestling. There may only be two matches in the 60-minute category of this match type at this time, but there shouldn’t be any doubt that there will be more in the future.
