Henry's World

 Week 3 saw Rascal come plummeting back down to earth, Tailwaggerz take off into the stratosphere, and Bark Force continue to orbit the skies, awaiting their next challenger. (Reminder: the Dog League is a custom fantasy football league run on NFL.com) Rare Woofs Current Record: (1-2, 5th Place) We have an unusual situation to open up Week 4 of the Dog League, as Rare Woofs will have the top waiver priority, despite not being anywhere near the bottom of the standings. Week 3 saw them take a tough loss to Tug of War, coming up 3 points short of victory, and the early exit of Christian McCaffrey spelled their doom. The 3 teams below Rare Woofs in the standings have agreed to let them leap up, under the knowledge that with only David Montgomery and Leonard Fournette left in their running backs room, Rare Woofs would have to drop one of their elite receivers (Stefon Diggs, Justin Jefferson, Tyler Lockett, D.J. Moore, Julio Jones, or Deebo Samuel), and this would be a gigantic opportuni...

 The WWF quickly recovered from the disastrous In Your House 4 with one of the better Survivor Series ever produced, where the main event saw Bret Hart rightfully installed back to the top of the company, ending Diesel's year-long reign in a crunching, thrilling end to their trilogy. The workrate quotient of the main event scene takes an obvious leap forward with Bret as champ, and Vince wasted no time giving fans a delectable treat to end the dismal year that was in 1995, as the fifth In Your House event would feature a rematch of the historic SummerSlam 1992 headliner. Three years prior, Wembley Stadium rocked for a historic Intercontinental Championship collision between Bret and The British Bulldog, where Bulldog sent the gigantic crowd into a frenzy by Bret's shoulders to the mat for a well-received title change. By the end of 1995, both men were now in altered positions in the WWF. Bret was an established world champion, ready to try and bring the WWF back from the bri...

 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 ...

 While the entire WWF product was struggling mightily in 1995, no spot on the card suffered more than the main event. WrestleMania 11 ended with Lawrence Taylor, blow-in football player, fighting midcard goon Bam Bam Bigelow. King of the Ring, a terrible overall show, finished the night with a snoozer of a tag match between Diesel, Bam Bam, Sid, and Tatanka, that did nothing for anyone involved. SummerSlam got the shortest end of the stick, as Diesel attempted to get a remotely passable show closer out of King effing Mabel, and failed miserably. The In Your House shows were doing slightly better; Diesel versus Sid wasn't the most workrate-focused partnership in the world, but their Lumberjack match in July was fun, and In Your House 3 had a doozy planned. Possibly as a response to the recent launch of WCW Nitro, Vince had put together the most consequential match he could book with his current roster. It would be Owen Hart and Yokozuna (the tag team champions) against Diesel and Sh...

 Week 2 of the Dog League saw Leaping Girl remain consistent, Canine Comets left out in the cold again, and a new top contender crowned in the wake of a mediocre performance by Ridiculous Rascals. Two unbeatens remain. Bring on Week 3. (Reminder: the Dog League is a custom fantasy football league run on NFL.com) Growlers Current Record: (0-2, 8th Place) The Growlers put up a solid fight in Week 2, keyed by a 19 point outing from their Patriots defense, and hung in against the more powerful Rare Woofs for as long as they could, before inevitably falling short. Heading into Week 3, the Growlers will hope their Williams' can push them on to their first win, as Ty'Son Williams starts over Damien Harris as the RB2, while Mike Williams joins the team (Brandon Aiyuk was dropped), and starts in the flex, sending Allen Robinson to the bench. Meanwhile, they also made a move at backup quarterback, dropping the injured Tua Tagovailoa to bring in Derek Carr, who is also banged up, but has ...

 The first In Your House was a surprise hit, almost equaling WrestleMania 11 with it's 332,000 pay-per-view buys, and that made this series an automatic go. Following the momentum of the first incarnation would be difficult, as the second In Your House was not just further away from the grandeur of WrestleMania, but also had to follow up one of the weakest WWF pay-per-views ever produced, King of the Ring 1995 . The WWF were now in the full swing of a Mabel main event push that would go down as one of the worst Vince McMahon concoctions ever, but even if what lay ahead at SummerSlam wasn't promising, the card for In Your House 2 was actually solid. Yes, Diesel and Sycho Sid were still in the main event, but this time, there was extra intrigue, as they were booked for a lumberjack match. Shawn Michaels was beginning to catch fire as a face, and pitting him against Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Championship would surely lead to an entertaining clash. Plus, there was the p...

 I've had a nice break away from my continuous journey through the wildlands of WWE pay-per-views, but after a month and half off, I'm eager to return today, where I begin to clean up all the shows I've skipped between 1995 and 2004. I have 30 different pay-per-views to cover before I catch back up to Judgment Day 2004, and the list mostly consists of In Your House shows, of which I've covered almost none. The concept was borne out of Vince McMahon's desire to keep pace with WCW, who had increased their pay-per-view schedule, who had increased to 8 per year in 1993, while the WWF were still only running their Big 5. Vince had experimented with adding more pay-per-views in the past (most notably This Tuesday in Texas ), but the In Your House idea was the one that stuck. The name carried with it a special gimmick, as Vince decided that the only way anyone would tune in is if his company gave away a free house. Beyond the financial repercussions for the lucky winner of...

 Week 1 saw Leaping Girl dominate despite some hurdles, Rascal emerge victorious after a high-scoring affair with the Canine Comets, and Rare Woofs and Tailwaggerz, the two most recent champions, both fall. How will these eight teams choose to align themselves after finally getting to see their rosters in action? (Reminder: the Dog League is a custom fantasy football league run on NFL.com) Growlers Current Record: (0-1, 8th Place) Both expansion teams lost in Week 1, but Growlers got the worst of it, getting thumped by Leaping Girl, losing by almost 40 points in a disappointing debut. They brought in a rising star in Ravens running back Ty'Son Williams, beginning a massive conflict for their RB2 spot, where incumbent Damien Harris attempts to fend off both Javonte and Ty'Son Williams. For now, Harris keeps the job, as he has a soft matchup this week against the Jets, but the issue may be revisited before games begin this week. The rest of the Growlers roster remains unchanged....

 Though I didn't know it at the time, I entered wrestling at the absolute worst possible time. It wasn't really my fault, just the nature of when I was born, but by 2010, when I first discovered the business through the SmackDown vs Raw games and replays of the Nexus angle, most of the important, industry-altering events were well in the past. Anything I learned about the enormity of wrestling was all framed in the past, like Goldberg's undefeated streak, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's rise to stardom, the death of the territories, or even the dual world title victories of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Wrestling fans were growing more and more disinterested by the day, with the WWE in the creative doldrums, Ring of Honor losing every star they had grown, and TNA slowly withering after the woeful decision to challenge Vince McMahon on Monday nights. It really felt like wrestling might never truly matter again, but at the darkest hour, a single spark of light sh...