wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: In Your House 12 – It’s Time!
December 18, 2007 | Posted by
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| IYH 12: It’s Time! by J.D. Dunn When I hear hardcore right-wingers talk about the so-called “homosexual mafia,” I now know who their talking about thanks to seeing Sincere. See, he tells the fans how much he loves them, but he does it in such an over-the-top way that you know he’s lying – hence, “Sincere.” So, who do I make the check out to? There actually was a story here as Corny offered to manage the Rock, and Rock turned him down. The match is also pretty good. Both guys are hungry for approval here, so they bust their asses to get over. They clothesline each other for a double KO. Rock hulks up and gets a powerslam for two. A crossbody gets two more, and Sincere misses a charge. That allows Rock to hit the shoulderbreaker. Jimmy Corn hops in the ring for the DQ at 6:02 to save face for his guy. I’m pretty sure they pipe in a “Rocky” chant here. ** FLASH YOU ARE SOOOOOOO FUNKAAYY! Flash’s Funkettes are pretty sexy this time out. Must be a South Florida thing. Cassidy “wants a singles career,” which is code for “Jannetty got fired/quit.” In fact, Leif had a lot of heat with the office at this point because he (rightly) objected to the finish of the match between the New Rockers and Smoking Gunns. See, Billy was supposed to walk out on Bart to go heel once and for all, and then Bart would beat the New Rockers by himself. Al and Marty both had a problem with that and asked why he had to go over in a 2-on-1 when booker Jake Roberts explained that it was so the Gunns “wouldn’t look like shit.” Snow asked him what that would make the Rockers look like, to which Jake didn’t reply. The Rockers finally agreed to job to Bart if he’d keep it simple, but neither of them were happy about it, and it led to Marty leaving and Leif getting jobbed out (of which, this match is an example). Flash looks great outside of the silly outfit. He screws up a vault to the top but goes through with his crossbody anyway and gets two. Leif blocks a headscissors to a facebuster. Leif wrestles more like Al Snow here, and this was probably the peak of his skill. He belly-to-bellies Flash to the floor and hits a springboard somersault plancha to set up a clothesline. Vince keeps referencing the Bowe vs. Golata fight the night before. Back in, Leif goes for a powerbomb, but Funk gets funky on him. Excuse me – “funkay” on him. Cassidy busts out a Rydien Bomb and a Dragon Clutch but misses a moonsault. Funk hits a handspring flying kick. It occurs to me that Low Ki took half his offense from this match. He follows Leif out with an over-the-top suicida. Back in, a gorgeous moonsault gets two, and they go into a series of rollup reversals. Flash hits an enzuigiri and finishes with a 450-splash at 10:34. This match was way ahead of its time, and both guys would stall out right after this. ***3/4 This is heel vs. heel. This, also, is the first ever match-up between Davey Boy Smith and Rick Bogner. Well, it is! JR makes his infamous dig at Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan, who were busy facing off at Starrcade. Cibernetico and Pierroth invade from AAA to have words with the champs. No one knows who they are, though, so the crowd doesn’t care. Speaking of not caring, no one cares about this match until Steve Austin comes out to watch. This was an odd feud because Austin hated Owen, Pillman and the Bulldog who were all heels, and he hated Bret, who was a babyface. Of course, it all led to Bret and Owen reuniting early in 1997. Bulldog and Austin get into it before Austin is dragged away. Fantasy booking moment: how weird would it have been had Ross brought these two in and had them claim they were back to invade the WWF on behalf of WCW and then they started promising the presence of a “third man” who wound up being a returning Bret Hart? It still would have bombed, but it’s kind of cool to think of the WWF completely ripping off the nWo angle in retaliation for WCW ripping off the Diesel and Ramon characters. The match is your basic tag formula with Owen playing face-in-peril. The Bulldog, who is actually starting to get a lot of face heat, gets the hot tag and cleans house on the Insiders. Diesel catches Owen in mid crossbody, so Bulldog dropkicks them both over. Razor catches him with a clothesline and signals for the Razor’s Edge, but Owen nails him with the spinning heel kick. Davey Boy rolls him up for the win at 10:45. After the match, Austin sneak attacks the Bulldog, and Owen is hesitant to make the save. The stuff with Austin made this much more interesting than the wrestling. **1/4 Helmsley has already rubbed Goldust’s rhubarb by hitting on Marlena, so this is just a formality. Actually, that angle began all the way back at Survivor Series if you were watching closely. Hunter now has “Song of Joy” (or “that song from Die Hard” for the culturally illiterate) as his entrance music. Helmsley avoids the somersault plancha early, but Mero lands on the apron and hits a double ax-handle. Back in, Helmsley drops Mero on his face to take over. Mero backdrops him over, but Helmsley tosses Sable in the way and cheapshots Mero. The ref keeps him from using a chair, though. Back in, Hebner catches Hunter using a rope-assisted abdominal stretch. Hunter shoves him in the chest, causing Hebner to get in his face to a big pop. They’d recycle that one over the next few years, culminating in Jericho getting screwed out of the title. Ross on Helmsley: “The man uses people! He finds people with an inflated sense of worth and uses them…and then he discards them!” Hey, he said it. Mero comes back with a huracanrana, and something gets clipped due to transmission problems, one assumes. Mero goes up for the Wild Thing (Shooting Star Press), but Hunter shoves him into the ropes. Mero catapults Hunter into the post but only gets two this time (as opposed to Beware of Dog). The Merosault only gets two, and the ref gets bumped. Hunter hits a neckbreaker, but Mero hits a flying leg rollup. The ref is slow to count, though. Hunter works in his fall to the floor off a corner whip, and Mero follows him with a somersault plancha. That leads to Goldust coming down and hitting BOTH guys with the Intercontinental Title. Mero slides in just before the ref’s 10-count, earning a COR victory at 13:13 but not the title. After the match, Mero hits Hunter with the Wild Thing to vent his frustration. Good, but not quite as good as their Beware of Dog match. Goldust continues to beat Helmsley down after the match. *** “Armageddon Rules” is basically a fancy name for “Last Man Standing.” The Executioner is the late Terry Gordy. I’m not sure why they put him in the mask because Gordy was a big name star in the 1980s and even into the 1990s, and the name “Terry Gordy” would have drawn more than a generic “Executioner” gimmick. The only thing I can think of is that Gordy was so deteriorated that he didn’t want to ruin his legacy with a poor run. Executioner gets next to no offense, and Undertaker is about to finish him with a Tombstone on the concrete floor, but Mankind runs in and makes the save. It’s a 2-on-1, but the Undertaker fights off both guys, taking them up to that “In Your House” set and DEMOLISHING IT using Mick’s body as a wrecking ball. They all fight right back down to the ring, where security MACES Mankind and tackles him. Taker and Executioner brawl all the way up the steps and out of the arena! Meanwhile, security puts Mankind in a straitjacket. Finally, they get a camera to the outside of the arena where they catch Executioner rolling all the way down into the pool surrounding the arena. Taker returns to the ring and finds a helpless Mankind, so he delivers more punishment to him. Executioner runs back down but takes a Tombstone at 11:33. Even in his heyday, Gordy’s style probably wouldn’t have worked with the gimmicky character of the Undertaker, so they did a great job of working around that with this crazy brawl. It’s really the first of its kind in the WWF. **1/2 Shawn Michaels is on commentary making shoot comments at Bret and Sid. Russonomics is really starting to kick in here as Shawn, Bret, Sid and Steve Austin are all essentially heels, or what we call “anti-heroes” in storytelling. It definitely made things more interesting, but a lot of us old-school fans were kind of apprehensive without our “good guys” and “bad guys.” After all, how can I honestly root for Bret when he’s become so whiny? How can I root for Shawn when he’s so arrogant? How could I *ever* root for Sid? Bret works the back for nearly 10 straight minutes, but Sid comes back with a big boot and a powerslam. Bret rolls to the floor, so Steve Austin runs in and clips his knee. Owen Hart and The British Bulldog, who still hate Bret at this point, run down and pull Austin off him. Back in, Sid picks Bret up to drop him on the exposed turnbuckle (Bret undid it earlier in the match). Bret slips out but slams his head into it while trying to shove Sid into it. Sid chokeslams Bret for two. They brawl to the floor where Sid piefaces Shawn just for fun. Shawn is so pissed that he gets up on the apron to yell at him. Sid and Bret take turns reversing whips, and Bret gets sent right into Shawn who takes a nasty spill to the table. Bret is knocked silly too, so Sid simply powerbombs him to retain at 17:12. After the match, Bret glares at Shawn for costing him the title and then suckerpunches him. Most of the outside stuff took away from the match as the real feuds were between Bret and Shawn, Sid and Shawn, and Bret and Austin, not Bret and Sid. **1/4 |
The 411: Say what you will about what Russo has done since, but in the beginning it really worked. Whereas the WWF had followed the longstanding, traditional formula of "build up one guy to take on your babyface each month," Vince Russo decided to add a little bit of realism so that every guy was just out for himself, which is closer to how it is in the real world. Add to that the innovative brawls that Mick Foley was bringing, and you have a company that was about to experience a rebirth – creatively, if not financially. Solid thumbs up. |
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| Final Score: 7.0 [ Good ] legend |
