Dark Pegasus Video Review: IYH: D-Generation X

In Your House: D-Generation X by J.D. Dunn December 6, 1997 Live from Springfield, Mass. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. Opening Match, Vacant Light-Heavyweight Title: Taka Michinoku vs. Brian Christopher. Christopher has Droz/Albert’s music, which should show you how much effort they put into all of these guys. Christopher tosses Taka around for a while and plays to the crowd. King works in a bunch of skinny jokes, and short jokes, and Japanese jokes. Finally, Taka backflips out of a waistlock and hits a flurry of kicks. Big pop for Taka. SPRINGBOARD PLANCHA! That’s awesome! Christopher crotches him on the top rope and tries a dive off the top. That doesn’t work out well as he smashes his face on the barricade. Back in, Taka gets two off a Tornado DDT. Christopher bails but gets wiped out by a quebrada. It also wipes out a fan’s sign. Lawler goes to check on his kid. Back in, Christopher hits a bunch of future finishers like the Breakdown and Fameasser. It’s all Memphis stuff after that, which is stupid because would I want to watch a couple of light-heavyweights wrestle a match that heavyweights can do? The point is to set yourself apart. No wonder this never got over. The Tennessee Jam (top-rope legdrop) misses, and Taka hits a Michinoku Driver for the win at 12:02. Taka was over big time here, as evidenced by the pops he was getting for his moves, but Christopher got nothing for his heel work. The title was practically dead on arrival and wouldn’t be meaningful again until Malenko arrived on the scene a little over two years later. Even that is arguable. ** Jackal and Kevin Kelly host the call-in line. See, kids. Back before the internet, we used use phones. I should point out that Don Callis’ Jackal gimmick is almost exactly the same as John Morrison’s today. Los Boriquas vs. The Disciples of the Apocalypse. Crush was sent packing to WCW by Kane, but the ref evens things up by sending Savio Vega to the back. DOA dominates early, and they’re pretty over, especially Chainz. Finally, Miguel Perez nails 8-Ball from the outside. The Boriquas take over, but Miguel hyper-extends his knee. Savio tries to replace him, but the ref won’t allow it. Chainz eventually tags in and hits the DVD, but Miguel makes a miraculous comeback and hits a somersault legdrop. The Boriquas pick up the win at 8:01. Meh. The Boriquas never capitalized on it, bouncing around for a while until disappearing in mid-98. * Butterbean says he’s going to clean Mero’s clock because he treats Sable so badly. Toughman Match: Marc Mero (w/Sable) vs. Butterbean. This is a precursor to the Brawl for All about eight months later. It’s divided into rounds, but I won’t even bother because it’s all silly and just an excuse to put Mero over as a jerk. There’s no real boxing and no fake wrestling, so it’s just Mero getting cheap heat (of which he was the master in late 1997). Butterbean makes the big comeback, so Mero freaks and goes low for the DQ at around 10:01 (total time). He smashes a stool over Bean’s head and runs away. * In the back, Dude Love talks to folks on AOL. Sadly, he is only one-third in character, wearing his plaid shirt and Mankind T-shirt. Pinkdust and Luna come out to read “Green Eggs and Ham.” He reads half of the book sounding like Kelly of “Shoes” fame. Finally, even Luna gets sick of listening and yanks him by his leash to the back. Oh my God, how controversial and taboo-breaking! Please take my money! WWF Tag Team Titles: “Road Dog” Jesse Jammes & “Bad Ass” Billy Gunn vs. The Legion of Doom. The champs were just a couple of JTTS who were paired together because they had nothing better to do, and they got lucky. They weren’t even the Outlaws yet. That pairing up of jobbers, by the way, is yet another Russo staple, and it’s one of his more successful ones. The Roadies run roughshod over the Roadie early. They smash him into the announce table, and then Animal powerbombs him on a leapfrog attempt. Billy saves but gets sent into the steps, and the Not-Yet-Outlaws threaten to walk. Finally, Road Dog hits hawk with an ice chest (seriously?) to take over. Hawk plays face-in-peril. He doesn’t sell much, so it’s not like he’s in any serious jeopardy. Animal gets the hot tag, and the LOD set up for the Doomsday Device. Henry Godwinn runs in with the slop bucket and nails Animal. Hawk steals the bucket and cleans house on everyone for the lame DQ at 10:36. This would lead to a fairly boring rematch at the Royal Rumble. The LOD would get one last burst of life with Sunny before Droz and “the pusher” storyline took over. Conversely, the Outlaws would take off like a rocket thanks to anal sex jokes. 3/4* Boot Camp Match: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Triple H (w/Chyna). Slaughter gets Kurt Angle’s music. For those who don’t remember, DX got over largely by abusing Slaughter and making fun of his lisp, age, moustache, hairline, weight, wife, career, suit, position in life, gimmick, penis size, and man boobs. Slaughter came out of retirement for this match, but he probably should have stayed there. Hunter does what he did best in 1997 – take a vicious beating. Sadly, Slaughter is working at about half the speed he did when he was at his peak (which was NOT during his WWF Title run). Hunter gets a pretty big face pop for avoiding the Cobra Clutch. Sarge takes his over-the-top bump to the post and gets sent into the steps. HHH nails the timekeeper with his own bell, but Sarge recovers enough to defend himself. Back in, Slaughter blocks a right and slugs Hunter. He busts out the chain but gets backdropped to the floor. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Sarge comes back and goes up but gets slammed off. Sleeper by Helmsley, which is just what this match needed. Slaughter hulks up and reverses to the Cobra Clutch. Helmsley does a better selljob. Chyna shoves the ref down and breaks the hold, but it’s a No DQ match. She grabs a chair, but Slaughter tosses powder in her eyes. He takes Helmsley’s boot upside his head but comes back and applies the Cobra Clutch. Chyna sneaks back in and goes low to set up the Pedigree on the chair at 17:44. Waaaaaay too long. I didn’t mind the booking, which was total DX. If Slaughter had been able to go the way he did 15-20 years earlier, this might have been a good match. He couldn’t, so it wasn’t. Next! *1/4 Jeff Jarrett predicts a world title in his future. Yes. The meaningless NWA Heavyweight Title. The meaningless WCW Heavyweight Title. The meaningless NWA Heavyweight Title again. The Undertaker vs. Jeff Jarrett. This falls under the “who booked this crap?” column. This is Jarrett’s much-hyped return to the WWF after a run as a Horseman in WCW. This is also the debut of what is derisively called “The Aztec Warrior” costume for Jarrett. It’s basically a teal and orange Southwestern design. Oddly enough, it’s like the reverse of the Taker’s costume – at least the robe. Jarrett sticks and moves, but Taker catches him and fires off a flurry of punches. The Ropewalk Forearm knocks Jeff down, and Taker chokes him in the corner. Jarrett blocks the chokeslam and clips the leg. Jarrett works the leg, but Taker no-sells it and hits a backbreaker and legdrop (with his good leg, but still). The lights go out, and Kane stalks down to ringside and chokeslams Jarrett for looking at him funny. That’s a DQ at 6:16. Taker refuses to fight, so Kane does the pyro pose and leaves. Jarrett tries to pick the Undertaker’s bones and gets chokeslammed for his trouble. For all the hype, Jarrett looked like a total jobber here, which begs the question – was he being punished for his attitude during his previous run and, if so, why did they bother hyping him in the first place? *1/4 Mark Henry hangs out in the crowd… earning his 10-year contract. Yes, I know he was injured. Don’t bother. Henry would return not long after this as a member of the Nation. He purports to be a Stone Cold fan here, though. Intercontinental Title: Steve Austin vs. The Rock (w/the Nation). This is kind of an offshoot from an earlier mini-feud involving Austin, Owen Hart, and Faarooq over the Intercontinental Title. Austin drives his black 3:16 truck down the aisle and attacks Rock. The Nation puts the boots to him, but Austin picks them off one-by-damned-one. D-Lo gets backdropped into the windshield and takes a Stunner on the top. Finally, we get underway, and it’s a HUGE slugfest. The Thesz Press leads to pummeling, but Rock tosses Austin to the floor. Kama tries a chairshot but knocks Faarooq out. DAMN! Back in, the ref is distracted, so the Rock goes low. The People’s Elbow only gets two. He tries it again without the elbow pad, but Austin avoids it. He stops short on the Stunner attempt and goes after Kama. The ref spins him around, so Austin Stuns the ref. Rocky grabs the brass knuckles, but Austin Stuns him as a new ref comes in and counts three. Austin picks up the win at 5:34. Austin would later be stripped of the title and toss it into the river rather than hand it over to the Rock. This match was like a Reader’s Digest condensed version of their better matches. **1/2 WWF Heavyweight Title: Shawn Michaels (w/DX) vs. Ken Shamrock. This is what we call a “placeholder” feud. At this point, there was a *very* slim possibility that Shamrock would be the big babyface of 1998 rather than Austin because the WWF had hyped Shamrock so much that they had to do *something* with him. Inside rumor is that Shawn sabotaged Shamrock’s push here for a number of reasons, some of them not even selfish. This includes asking Ken to call his spots louder because wrestlers were complaining they couldn’t hear him and then going to Vince and saying Shamrock couldn’t work because he called spots too loudly. I don’t know how true any of that really is, but this definitely isn’t one of Shawn’s finer efforts. At the time, most people either chalked it up to the DX gimmick of not taking anything seriously or to Shawn’s mounting injuries. At any rate, Shawn at half-speed is still better than most guys on their best day, so this is hardly a terrible match or anything. Shamrock hits a big roundhouse kick early, and Shawn bails. Shamrock continues to dominate, backdropping Shawn over the top. Funny visual as Shawn takes a sip of water and charges, but Shamrock nails him with a right, sending an Evian geyser out of Shawn’s mouth. Shawn grabs the ref to block a belly-to-belly and goes low. Lots of DX interference behind the ref’s back follows. Shawn puts the match in the deep freeze with a chinlock. Shamrock fights back and counters a hiptoss to a rollup. He comes back for real with a huracanrana. Shawn goes to the eyes, and Shamrock nearly does a job to the top rope as he tries to bounce off the ropes but hits his head and knocks himself silly. Shawn improvises with his own huracanrana, but Shamrock counters to a powerbomb for two. Hunter and Chyna put the boots to him as Shawn distracts the ref. Shawn comes back with the Usual, but Shamrock ducks Sweet Chin Music and applies the Anklelock. That brings in Hunter and Chyna for the second-worst finish of a PPV main event that month. Shawn is disqualified at 18:30. **1/2 But wait! Owen Hart makes one of the most shocking returns in WWF history and jumps Shawn from behind. He breaks Shawn’s nose and tries to poke out his eyes before Hunter makes the save. Shawn versus Owen would have been a huge money match, but Taker got the nod instead while Owen was demoted to HHH.

The 411: Let's do the Joe Bob Briggs tally, shall we? Okayish match. Bad match with a bad finish. DQ finish. DQ finish. Bad, drawn-out match between edgy heel and old-school babyface. DQ finish. Pretty good short match between the two biggest stars of all time. DQ finish. Eight matches, and half of them end in DQ finishes to save face for someone. No wonder the buyrates stunk. Thumbs way down here.

Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]