Dark Pegasus Video Review: In Your House 18 – Badd Blood ’97

Badd Blood ’97 by J.D. Dunn October 5, 1997 Live from St. Louis, Mo. Your hosts are Jim Ross, Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler. Opening Match, Handicap Tag: The Rock, D-Lo Brown & Kama Mustafa vs. The Legion of Doom. This was supposed to be a six-man tag with Ken Shamrock joining the LOD, but he was re-injured against Vader, so the LOD offers to make it a handicap match. Rock shows how adept he is as a heel, and it’s a 180-degree turn from his failed babyface run. Hawk and Kama do an awkward sequence where they just don’t seem to be on the same page. Animal winds up as your face-in-peril, and Rocky works in a few ballshots. Hawk gets the tag, but the ref was distracted by the NOD. That leads to a D-Lo frogsplash, which I thought might be the finish, but Animal tags out moments later. The LOD clean house and set up for the Doomsday Device on Rocky, but Faarooq runs down and distracts Hawk. Kama sneaks in and kicks Hawk in the back of the head, leading to a Rock Bottom (still unnamed) for the win at 13:19. * Vince announces that Brian Pillman has been found dead and extends condolences to Pillman’s family. Max Mini & Nova vs. Tarantula & Mosaic. Vince implies this is a replacement for the Pillman match, which would explain why it seems thrown together. This is semi-lucha rules, so they don’t have to tag. Tarantula tosses Max onto the announce table, prompting an “in your face, little man” celebration from Lawler. Eventually, Max gets a complicated armdrag on Tarantula and finishes with a crucifix at 6:42. *1/2 WWF Tag Team Titles: The Headbangers vs. The Godwinns (w/Uncle Cletus). Sunny is your special guest announcer. The match itself is horribly boring, but the presence of Uncle Cletus (Tony Anthony) reminds me of one of my favorite angles of all time. See, Tony Anthony was known as “the Dirty White Boy” back in the 1980s. He had a skanky girlfriend known as – what else – the Dirty White Girl. Just picture Jamie Noble and Nidia. Well, back in Continental (which originated from Alabama), DWB was feuding with current WWE backstage guru Tom Pritchard. One week, Dirty White Girl came out sporting a black eye and asked the announcers to call out Tom Pritchard. She begged Pritchard for help because White Boy was getting abusive, so Pritchard gave her a PSA speech about not taking abuse. Of course, it all wound up being a ruse, because Dirty White Boy attacked Pritchard with a chair and wound up hanging him with a noose! It was one of the angles that revitalized Continental before it went under for good along with all the rest of the territories. Anyway, the match just drags on thanks to no one caring about hillbilly gimmicks outside of Vince McMahon. The Bangers wake up the crowd with some doubleteams, but Mosh tries a rana attempt and gets powerbombed at 12:18. This was really screwy because the Headbangers were actually generating a bit of a following before this. Not only that, but the Godwinns would be nothing more than transitional champs, dropping the titles to the LOD a few days later. 1/2* They do a nice, tasteful tribute to the St. Louis legends of wrestling – Kiniski, the Funks, the Briscoes, and Lou Thesz among others. Vince then flushes a lot of good will down the toilet by trying to deflect the WWF’s culpability in Pillman’s death, saying it’s a problem that exists throughout all sports. In fact, if you listen to McMahon’s “Vincespeak” throughout the night, he sounds very nervous. Vacant Intercontinental Title: Owen Hart vs. Faarooq (w/the Nation). Both guys are heels, which means that the crowd doesn’t care who wins. This came about because Owen injured Austin at Summerslam, so the WWF announced a tournament. Unfortunately, outside of Owen, all of the interesting competitors got injured. Shamrock was hurt by Faarooq. Ahmed Johnson (who was supposed to be in the finals here) wound up getting hurt too, and in fact that injury would practically end his career. The match doesn’t really matter much because Steve Austin hogs most of the camera time by abusing the announce teams. Jim Neidhart eventually runs down, distracting the ref long enough for Austin to nail Faarooq with the title belt. Owen covers and gets the win at 7:15. “Why?” you might be asking yourself. Because Austin wanted to win the title from Owen at Survivor Series. This would lead to a war between Austin and the Nation, which would take the form of Austin versus the Rock, which would fuel the WWF for the next few years. 3/4* The Disciples of the Apocalypse vs. Los Boriquas. This is another bonus match. Geez, how long was Pillman versus Dude Love supposed to go?! This was an offshoot of the Nation of Domination split that saw Crush and Savio form their own factions. Everyone just kind of blended together on each team, meaning no one really got over out of the whole mess. The DOA actually has some heat thanks to an implied alliance with the Undertaker and the fact that they look like they could kick some ass. The Boriquas just look like they guys who sang backup for Ricky Ricardo. The match itself is some good, old-fashioned clusterfuckery. The Boriquas isolate Crush for a bit before it all breaks down. Crush hits a tilt-o-whirl backbreaker for the win at 9:11. Bleh. 3/4* Vader works a “bullshit” into his pre-match promo. Flag Match: Bret Hart & The British Bulldog vs. The Patriot & Vader. You can win by pinfall, submission, or capturing the other team’s flag. The thing devolves into a big brawl before the match even starts. Things finally get settled down enough to start, and the Patriot keeps trying to climb for the flag like an idiot. Bret just gives him a low blow. Bret tries to slug it out with Vader, which goes about as well as you’d expect. The match is oddly sluggish, consider three of the four participants are top-shelf workers. Bret applies the Sharpshooter to the Patriot, but Patriot reverses to his own. Vader goes up, but Bret shoves him off. Now, VADER tries a Sharpshooter, but Bulldog breaks it up. Well, that would have been interesting. Patriot comes in without a tag and locks in the figure-four on Bret. Bulldog is able to reach in and tag, though. Vader goes up for a moonsault and LANDS ON HIS FEET when Bulldog moves out of the way. They all fight to the floor where Bret hits Vader with the ring bell. Patriot hits Uncle Slam on Bret, and a fan runs in. Yeah, you got two guys who love steroids more than they love their moms, you got a guy who once shoved his own eyeball back into his socket and completed a match, and you have a guy who has been stretching people since he was a fetus. That’s a good time to try for some face time. The ending is kind of disjointed as a result of the fan. Davey and Vader have to brawl to the floor while Patriot rolls up Bret inside. Bret simply reverses with a handful of tights at 21:17. Bad ending to a disappointing match. These guys can hit average simply by showing up, but this had the potential to be a ****+ match. **1/4 Hell in the Cell: The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels. Shawn cost Taker the title at Summerslam and turned heel. They had a pull apart brawl the previous month in which the Undertaker REALLY got pissed. The cell was pretty much to make sure Shawn wouldn’t be able to escape. Shawn was European Champion at this point but it’s not on the line making it seem all the more certain that the Undertaker is winning. Shawn tries to run away at first but runs right into a boot. The Flair flip makes its appearance early. The announcers speculate on whether the Undertaker is just taking his time before finishing Shawn off. Shawn just gets tossed around here like a ragdoll. This is sort of the flipside of the Diesel match at “GF,BE” as now Shawn makes his running seem obnoxious and cowardly rather than a strategy. Undertaker gets pushed off the apron to turn the tide. Shawn slams the ringsteps down on him and then piledrives him on top of them. Undertaker makes a comeback and backdrops Shawn over the top onto the cameraman (indy worker). Shawn gets pissed and beats up the camera guy. Ross: “Dammit, he’s got a family to feed.” This forces them to raise up the cage and they fight on top for a while leading to the infamous spot where Shawn falls from the edge of the cage through the announce table (a spot that seemed insane at the time until it was topped around nine months later). Taker tosses his bloody defeated carcass back into the ring and prepares for the finish…but, the lights go out. HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE!!! “That’s–that’s. That’s gotta be Kane! That’s gotta be Kane!” Yes, after months of speculation and Paul Bearer’s cryptic rants, Kane makes his WWE debut. Taker’s look is awesome as he stands in awe of the little kid he nearly burned to death (or was it Kane who set the fire?) all those years ago. Kane Tombstones the Dead Man straight to hell and leaves. HBK uses his quivering leg to push himself over and cover the Taker for the win. ****3/4

The 411: Pillman's death cast a pall on this show, as a few of the matches were just thrown together at the last minute, and the other guys had a hard time giving their full effort. The main event is a Match of the Year Candidate with only Austin vs. Bret and the 10-man tag beating it out, which would normally earn the show a thumbs up, but that match is available on both Shawn and the Taker's DVDs, making this one irrelevant. Thumbs down for everything but the main.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]