wrestling / Video Reviews
Jack Loves B-Shows: WWF In Your House #2
Loading...We’re live from Nashville, Tennessee, and it’s a big night for Jeff Jarrett. Not only is he battling Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental Championship, but he’s going to finally perform his hit song ‘With My Baby Tonight,’ live! Because we’re in Nashville, and the WWF were under the impression only 4 year olds were watching them in 1995, you get smashed over the head with the city’s music heritage right from the get go. Not only is Jarrett performing his song, but Vince and Jerry are dressed like a couple of country singers, and the opening video package is set to a endearingly daft country inspired tune called ‘In Your House’ which hits every single trope of country music you can think of. Still, it should be a better night of wrestling than the first iteration of In Your House; the Shawn Michaels-Jeff Jarrett from this show has a terrific reputation, and while I’ve only seen it once some years ago and don’t remember it well, I have a vague recollection of being rather impressed by it…
MATCH 1- THE 1-2-3 KID VS. THE ROADIE
So consumed by rage is the 1-2-3 Kid at having been put out of action by Jeff Jarrett that he attacks the Roadie on the entrance ramp before the bell has even rang. He then takes him out on the floor with a slingshot crescent kick! Only a glancing blow, but still pretty neat. The Roadie changes the tide with a powerslam. We cut to Double J’s locker room, where it’s revealed that he’s not even watching the match because he’s so focused on his singing debut. Back to the match, as Roadie crotches 1-2-3 Kid against the ring post. And now back to the locker room, where Double J briefs his back-up singers. 1-2-3 Kid begins a comeback, and gets a frog splash for two. A huracanrana is countered into a sit out powerbomb for two! Roadie attempts a piledriver off the second rope! Jesus! He sort of stumbles as he falls backwards and thus doesn’t get all of it, but it’s an impressive effort and enough for the three count! ***. This was a darn good bout, especially when you consider it was really just background to the Jeff Jarrett concert angle and thus they could have got away with half arsing it. Instead, they pulled out some really nice, high impact, athletic stuff. Put it this way- I don’t reckon any of the X-Pac vs. Road Dogg matches in 1999 were even close to this level. We’re 2 for 2 in terms of rock solid In Your House openers, but this was much more of a surprise hit than Bret Hart vs. Hakushi.
Diesel meets Sycho Sid in a Lumberjack match later, and the Million Dollar Corporation are confident their man is taking the championship. Sid’s going to have some stable mates at ringside, and he’s got Diesel right where he wants him- in his asylum!
Barru Didinsky is in Diesel’s dressing room, where a bunch of wrestlers are busy psyching the champ up. But Barry’s not really interested in that. The official In Your House #2 T-Shirt is much more his cup of tea.
MATCH 2- RAZOR RAMON & SAVIO VEGA VS. MEN ON A MISSION
At the last In Your House, Mabel rolled over Adam Bomb to qualify for the King of the Ring. Well, guess what? He only went and bloody won the whole tournament! He returns to the 6th grandest stage of them all wrestling royalty, and Mo has got a knighthood out of his partner’s success. Also at In Your House #1, Savio Vega saved Razor Ramon from the clutches of Jeff Jarrett and the Roadie, and are now teaming up for the very first time.
Mabel tries to squash Savio in the corner, but there’s no one home! He has much more success with a sidewalk slam. Gamenguri gets two, although, perhaps gamenguri is too grand a term for what Mabel actually did, which was ‘flop in Savio’s general direction and, in a happy accident, kick him upside his head.’ Savio unwisely tries to slam Mabel, and you can imagine how that goes. Continuing his record of accidentally pulling off quite high-tech wrestling moves, Mabel hurls Savio over his head and ends up hitting a sort of ultra elevated northern lights suplex. Mo is also in this match, primarily as Mabel’s lackey. He misses a moonsault (MO-ONSAULT. MOANSAULT), and it’s hot tag time for Razor Ramon! Ramon hits a back suplex off the second rope on Mo and looks for the Razor’s Edge, but has to stop to fight off Mabel. That allows Mo to slam him and Mabel to head up top, but Razor slams him all the way back down for a close, close two! Mo knees Ramon in the back, and Mabel capitalises with a DDT! But the big splash misses! Hey, this is actually quite good, you know. Savio takes Mo and himself out to the floor, but in the ring Mabel hits a belly to belly, and that’s enough for three! ** ¾. Gosh, that was shockingly enjoyable. Minus a few points for the only intermittently interesting heat segment on Savio, but the finishing stretch was quite hot, with tons of energy and big moves and a nice dynamic with Razor trying to slug the massive Mabel off his feet and Mabel attempting to use his weight to bounce people around. Fine work all round.
Todd Pettengill has had a welcome hair cut but is still infuriatingly happy about the state of the WWF in 1995. Any honest interviewer would have had the decency to be fucking miserable. I mean, that’s not fair, this show’s been pretty likeable so far.
Dok Hendrix has heard that one of Diesel’s lumberjacks has been bought off by the Million Dollar Corporation, but all of them deny it in the strongest possible terms. Bam Bam Bigelow does threaten to set Sid on fire, which if anything is more alarming.
At this point, Jeff Jarrett comes out for his much hyped live performance of ‘With My Baby Tonight.’ This is actually a really fun angle, because the whole show Jerry Lawler’s been insisting it will be fantastic and Vince McMahon’s been mocking Double J and saying he’s going to fail, and then when the concert begins… Double J kills it. It doesn’t hurt that With My Baby Tonight is genuinely a pretty fun song, but Jarrett just knocks it out the park, and even Vince has to admit he’s impressed. It’s a nice subversion of how you’d expect it to go. Now, Old Muggins here, despite being a fully grown man, didn’t realise that Jeff was lip syncing the whole thing and thought that he was actually just a naturally talented singer. Please feel free to remind me of this if I ever start criticising these 1995 shows for insulting my intelligence. Todd Pettengill takes the temperature of the crowd, who give Jarrett’s performance mixed reviews.
MATCH 3- BAM BAM BIGELOW VS. HENRY GODWINN
They start off by trading meaty back suplexes, and then Bam Bam knocks Henry to the floor with a shoulder block. Back in the ring, Bam Bam lands a DDT, but misses a charge and spills over the top rope. Henry drops Bigelow on the floor with a slam. Henry controls in the ring for a bit, although Bam Bam does land a nice crossbody. Bigelow misses a diving headbutt off the top, but Henry does the same with a flying knee. Bam Bam immediately goes for the cover, and gets the win! ** ½. I tell you what, that was the best possible Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Henry Godwinn match. They kept it short, they threw a bunch of big moves at each other, and there was no time for it to become boring. I particularly liked the opening sequence where they just dropped each other with back suplexes, it was a great mission statement for the match as a whole. An occasion where the In Your House undercard format really worked out.
In the crowd, Bob Backlund campaigns for the Presidency of the United States, as is his wont.
Shawn Michaels’ birthday was only the other day, and he’s fixing to get himself a birthday present. Jeff Jarrett’s Intercontinental Championship would do nicely!
MATCH 4- WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP- JEFF JARRETT VS. SHAWN MICHAELS
Shawn and Jeff take turns out wrestling each other and then showing off about it. HBK takes Jarrett to the floor with a Cactus clothesline, then skins the cat back in and mimics Double J’s strut! Jeff contemplates accepting a count-out loss, but compromises with some time wasting instead, entering the ring to break the count and then immediately exiting it again. Shawn knocks Roadie off the apron with an eye rake, then catapults Double J over the top rope onto him! And then wipes out both with a high crossbody off the top rope! Shawn re-enters the ring, and then speedily exits it again when Jeff backdrops him over the top rope. Scary fall! I tell you what, people like to joke about Vince McMahon having a bit of a hard-on for Roman Reigns, but the utter adoration he displays on commentary for Shawn during this period is quite nauseating, especially considering what a thundering cunt Michaels was in real life at the time. Happily, Vince’s headset stops working for a bit, allowing Jerry Lawler to do some pretty funny solo commentary. Also, this match is ace. The execution of every move is pretty much immaculate and it really feels like two terribly arrogant, terribly good wrestlers trying to show each other who the better man is. Shawn’s almost counted out after the Roadie clobbers him with a flying clothesline, but he just manages to break the count. They trade roll ups, and then Jeff cracks Shawn on the jaw with a dropkick to end a scorching sequence. Michaels rallies and bounces Jarrett around the ring. Heartbreak elbow drop gets two! Jarrett gets crotched on the ring post! Shawn tries to follow up with another top rope movie, but Roadie wiggles the ropes and Shawn’s crotched, buying Jeff the time to hit a suplex. Figure four COUNTERED into the inside cradle! Oh, I wish I was a good enough writer to accurately convey how bloody marvellous this is! The pace is so quick and the crowd is so into it and this is just great, great wrestling! The ref gets bumped, and Roadie takes the chance to clip Shawn’s knee. Jarrett goes up top, and a high crossbody gets… two! Roadie then absent mindedly sweeps Jeff’s legs away, and Shawn capitalises with Sweet Chin Music to get the three count! **** ½. I always think those finishes where someone accidentally trips their pal up as they bounce off the ropes stretch the boundaries of credibiliy, but like fuck does it take away anything from the match that preceded it. Both Shawn and Double J seemed exceptionally motivated, they worked practically the whole match at a searing pace, and were desperate to outdo the other in every way. Some of the sequences were just sensational, the two of them chaining together moves and counters with absolute ease. This was really great pro wrestling, probably Jarrett’s best match ever, but hey, I think maybe only the 3rd or 4th best match in the WWF in 1995? I mean, there were a lot of awful, awful things about that year (I was born in it, for a start), but there were some really good matches amidst all the childish drivel.
Team Diesel is over the moon with Shawn’s victory, and Barry Didinsky takes the opportunity to shill Shawn’s new HBK t-shirt. It’s bright red and, on the front, has Shawn posing seductively in the middle of a love heart. Who wore these things? Elsewhere, an overexcited Dok Hendrix informs us that Jeff Jarrett and the Roadie had some heated words backstage, and the Roadie slugged Double J!
MATCH 5- WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS- YOKOZUNA & OWEN HART VS. THE ALLIED POWERS
There’s a pretty fun spot where Luger knocks Yokozuna into the corner, and as the big man falls he crashes into Owen’s knee. Yoko and Owen then get into a shoving match, which, unsurprisingly, Yoko wins, but they get back on the same page to the relief of their manager Jim Cornette. Bulldog and Owen do a neat wrestling sequence, which ends with Bulldog throwing Owen into the air and the King of Harts coming crunching down on his shoulder! Bulldog becomes face in peril eventually, with Yoko wearing him down in a fairly ordinary manner. Owen turns him inside out with an enzuiguri for two. Luger comes in off the hot tag and is a house of fire.. He military presses Owen into Yokozuna, and teams up with Bulldog to take both men down with double clotheslines. Yokozuna misses a charge in the corner, and the Powers take him down with a double back suplex! The referee is too distracted removing Bulldog from the ring to count Lex’s pin though, so Owen takes the opportunity to break it up with a flying axe handle. Yokozuna drops the leg, and gets the three count! ***. Not on the level of the previous match or anything, but this was still darn fine. Brisk, lots of energy, a few nice moves and sequences. It was never going to be a classic, but it didn’t try to be. All it wanted to be good, and it was! No complaints from me.
Todd Pettengill recaps the Diesel-Sid feud, which began when the WWF Champion rescued his pal Shawn Michaels from a relentless powerbombing at the hands of Sycho. From then on, the story of the rivalry was whether Sid was afraid of Diesel; he had several opportunities to go toe to toe with Big Daddy Cool, and neglected to take any of them. Tonight, Diesel’s picked 15 lumberjacks, Sid’s picked 15, and Diesel and Sid will have no choice to fight it out! But of course, there’s the rumour that Ted DiBiase has bought out one of Diesel’s guys…
Diesel warns Sid that there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and this is going to get finished once and for all tonight!
MATCH 6- LUMBERJACK MATCH FOR THE WWF CHAMPIONSHIP- DIESEL VS. SYCHO SID
There’s only 14 minutes left of the video, so this shouldn’t get much of a chance to drag this otherwise excellent little show down too much, thankfully.
Diesel knocks Sid out to the floor a couple of times and the good lumberjacks throw him back in to establish the concept of the match. He falls into the bad lumberjacks, who all give him words of support and friendly pats on the back. Diesel falls to the floor and the bad lumberjacks maul him, which trigger a 15 on 15 brawl on the floor! The bits of the match that don’t involve the lumberjacks aren’t much fun. Case in point- after a couple of minutes of dull clubbering in the ring, Diesel suddenly slingshots over the top rope onto a pile of the bad lumberjacks! LUCHA KEVIN NASH. Mabel has had enough of this shit and squashes Diesel against the ring post, then slams him on the floor as another huge brawl breaks out. Credit where credit’s due, it’s nice to see one title match leading fluidly into the next one, even if neither of them are all that appetising. Thankfully, Diesel vs. Mabel does not fall under the remit of the B-show project. Sid gets his powerbomb on Diesel, but he takes too long to make the cover, instead opting to celebrate prematurely with his buds. Diesel kicks out of the resulting cover, and then counters another powerbomb with a back body drop. Sid tries to maul all the good lumberjacks, but Shawn Michaels picks him off from the air! The bad lumberjacks start popping into the the ring, but Diesel keeps them at bay, then flattens Sid with a big boot for the win! * ½. I have a lot of nice things to say about this match. The Lumberjack stipulation really added to it, for one thing; it was a logical way to end the Diesel-Sid feud, and all the interactions between the two teams of lumberjacks were good, chaotic fun. They also used the match as an opportunity to build to the major Summerslam matches, Diesel-Mabel and Shawn-Sid, without said build overshadowing the match actually happening. OK, Diesel-Mabel was one of the worst matches in Summerslam history and Shawn-Sid was ditched at the last minute, but hey, points for effort. Unfortunately, the portions of the match where Diesel and Sid were alone in the ring wrestling were pretty much nothing. Outside of the finishing sequence I’m not even sure they did any moves, just sort of lumbering and punching and kicking. As such, it was a bout that moved in fits and starts, lurching wildly between enjoyable mayhem on the floor and utter drudgery in the ring. I’m going for * ½ but I wonder if I’m being a bit harsh on it; I’ve seen Lumberjack matches make far worse use of the stipulation. But, I mean, it wasn’t what you’d call ‘good.’
