Dark Pegasus Video Review: In Your House X – Mind Games

IYH 10: Mind Games by J.D. Dunn I may be off on my timing just a tad, but I believe this was right around the time that Vince Russo went from being a booking consultant to co-writing the shows with Vince McMahon. Look for more “shooting.” September 22, 1996 Live from Philadelphia, Pa. Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect. Free-For-All: Marty Janetty (w/Leif Cassidy) vs. Savio Vega. Shoot #1: Justin Hawk Bradshaw joins us to shoot on McMahon for not letting him on PPV. It’s funny watching these older promos from JBL because he has all the same mannerisms, but the context is all off. Vince and JR mention “a small wrestling franchise” in the area, explaining some of the bizarre chants. I wonder if that will come into play later in the night. In fact, there’s a guy in the front section wearing an ECW shirt. I wonder if that will be important later. Janetty, who is really not cut out to be a heel, controls early while Leif (Al Snow) mugs for the camera. Savio gets one move in and surprises Marty with a crossbody at 5:15. After the match, Bradshaw attacks Savio to set up a match between the two on PPV. 3/4* Opening Match, Caribbean Strap Match: Savio Vega vs. Justin Hawk Bradshaw (w/Uncle Zebekiah). Well, they certainly cut through that red tape in a hurry to make this match. Bradshaw jumps Savio upon his entrance and tosses him across the ring. Bradshaw touches two corners. Shoot #2: They brawl to the floor where ECW’s Sandman spits beer on Savio’s back. It turns out Sandman and Tommy Dreamer are trying to jump the rail to get on camera. Security has to cart them off. To their credit, Savio and Bradshaw play it like a shoot. Taz would show up the following night on Raw, though, confirming a working relationship between the WWE and ECW. Back in, Savio delivers a backdrop suplex and hits a spinning wheel kick, but Bradshaw yanks him down. The finish is *exactly* like the great strap match at Beware of Dog with Savio following Bradshaw around and touching all the corners. Then, Bradshaw yanked him too hard, and Savio landed on the fourth one for the win at 7:06. If this match showed anything, it’s that Bradshaw was no Steve Austin at this point. The match was mostly overshadowed by the ECW angle too. * In the back, a shaky handheld camera catches Diesel and Razor Ramon attacking Savio Vega wayyyy down the hall. By the time the cameraman gets there, they’re gone. Shoot #3: Someone had been feeding the dirtsheets lines that there was an out clause in the WCW contracts of Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and said that there was a possibility of them being unhappy. So Jim Ross began touting that he would produce Diesel and Razor on WWF TV. Of course, it would all be a trick by Ross to humiliate Vince McMahon for firing him all those times…or something like that. Jim Cornette vs. Jose Lothario. Oy. This is an extension of the feud between Shawn Michaels and Camp Cornette. The fact that both guys come out to their superstars music (Lothario comes out to “Sexy Boy,” Cornette to Vader’s lumbering tune.) is the most entertaining part of the match. Lothario finishes with a hard right at 0:57. Too short to be overly offensive. O Savio says he doesn’t know who it was who attacked him, but he hopes it wasn’t Razor because they grew up together. You know how to tell it’s not Scott Hall — he showed up. Yes, I’m going to keep driving that joke into the ground. Brian Pillman, who promised that Bret Hart would show up at the PPV to make up with Owen Hart after six months off, says that he is not a liar. Bret called both of them liars via video tape. Owen Hart comes out to say Bret Hart indeed did make up with him once he accepted that Owen was the best Hart brother. He thinks Bret isn’t coming back because he’s afraid of Steve Austin. Austin comes out and works in that (s)Hitman joke. He lays out yet another challenge to Bret. In the back, Cornette is so out of it after getting knocked silly that he signs over the rights to manage Owen and the Bulldog to Clarence Mason. That would be a fine angle, but Mason acts like Arnold Drummond on methamphetamines. WWF Tag Team Titles: The Smoking Gunns (w/Sunny) vs. The British Bulldog & Owen Hart (w/Clarence Mason). Both teams are heels here, which you’d think would be fine in Philly, but this match has no heat. Sunny has heat, especially when she pouts over the moustache someone drew on her giant poster. Owen and Billy actually do some nice stuff. Shoot #4: Vince is ranting about the heels, prompting Jim Ross to say he should give them the benefit of the doubt since Vince got the benefit of the doubt when he was indicted. Ha ha! SNAP! Speaking of snaps, Owen clips Bart’s ankle in half. Owen and Davey work the heel role from that point. Vince gets a copy of Clarence Mason’s business card and, get this, HE COMES FROM SIOUX CITY! Get it? “Sioux?” S-sue. It’s a homonym. Billy drags Bulldog to the floor and tosses him into the steps. The Gunns hit Poetry in Motion only with a lame punch instead of a body splash. That sets up the Sidewinder, but Owen hits Billy in the back of the head with a double ax-handle. Billy recovers on the apron before picking a fight with the referee. He was practically DX Billy at this point. He stops to chat up Sunny, allowing Bulldog to shove Bart into him. Billy shoves Bart back, allowing Bulldog to powerslam him for the win at 11:00. Sunny, true to form, dumps the Gunns after the loss. This would trigger the breakup of the Gunns, and would have led to a big singles push for Billy, but he pissed off the office and wound up with the silly “Rockabilly” gimmick. In a funny-if-true story, the Honky Tonk Man originally pitched that gimmick for — who else — the Rock! *3/4 Mark Henry vs. Jerry Lawler. Henry is making his debut, and isn’t this just the perfect city for it?! Vince says Henry doesn’t have the technique down yet. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine how good this guy will be when he gets 10 years under his belt?! Lawler walks him through the match, doing the same basic match that he did against the Junkyard Dog. Henry starts no-selling and finishes with a Canadian Backbreaker at 5:16. Henry also takes out Leif Cassidy, Marty Janetty and Hunter Hearst Helmsley before getting his own pyro display. Take that, Eric Bischoff! 1/2* Final Curtain Match: Undertaker vs. Goldust (w/Marlena). “Final Curtain” just means that there *must* be a winner, and it *must* be the Undertaker. This is the end of the semi-feud between these two that served as the B-story (to take a term Goldust would appreciate) to the Mankind versus Taker feud. Taker destroys Goldust early and picks up Marlena because she’s been getting involved. That allows Goldust to toss gold dust in his eyes. That’s the end of the entertaining portion of the match as the rest is all punching and kicking by Goldust. He gets two off a powerslam, but the Undertaker sits up. Goldust goes up top, but Taker catches him and chokeslams him all the way to the mat. The Tombstone finishes at 10:21. Boring match for the most part. *1/2 WWF Heavyweight Title: Shawn Michaels (w/Jose Lothario) vs. Mankind (w/Paul Bearer). Mankind gets wheeled down to the ring in a casket as an FU to the Undertaker and then cuddles with the urn. The look on Shawn’s face says he has no idea what he’s gotten himself into, and it proves to be prophetic as Mankind blitzes him early and takes them both to the floor with the Cactus Clothesline. Mankind tries to peel back the mat, but Shawn squashes him underneath it and twists into a crossbody. They work in the spot where Mankind goes for a kick and gets spun around, but he misses the clothesline in a bit of twist on the spot. Shawn appears to get legitimately pissed in a spot designed by Mick to work the “smarts” after Shawn nearly threw a tantrum in his match with Vader at Summerslam. Mankind scissors him from behind and goes for the Mandible Claw, but Shawn fights it off. To the floor, Mankind tries to set up the Spanish announce table, but Shawn FLIES over it and tackles Mankind to the floor. They brawl to the other side of the ring where Shawn suplexes Mankind’s knee into the steps, setting up the psychology for the next few minutes of the match. Shawn starts working the knee over, clipping Mankind’s knee and smashing it against the casket. It’s a great way for Shawn to maintain a bit of an edge in front of a normally babyface-hostile crowd. He hits a dragon screw and locks in the figure-four leglock but drops it in favor of dropkicking the knee and turning Mankind over into a half-crab. Mankind desperately hotshots Shawn to buy time and stabs his own leg with a pen to get the feeling back. Oh, that wacky Mick Foley. Back in, he chokes Shawn out and hits the Cactus Knee in the corner. Shawn gets whipped to the corner and winds up in the tree-of-woe. Mankind drops a pair of ax-handles and legdrops him for two. To the floor again, Shawn drop toeholds Mankind’s face right into the steps. Really cool spot as Mankind charges along the apron, but Shawn steps through the ropes, sending Mankind headfirst to the post. Back in, Mankind gets his head lodged in the ropes but manages to grab the Mandible Claw to save himself a beating. On the floor, Shawn blocks a punch with the chair and smashes Mankind’s hand with it. Shawn goes to work on the hand to counteract the Mandible Claw. What a well-booked match! Mankind desperately backdrops Shawn over the top and delivers a swinging neckbreaker. It gets two. A piledriver only gets two more, and Mankind goes nuts, tearing out his hair and tossing chairs into the ring. He decides he can’t beat Shawn, so he’s just going to lock him in the casket. Shawn fights back and hits a flying crossbody for two. Mankind catches him going up the second time and crotches him. Mankind tries a superplex, but they BOTH go through the Spanish announce table below! They both stagger to the ring, and Mankind climbs the ropes with a chair in hand. Shawn kicks it right back in his face and covers, but Vader runs down to interfere for the DQ at 26:25. Sycho Sid runs down to chase Vader to the back. Mankind and Bearer try to seal Shawn in the casket, but the Undertaker is in there and winds up destroying Mankind to set up another match between them. Probably the most smartly booked match since Piper-Bret at WrestleMania VIII. I wish they still had the ability to book things like this one a consistent basis. Easy MOTYC in a series of them for Shawn in 1996. ****3/4

The 411: This is the first PPV to adopt that worked-shoot style that would carry the WWF through the rest of the 1990s. It's worth a look from that aspect. The main event, the only watchable match, is available on both Shawn and Mick's DVDs, which should give you some idea of how good it is. Check it out for the main event and the notable shift in tone between this and the earlier PPVs. Normally, a match of that caliber would make a two-hour show an automatic thumbs up, but since it's available elsewhere, I'd recommend getting those DVDs instead. Thumbs in the middle, tilting up because of the main event.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]