At one point in time I would had easily said this was a cage match, but getting into lucha I think mask & hair matches easily win this category. Regardless if the match is great or not, the emotion is always there to make the match better. So many classics with that stip.

 

Anything else come close?

I've always felt that last man standing and iron man matches tend to produce higher quality matches than most other stuff, but yeah the apuestas matches are probably the best

I Quit maybe?

I Quit maybe?

 

Magnum vs Tullly, Flair vs. Funk, Foley vs. Orton, and Bret vs. Austin if you count that as I Quit.

The stip with the best wrestlers and story coming into it.

bret vs. austin definitely wasn't i quit, it was just a submission match. part of the reason people prefer that to almost any i quit match is the lack of silliness with the mic.

 

anyway, i quit has way too many WWE clunkers holding it down to be a top contender i think. last man standing has been hands down the best modern WWE gimmick match, for what it's worth.

I don't know if this counts as a stip but in the past in Mexico when you had a title match you could almost always guarantee that it would be great.

I think every single indy spot-laden tag team match should be 2/3 falls. That would let them hit some huge stuff, make it end a fall, do a bit of a reset and escalate again.

Yeah, it's been messed up in recent years but 2/3 falls would be my answer.

I don't know if this counts as a stip but in the past in Mexico when you had a title match you could almost always guarantee that it would be great.

 

It should count as a stip since they had special rules, right?

If you lump the old school Texas Death Matches in with the current Last Man Standing matches that would be the clear winner for me. Seems pretty much like the same match with just a different name. Texas Death Matches were always kinds of variable in the rules anyway with the count being different in some places and some taking place in a Cage.

The falls coming so easy in Texas Death Matches always bugs me, because it makes me wonder why pins don't come so easily in a regular match.

Kayfabe wise you could always explain it as a guy letting himself get pinned so he can break the other's momentum and give himself a rest period. I've definitely seen some Texas Death matches where easy falls isn't really a thing and I think Iron Man matches and Survivor Series style elimination tags are worse offenders on that point.

 

I don't know if this counts as a stip but in the past in Mexico when you had a title match you could almost always guarantee that it would be great.

 

It should count as a stip since they had special rules, right?

 

 

Well, according to the LUCHA LIBRE RULEBOOK (which is an official state approved document) the matches for national titles have to be clean and any "illegal moves" could be penalised with a disqualification and a possible suspension. They don't necessarily say it needs to be a technical match so that's sort of a gentleman's agreement (that would often be broken in the past but it wouldn't be the norm, and something that is pretty much ignored nowadays).

 

Another special stip was that your legit weight had to be in the range of the division of the title you were competing for. As most things in Mexico, this was randomly enforced. It was more strictly enforced in National championship bouts (those titles are managed by the Boxing and Wrestling commission) than the NWA or promotional titles, which are sanctioned by the promotions or their fake sanctioning bodies (UWA or CMLL).

 

It's wacky and kind of charming in a way that there all kinds of kayfabe rules for these matches. In most cases it's just a way to get promotions to grease the palms of former wrestlers and their buddies playing politician.

 

Apologies for getting overly technical on this one!

Yeah, it's been messed up in recent years but 2/3 falls would be my answer.

 

NXT had a pretty good run of 2/3 falls matches that served as pretty good blow offs to a couple of angles. Cesaro-Zayn is the obvious highlight but Itami and Breeze also had a nice one and there were a couple others sprinkled in there.

Kayfabe wise you could always explain it as a guy letting himself get pinned so he can break the other's momentum and give himself a rest period. I've definitely seen some Texas Death matches where easy falls isn't really a thing and I think Iron Man matches and Survivor Series style elimination tags are worse offenders on that point.

 

I realize it could be explained that way, but I've never heard it actually explained that way by the announcers.

Always hated the Texas Death stipulation since there's no reason to EVER kick out of a pin. I can overlook it if the match is good enough but it is bothersome. Would be so easy to fix by saying a guy can lose either from a 10 count or from being pinned X number of times too.

The "getting pinned X number of times" thing for a TDM or LMS would kind of defeat the whole purpose of the match of it leading to one guy well and truly knocked out and unable to continue.

Eh, you don't ever have to have a match finish by that means, it's just there so that it actually makes sense for guys to kick out of pins. Kinda like the limited rope breaks in shoot style promotions - matches almost never finished because someone had no rope breaks left, but it gave guys a reason to try to escape submissions by other means rather than just going to the ropes immediately.