1995 produced some absolute stinkers on pay-per-view, with WrestleMania 11 and King of the Ring '95 going down as perhaps the weakest iterations in both of those events' lineage, and In Your House 4 is yet another event with an atrocious reputation. Amongst the harshest critics of this show was Vince McMahon himself, who, after a year of producing absolute drivel, needed a scapegoat to take his anger out on. After the main event of this show (featuring Diesel defending the WWF Championship against the British Bulldog), Vince swore at Diesel, and screamed in the face of match producer, Bruce Prichard. The WWF was falling apart at the seams, and while it may have been therapeutic for Vince to see red in such a public display, this temper tantrum only accentuated how dire the situation truly looked. What didn't help matters was the fact that In Your House 4 was a disaster of a show, with few bright spots, and a notorious display of ego by Shawn Michaels that only continued to divide an increasingly toxic locker room. I have to warn any potential reader right now that what follows will not be the most positive review I have ever written. Outright bashing a show is not something I take pleasure in doing, and I can absolutely understand if you take no pleasure in reading that type of negativity. There will be more optimistic writing in my future, but if you must sink to the depths with me, then here we go.
- In Your House 4 comes to you from the "Great White North", as Vince refers to it, the Winnipeg Arena in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, making this the only professional wrestling pay-per-view to emanate from The Peg. Vince, Jim Ross, and Jerry "The King" Lawler are on the call.
- Our opening contest features two future stars of the Attitude Era, as the "Connecticut Blueblood" Hunter Hearst Helmsley takes on Fatu, the future Rikishi, in his persona of a streetwise babyface who looks to get kids out of the ghetto. It's a bizarre character that never really caught on, although his no-selling in this match was extremely over, shaking off both a slam into the turnbuckle and a DDT and doing a funky little dance to celebrate. Both men have a lot of growing to do as performers in the years to come, especially Helmsley, who is still fairly green, but they work hard to turn in a decent opener. Helmsley breaks out a piledriver, and both men bump well, Fatu really impressing with his trademark flip bump to sell a clothesline. As mentioned, the crowd loves his no-selling, and flip out when he gets right up after that DDT, quickly nailing a side kick. In the end, Helmsley, who is destined for greater things in the midcard, gets the win after avoiding a splash and connecting with the Pedigree, before his next feud is set up, as Henry O. Godwinn chases Helmsley from the arena with his slop bucket. Hunter still had a lot of work ahead of him, as his offensive output of right hands and rest holds really dragged this match down, but working with a good entertainer like Fatu certainly helps.
- The dissolution of the friendship of Razor Ramon and The 1-2-3 Kid takes another step on this night, as they come up short in their attempt to take the WWF tag titles from The Smoking Gunns. The Gunns took the gold away from Yokozuna and Owen Hart in between now and the last In Your House show, bringing the latter team to an end, which sucks. This was an entertaining affair, easily the best match of the night, as the crowd is still very into Razor and The Kid despite their squabbles, and go wild for Kid's kicks and a double team move where Kid gets tossed into Bart Gunn with a fallaway slam by Razor. Billy Gunn flashes some of his future potential, using his to keep up with The Kid early on, and take over in a fun sequence where he lands a dropkick on Razor and leaps high for an elbow drop to The Kid. Billy appears to be in jeopardy after landing gut-first on the top turnbuckle attempting a big splash, and that leads to Bart and Razor each attempting to put their partner in position to win, before Ramon tags in and has the match won after driving Billy down with the Razor's Edge. But The Kid demands a tag so that he can get the fall, and Billy, at the count of two, manages to reverse the cover into a backslide for the victory. I'm not sure that having Billy recover so quickly from the Razor's Edge was a good call here, there had to be better ways for The Kid's exuberance to cost his team the match, but it got to the point of presenting him as a clear heel, which is solidified when The Kid blindsides both Gunns after the match, taking the tag gold for his own. Razor puts a stop to that and hands back the titles, which the crowd isn't thrilled about, so it's clear they misread this obvious white hat/black hat booking.
- For the past few months, the character of Goldust has been given a spotlight on WWF programming, as the creepy, face-painted, gold-obsessed persona spewed classic movie quotes in advance of his debut. These vignettes didn't do much to tell fans what he was actually like as a wrestler, and his "premier" match against Marty Jannetty here at In Your House did little to draw heat from the bored and confused crowd. I did like the shower of golden glitter that is unleashed for Goldust's entrance, but other than that, there was no real hook to this brand new character. The commentary team tried their best to sell how mysterious and intriguing he might be, but the match itself was completely bland. Marty does his best to put over the danger of Goldust, doing a cool helicopter spin after a shove into the ring post, and crumpling after eating a boot from Goldust while attempting a splash. Dustin Rhodes tries to make Goldust sinister, but clearly doesn't know how, and his front facelock suplex finisher was impossibly lame, and a far cry from the more impactful Final Cut he would later adopt.
- Oh boy, Yokozuna versus King Mabel, what a treat Vince has gifted the folks up north. I'm not really sure what this match was meant to accomplish, as both men are well-established heels, and while Yoko would turn face the following year, there's no attempt to present him as heroic here. This is just two girthy men colliding into each other for five minutes, both quickly getting winded despite attempting very little athletically, and after they botch a bulldog, both brawl on the outside for a double countout, the horrible finish that this match deserved. You can tell that Vince is starting to get cranky on commentary, as he declares this a "less than stellar match", which is harsh criticism coming from a WWE commentator, as they rarely discuss match quality, especially during this era.
- The rollarcoaster ride keeps on chugging downhill, as we now move to the absolute calamity over the Intercontinental Championship. Initially, this was planned to be Shawn Michaels defending against Dean Douglas, where Shawn was booked to drop the strap, putting over the fresh new midcard heel, before moving up the card to challenge for the WWF Championship in the future. But even though Shawn was destined for greater things, he refused to lose to Douglas, an outspoken critic of The Kliq (I don't think I need to add exposition here, look it up if you need to) and also an extremely goofy character, that Shawn obviously thought losing to would be a hit to his reputation. Earlier this month, Shawn was in a legitimate bar fight with a Marine in Syracuse, New York, and while he did suffer actual injuries in that scrap, he exaggerated the symptoms to avoid doing the job. I believe that Vince was aware that Shawn could compete if he wanted to, but agreed to protect him, booking a segment where Shawn came out, and handed over the belt to Douglas, before walking off like a sad little puppy. At this point, you might wonder what was so controversial about this, right? Even though what Shawn did was underhanded, Douglas is still the champion, so all's well that end's well. Except, earlier in the night, when announcing that Shawn would have to hand over the gold, WWF President Gorilla Monsoon also announced that Razor Ramon would then be challenging Douglas immediately after. So now we have Razor (aka Scott Hall, another member of The Kliq) wandering down to face Douglas, nepotism is running wild, baby. Unlike at last month's In Your House, Razor doesn't bother to pretend that Douglas presents any threat, trouncing the new champion in an extended beatdown that drag out for 11 dull minutes. Douglas only gets a move or two in throughout this entire match, and is booked to look like an absolute goof, getting a water bottle dumped on his own, and frequently being outwrestled by a guy that already worked another match tonight. The finish was abysmal, as Razor nails a back suplex, and Douglas clearly gets his entire leg under the bottom rope before three, which referee Tim White has to ignore despite it happening right under his nose. White looks likes an idiot for this, while Razor, who could obviously tell that Douglas should've gotten a rope break, still basks in the cheap win anyway, despite earlier being portrayed as a noble hero. To top it all off, the commentary team doesn't pay any attention for most of the match to the two men fighting for the second most prestigious prize in the company, instead talking about Shawn throughout, bigging him up as a valiant fighter who made the ultimate sacrifice, instead of an egotistical coward that refused to do business. This industry really sucks sometimes.
- Main event time, as Diesel is apparently "feeling funky" (his words, not mine) heading into his WWF Championship defense against the British Bulldog. Bret Hart, who is scheduled to face the winner at Survivor Series, joins the commentary booth, replacing Jerry Lawler, and look, I love Bret as much as the next guy, but he's not cut out for color commentary work. Bret appears to be completely lost whenever Vince and JR throw to him for analysis, and while having him out there in front of a Canadian crowd was the obvious choice, he would've been much better suited to be a guest referee or timekeeper or something. The good news for Bret's lone stint on color was that nothing he said or did could possibly make this match any more boring that it already was, we're starting from rock bottom here. Bulldog and Diesel only have one plot point for this match, which is Bulldog debilitating Diesel's leg. While Bulldog's leg work was solid, 18 minutes of that was never going to be entertaining. Bulldog tries everything possible for heat, from benefitting after cheap shots by manager Jim Cornette, to applying a Sharpshooter while pointing at Bret, but the crowd is just ready to go home. It also doesn't help that Bulldog's Sharpshooter was extremely sloppy, as he was too gassed to stand up and cinch the hold back. I did appreciate Diesel limping to run the ropes after all the damage he's sustained, although knowing Kevin Nash, it's always possible his knee exploded and nobody noticed, that man just has no luck with injuries. Vince doesn't bother with a clean finish here, as after getting into altercations with both Bulldog and Diesel over the course of the match, Bret runs to get some of Bulldog, resulting in a DQ. Diesel and Bret get into it after that, and the show closes with road agent and wrestlers trying to pull the two apart, set to the dulcet tones of the timekeeper furiously ringing the bell.
1/10
1995 Average: 3.89 (Down from 4.25)
Unlike the past few In Your House shows, this one got off to a solid start, with two entertaining matches to get things go, but the lackluster debut of Goldust got the ball rolling downhill, and by the end of these two hours, it ended up buried in a ditch. It's difficult to appreciate a show that featured that nonsense surrounding the IC title, but preceding it with the awful Mabel/Yokozuna match, and then following it with that snoozer of a main event certainly didn't make me feel any better. On the positive spectrum, the WWF did at least recover well at Survivor Series.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: In Your House 5, where Bret Hart and The British Bulldog face off in a rematch of their legendary SummerSlam 1992 main event. See you soon.
- Henry
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