D-Generation X: In Your House

D-Generation X: In Your House (6,328) Light Heavyweight Championship Match 1- Taka Michinoku def ‘Too Sexy’ Brian Christopher (Light Heavyweight Tournament Finals) Match 2- Los Boricuas def The Disciples of Apocalypse (Six Man Tag Team Match) Segment- Dok Hendrix interviews Butterbean backstage. Butterbean says he doesn't want to talk about Mero and will see him in the ring. Segment- Michael Cole interviews Sable. Sable says her heart is still with Marc Mero, leading Mero to interrupt her saying he didn't give her permission to speak! Match 3- Butterbean def Marc Mero (Tough Man Fight) Segment- Goldust accompanied by Luna, reads ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ by Dr Suess. Luna shoves Goldust to the floor before he can finish, and forces him backstage. Segment- Michael Cole interviews The Legion of Doom. L.O.D says no one can beat them clean, before calling them “boogers” aka snot. Tag Team Championships Match 4- (c) ‘Bad Ass’ Billy Gunn & ‘Road Dogg’ Jesse James def Legion of Doom via DQ Segment- Michael Cole interviews Triple H. Triple H says it's not Slaughter's “generation” anymore, but it is “degeneration!” Segment- Jim Cornette interviews Sgt. Slaughter. Slaughter says he didn't come for a wrestling match, but for a fight! Match 5- Triple H def Sgt. Slaughter (Boot Camp Match) Segment- Michael Cole interviews Jeff Jarrett. Jeff says he will beat The Undertaker and become the number one contender as a result! Match 6- Jeff Jarrett def The Undertaker via DQ Segment- Michael Cole speaks with “The World's Strongest Man” Mark Henry. Mark Henry says he looks forward to returning to The WWF. Segment- Dok Hendrix interviews Rocky Maivia. Rocky says he is called “The Rock” now, and that he will defend “his Intercontinental title!” and will go down as the best champion The WWF has to offer! Intercontinental Championship Match 7- (c) ’Stone Cold’ Steve Austin def Rocky Maivia Segment- Jim Cornette interviews Ken Shamrock. Ken says he's a fighter, and he will “hurt” Shawn Michaels. Segment- Shawn Michaels backstage promo. Shawn says he will show exactly why he’s the “Number one man in the World Wrestling Federation” WWF Title Match 8- Ken Shamrock def Shawn Michaels (c) via DQ Analysis Matches 1 & 2 We crowned a new light heavyweight champion in Taka Michinoku to kick off the PPV! Michinoku was very talented, but would need a more fleshed out character in order to better connect with the crowd going forward. By default, this was probably the best LHW Match the WWF had showcased sInce Sasuke/Michinoku at IYH 16, simply due to it not being a rushed TV match. This wasn't as flashy as WCW's cruiser matches, and the pace slowed down considerably towards the end. But it was still nice to see Taka Michinoku go over, and was a solid start to the event. What wasn't as solid however, was the WWF's insistence on pushing this ‘Gang Warfare’ angle. I'm assuming it wasn't over with the audience based on the tepid crowd reactions, as Los Boricuas beat The Disciples of Apocalypse, in a deflating 6 man tag match. This feud would actually ‘win’ the “Worst Feud of the Year award” for 1997, according to the Wrestling Observer! Unfortunately, it really wasn't hard to see why. I actually got so bored, I started to read the properties of a travel flask I had bought for someone as a Christmas present! 456 ML capacity with double wall insulation, keeping temperatures stable for up to 6 hours! I'm sure she'll absolutely love it!... Match 3 Marc Mero took on Butterbean in “4 rounds of boxing”, in what was billed as a tough man contest. Possibly trying to capitalise on the popularity of The UFC, but whatever they were trying to achieve, it didn't work AT ALL! It's always been very difficult to convincingly pull off these types of matches, with the recent example of Ronda Rousey Vs Shayna Bazler at SummerSlam ‘23, being the perfect example of how quickly it can all go wrong. There's a fine line between working a stiff, hard hitting wrestling match, and pretending to actually box with someone for nearly 10 minutes. To add to the sheer lunacy of it all, Marc Mero kept cheating, when he hit a running dropkick after the 1st and 2nd rounds IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE, as well as choking Butterbean with tape while the ref was distracted! Butterbean would eventually win by DQ in round 4, after a low blow by Mero. Why that was deemed to be the final straw, and not the assaults in-between the rounds is anyone's guess. Look, I'm not a boxing fan by any stretch of the imagination and I won't pretend otherwise, but even I can tell you how ridiculous this all was. Butterbean not only did himself a huge disservice by agreeing to this, but the sport of boxing as a whole! Quite honestly, he came out of it looking completely ridiculous and I'd be shocked if anyone took him seriously as a boxer immediately after watching this. Mero would assault Butterbean with a wooden stool post-fight, as his corner scurried in to get him out of there quickly! Match 4 ‘Bad Ass’ Billy Gunn and ‘Road Dogg’ Jesse James beat The Legion of Doom in a rematch for the tag titles. This would be fine as a 5-10 minute match on TV, and as much as I enjoyed their encounter on Raw, this just wasn't PPV quality. It ended via DQ after Henry Godwinn ran in with the slop bucket, causing Hawk and Animal to go crazy, and use it themselves. Match 5 The ‘Boot Camp’ match between Triple H and Sgt. Slaughter was next. Essentially no DQ, no count-outs. This was a VERY slow match, and without knowing too much about Slaughter, I'd guess his gas tank at what could only be called ‘the later stages of his career’, had a large part to do with it. That said, Slaughter took an impressive looking back body drop over to the top rope to the outside. Triple H would eventually win, in what I personally found to be the most boring match of the night so far. While I don't agree with negative star ratings, ‘Uncle Dave’ would actually award this match with MINUS TWO stars! If he wanted to be really funny, he could have given it minus 2 and 3 quarters or something. But alas, it was hard to argue with his assessment, and this PPV needed to deliver something special and quickly! Match 6 The Undertaker was making light work of ole Double J, until Kane came to the ring to confront his brother! Not much of a match here as it was called off, after Kane hit Jeff Jarrett with a chokeslam. We did however have some great storytelling as Kane punched The Undertaker, who refused to strike back! This was actually really clever, using the whole “refusing to fight his brother” angle. Again, this could just as easily be done on TV, but at this point I'll take whatever I can get. Match 7 Intercontinental Title time, as we witnessed ‘The Rock’, as he took on ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin for the first time on PPV! Austin drove a pickup truck to the ring, and bodydropped D-Lo Brown onto the windscreen, before hitting a stunner on the roof of the vehicle. The fans went APE SHIT for this… A hectic attitude era style brawl throughout, but VERY fun to watch. They didn’t give away too much, as this was fairly short, but it certainly whetted my appetite to see these two face off again. Austin won via 3-count, following a Stunner to ‘The Rock’ and retaining his title in the process. Main-event Main-event time. I was actually kind of looking forward to this one. Shawn PPV main-events usually delivered, and I liked Shamrock. But…was it too early to put the Ultimate Fighting Champion in a main-event? Well, kind of. He didn't do badly by any means, but watching Shawn Michaels try and carry someone who was essentially a non wrestler/wrestler in training for over 25 minutes, after having to sit through some of the absolute dross this card had served up so far, wasn't how I wanted to spend my Sunday night. Lots of rest holds and break spots, presumably to take Shamrock's inexperience into account. I already knew the winner before watching, so I tried to watch this match from the perspective of “did Shawn ever TRULY look in danger of losing the match”. And the answer quite honestly, was…no. They could have achieved something, but instead of allowing the drama to build, the moment Ken Shamrock applied his ankle lock, Hunter and Chyna immediately stormed the ring for the DQ finish. Owen Hart jumped the guardrail and beat the bejeezus out of HBK as the PPV went off air. This was ALL I needed to see to come up with my final grade. Summary Simply put, this WASN'T good! I feel as if I've written enough independent analysis match by match, to save me from repeating myself. But between the long and slow Boot Camp Match, the screwy finish with zero drama in the main, and the general lack of quality to be found anywhere on the card save for the opener. This is in sub 2 star territory! Now, I don't like rating shows under two stars, especially for PPVs. But to force me to do this, TWO things need to happen. A generally bad show mixed in with bad wrestling, COMBINED with something that insults the paying fans at the end. Never…and I mean NEVER! Have a run-in DQ finish for your main-event on PPV. Maybe, you can get away with it if the finish is dramatic enough, or if it involves a returning performer the crowd loses their minds for. But otherwise, you are simply scamming the paying customers, who agreed to part with money to see something in its entirety! Just for fun, I will run down all of the sub 2 star PPVs I have reviewed prior. In Your House 4: Great White North, along with WCW Uncensored ‘96. IYH 4 took place in 1995, the WWF’s lowest period of ALL TIME business wise. It was a cold PPV during a shitty time for the company, not much more explanation needed. WCW Uncensored was what most people like to call “wrestlecrap” Essentially, poorly booked, nonsense *especially the Doomsday Cage Match in the main-event. The point I’m trying to make is this. Was this PPV better than those other two shows overall? Maybe ever so slightly… but I’m also holding them to a higher standard now, AND they had nearly 3 hours to get this thing right, as opposed to the two hour format the older IYH PPVs used to follow. Plus, at least Uncensored (as far as I can recall) had one or two strong matches, mainly being let down by the bizarre and practically unwatchable main-event that lasted far too long. So I’m sorry, but with all of that said, this was by the far…the WORST PPV of 1997! *For now at least, there was still 24 days left in December for someone to screw up in a big way, but what are the odds of that happening? (1.75 Stars)