In Your House 7

Legacy Review

In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies

April 28, 1996 from the Omaha Civic Auditorium in Omaha, NE

Commentary: Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler

"The King of Harts" Owen Hart and "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith def Ahmed Johnson and Jake "The Snake" Roberts in 13:47- Before the match Jim Cornette and Clarence Mason present ref Tim White with an injunction barring Roberts' snake from ringside. Roberts responds by ripping it up and presenting said snake to the court. Everyone bails. Cornette passes out in the ring and has to be revived and carried off. White tells Roberts the order is legally binding no matter how many pieces you tear it up in and the snake has to go. Roberts complies, but comes back with a very pissed off Ahmed Johnson. Also known as normal Ahmed Johnson. Johnson's got a broken thumb courtesy of the Bulldog. Roberts jumps Owen before the bell finally rings. Owen tags out to a very reluctant Bulldog. Johnson tags in. Bulldog says nope, turns around and tags Owen's back! Johnson throws Owen around and points for Bulldog. After getting tossed around some more Owen escapes a Roberts' DDT attempt. Bulldog runs away from Johnson again. Owen badly loses a test of strength. Johnson clotheslines Owen as Owen was already in mid-dive in a not good stiff way. While he's stomping Owen down in the corner in a.....unique Johnson style Bulldog hits him from behind. Johnson no sells almost everything and chokes Bulldog back into the heel corner. Dumb move, as it allows Owen to get a cheap shot in. Johnson blocks a slam and press slams Owen. Owen Bret bumps but turns around and gets a knee up on Roberts. Missile dropkick as Roberts goes face in peril, because he's the only one that will sell, with heel double teams. There's a lot of "it's still real to me dammit" guys in the front row of the crowd tonight. Roberts fights out of a Sharpshooter attempt. Owen locks on a sleeper. Roberts jawbreakers out. Tags. Johnson spinebuster on Bulldog. The heels stop another DDT attempt. The faces clear the ring. Bulldog grabs the tennis racket Cornette left behind, whacks Roberts in the knee with it, and hooks up a kneebar to make him submit. Owen and Bulldog tried the best they could. Roberts was not his old self physically and Johnson was both terrible and terribly unsafe. *1/4

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship: The Ultimate Warrior def Goldust (c) (w/Marlena and bodyguard) by countout in 7:38- Instead of throwing Warrior right back in the main event Vince is testing his commitment with a secondary title match instead. Smart. Goldust's bodyguard is the artist formerly known as Mantaur and his making his debut in the role tonight. Goldust blew some gold dust in Warrior's face on the preshow and tweaked his knee while doing, apparently a legit injury they had to cover for considering how this whole thing unfolds. Goldust immediately stalls on the floor and meanders back up the aisle. Marlena left her cigar behind, so Warrior picks it up and puffs on it. He scoops Goldust's chair up and sets it up in the ring while casually smoking. I remind you the bell has rung to start the match. Now he gets the wig and robe and sets them up on the chair. Warrior plonks down in it and chills. I remind you the bell has rung to start the match. Goldust walks toward the ring, gets scared and walks away again. Eventually he goes around to the timekeeper's area, grabs a mic, and threatens to kiss everyone in the crowd. No comment. Finally, slowly, Goldust gets in the ring. Behind Marlena. Warrior, the gentleman, gives Marlena her cigar back. He then offers to put Goldust's robe on him and does. Goldust sits down in the chair and everyone plays nice....until Warrior puts the cigar out on his hand and clotheslines him out of the chair. Goldust rolls out, walks away and doesn't come back. After the bell for the countout Warrior beats up the bodyguard. Only a match in the most technical definition of the word. DUD

Bulldog is outside Shawn Michaels' dressing room door looking extremely pissed off and being held back by Owen and officials. Dok Hendrix says it's "something about his wife".

 

Vader (w/Jim Cornette) def Razor Ramon in 14:49- Vader had just put Yokozuna on the shelf by destroying his leg with a series of Vader bombs. On the opening lockup Vader tosses Ramon aside and Ramon flies over the top rope to the floor! More power and Vader gut shots, followed by the Vader stiff potato punches. Short clothesline. Ramon runs under a couple of clothesline attempts and hits some punches. He goes for a Razor's Edge but Vader backdrops him to the floor. Ramon pops right back up and pounds Vader down in the corner. A series of Ramon clotheslines take Vader to the floor. Vader stalls a while getting back in. He tries to ambush during a Cornette distraction but Ramon is all over it. Vader reverses a corner whip and hits an avalanche. Big splash for 2. More potatoes in the corner. Ramon counters with a back suplex for 2. Vader bomb! Ramon kicks out! Vader hits a back suplex. Ramon blocks a suplex and hits Vader with one for 2. Vader goes up to the second rope, flips off and Ramon tries to make it look like he's slamming him. Ramon bulldog off the second rope for 2. Vader hits a tackle. He sets up another Vader bomb. Ramon counters and tries to lift him up for a Razor's Edge but can't hold him. Vader goes up top. Ramon lifts him up and drops him with an electric chair. Vader counters another Razor's Edge attempts, squashes Ramon with a butt splash, and it's over. Ramon goes out on his back. More on that later. Mostly solid with Vader's usual stiffness, but they also struggled to get on the same page in places. **1/2

After the match Hendrix tells Vader and Cornette that per Gorilla Monsoon, at the next In Your House Vader will face Yokozuna. Corny and Vader are all kinds of pissed off.

 

WWF Tag Team Championship: The Bodydonnas (c) (w/Sunny) def The Godwinns (w/Hillbilly Jim) in 7:17- The overarching story here is Sunny has been using her....assets to attract dimwitted Phineas Godwinn and cost his team wins. Zip and Henry start. Immediate Bodydonnas double team. Henry takes them out with a double clothesline. Phineas bites Zip's arm. Henry catches Skip and hits a fireman's carry slam, followed by a wheelbarrow slam. The heels try to swap without a tag but the ref catches them. Phineas uses some dumb mirroring strategery to take out Zip. Damien Mizdow he is not. Skip pulls the top rope down and Phineas tumbles to the floor. Bodydonna double slingshot suplex for 2. Zip hits a frankensteiner for 2. Phineas comes back with....I don't know what the frell he's trying to do. Henry gets the hot tag and cleans house, but the camera is solely focused on Sunny gifting Phineas with a framed autographed picture (sadly of her fully clothed). With the ref distracted the heels pull off the no tag swap and, er, one of them gets Henry in a Paul Smackage for 3. That was a match that existed. 3/4*

Ad for next month's IYH on Memorial Day weekend. We get clips of Triple H interfering in the Marc Mero/1-2-3 Kid match on the preshow. Mero promises revenge on Trips next month while the cameraman desperately tries to keep Sable in shot at all times. After that is a really good video package recapping the entire Shawn/Diesel saga. In an interview earlier tonight Diesel promises "something big" for Vince. Kevin Nash was ahead of the curve when it came to working "smart" fans that were starting to become a larger segment of the audience thanks to the internet, a lesson Triple H would take to heart for most of his career.

 

No Holds Barred Match for the WWF Championship: "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels (c) (w/Jose Lothario) def Diesel in 17:53- During his entrance Diesel throws his jacket onto Vince. There's a totally random and not at all important shot of Mad Dog Vachon sitting at ringside. Shawn is all business, charging straight in and we're on! A Diesel knee to the gut cuts Shawn's momentum off. Shawn leaps over in the corner and dropkicks Diesel to the floor. Baseball slide. Shawn crossbody off the top to the floor! Shawn goes around to the Spanish announce table and pulls Hugo Savinovich's boot off! He comes off the top rope and whacks Diesel with it for 2. Shawn flip in the corner and Diesel knocks him off the apron into the guardrail. Slow Diesel beatdown. Snake eyes. He has more words for Vince. Huge leaping side suplex. Diesel pulls off his wrist tape and chokes Hebner out! Then he pulls off Hebner's belt and whips Shawn with it! Shawn gets choked with the belt. Diesel flips him over the top rope and hangs him with the belt! While Shawn's dangling Diesel goes over and appropriates Fink's chair, comes around and nails Shawn in the back with it. Back in Shawn dodges another chair shot. Diesel hits the top rope and the chair ricochets back in his face! Shawn loads up a chair shot. Diesel stops it with a low blow. Big backdrop. Diesel punches send Shawn tumbling outside. Diesel sets up a jackknife on the floor.....THEN TURNS 90 DEGREES AND POWERBOMBS SHAWN THROUGH THE MAIN ANNOUNCE TABLE! No setup at all, nothing, just straight into it. The monitors fall on top of Shawn. Commentary gets cut off. Shawn doesn't lay there long, quickly and angrily crawling back to the ring. He grabs a fire extinguisher and gives Diesel a blast in the face! Flying forearm and kip up. Commentary's back. Shawn takes Lawler's chair, bringing his headset and entire hookup with it, and gives Diesel a couple of chairshots to the head. Diesel recovers and hits a bit boot. He lifts Shawn up for a jackknife but Shawn punches out of it. Shawn elbow off the top rope. Diesel blocks the superkicks and hits a clothesline. Another clothesline sends Shawn back to the floor. Diesel drops him on the guardrail and throws him back in. Diesel starts to get back in, stops, and has a thought. He pulls the guardrail open and drags Mad Dog Vachon to ringside! HE PULLS OFF MAD DOG'S PROSTHETIC LEG! Well Shawn took a boot earlier, I guess Diesel had to one up him. Kliq rules. He goes to nail Shawn with the leg but Shawn hits him with a low blow. Shawn loads up and hits Diesel with the leg! Superkick! Good night. Fantastic plunder match. You could criticize the lack of selling after some big spots but that's a small quibble. In many ways this would be the template for most WWF main event matches for the next 5-6 years. All that was missing was the going through the crowd brawl and finisher kickouts. Diesel goes out on his back. ****1/2

 

This show would end up being Diesel and Ramon's final major WWF appearance before moving over to WCW. A couple of weeks later the infamous "curtain call" at MSG took place, with four members of the Kliq, Shawn, Diesel, Ramon and Triple H, completely obliterating kayfabe by congregating in the ring after the main event in front of the whole crowd and giving Nash and Hall a big sendoff. Unluckily for them, a fan had snuck a camcorder into MSG and recorded the whole thing. Soon after it was all over the wrestling magazines and what little there was of the internet at the time. Punishments were meted out, more on that when I get to King of the Ring '96 as it's relevant there. Within a few weeks after that both Hall and Nash made their WCW debuts, with it being played with deliberate ambiguity as to whether they had signed with WCW or if this was a legitimate invasion by WWF talent. The entire wrestling world was turned upside down, and that was just the beginning.

 

One last note before closing out- though WWF kept these old IYH shows to 2 hours for PPV, there were always a few more dark matches in the arena for the live crowd after TV went off the air. None of it was worth mentioning until now, as on this night the dark main event was the Undertaker taking on the recently debuted Mankind. Much more on them as the year goes on.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Another one match show, but that one match is both must see and hugely important historically.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C+