Though the show on the whole wasn't a barnburner, it felt like the WWF had begun to turn a corner with the main event of WrestleMania 12, as Vince McMahon putting all his booking might into transforming Shawn Michaels into a true top level superstar. Shawn's grand zipline entrance and heart-stopping victory in the Iron Man match with Bret Hart was clearly designed to immediately become the stuff of legend, and with a performer as talented and over as Michaels at the helm, better days seemed sure to come for the WWF in 1996. But even before the confetti could drop on the crowning of a new champion, the WWF would suffer what would come close to a fatal defection. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who, as Diesel and Razor Ramon, had become the top names on the continually thinner roster, jumped ship to WCW for better pay and fewer dates than Vince could or was willing to offer. Vince, as you might guess from his reputation as one of the pettiest human beings to ever grace God's green Earth, did not take the news well, suspending Hall, which caused him to miss out on the always hefty WrestleMania payouts, and, at least according to Nash, booked the big man to lose to The Undertaker at WrestleMania, unintentionally preserving "The Streak" for another couple of decades. With their moves down South almost ready to be executed, In Your House 7 marked the final televised appearances for Hall and Nash in their initial runs with the WWE, and they went out in some style.
- In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies (the first In Your House to utilize a subtitle that wasn't retroactively applied) comes to you from the now-defunct Omaha Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska. Vince McMahon and Jerry "The King" Lawler are on the call.
- Our opening contest is a tag team match, as Camp Cornette associates and brothers-in-law, Owen Hart and the British Bulldog, take on Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Ahmed Johnson. With an over 40 year old Jake and green-as-grass Ahmed working on the babyface side, everyone involved wisely decides to fill this match with a lot of shtick, putting over Ahmed's power, Bulldog's fear of both Ahmed and Jake's python, and even a fainting spell from Cornette prior to the match when Jake whips out his snake. I did love the shine Owen gave to Ahmed, getting obliterated after a clothesline to the gut and a big military press slam, that man can bump. Outside of Owen's bumping, though, it's a mostly muted contest, with a clever little finish, as Bulldog snatches Cornette's discarded tennis racket, bludgeoning Jake in the knee and tapping "The Snake" out with some sort of standing leg wrench that I've never seen before.
- While the opener featured plenty of focus on the "entertainment" end of sports-entertainment, all pretense of competition is completely abandoned in the next match, as Goldust "defends" his Intercontinental Championship against The Ultimate Warrior, who is fresh off his infamous squash match with Hunter Hearst Helmsley at WrestleMania. Only Vince on commentary keeps up any pretense that we'll actually be witnessing a wrestling match between these two men on this night, as Goldust enters injured, in no shape to work a real match. Instead, we get a lot of Goldust, Marlena, and their new bodyguard (Mantaur, with added fedora) stalling, and Warrior having fun with their props. There are three wrestling moves in this ~10 minutes of airtime; the first is Warrior clotheslining Goldust out of Marlena's director's chair, the second is a flying shoulder tackle to Mantaur, and the third is Mantaur taking a body slam. Everything else is just Warrior playing mind games, and also Goldust randomly declaring that he'll kiss everyone in the crowd if they don't shut up, which is.................quite a threat. The audience did have fun with Warrior's antics, but I can't understand why Goldust wasn't just replaced with someone that actually could wrestle.
- Razor Ramon's farewell to the WWF comes in a loss to the new monster around these parts, the man they call Vader. Vader is far from his best by this point in his career, and it shows in this glacially paced match, although both men were talented enough to hold my interest. Razor gets a lot of shine for a guy that's about to leave in disgrace, as Vader gets battered by right hands, takes several big suplexes, and can't put Razor away with the Vader Bomb. It does help the overall quality of this match to see Razor putting up such a tremendous fight, but I'm not certain it does anything for Vader's monster aura, which badly needed to be enhanced. The booking of the final few minutes hung Vader out to dry, as the numbskull kept climbing to the top rope, and took a ring-rattling electric chair drop, a damn impressive move, as his receipt. Vader does win it with a mini-Bonzai Drop, foreshadowing for his showdown with Yokozuna next month, but it's obvious that Razor was the better man tonight, which really doesn't seem like it should've been the takeaway from his final match in the company.
- There are very few comedic bits that Vince McMahon loves more than the "simpleton loves pretty lady" trope, which he goes back to the well for in this tag match between The Godwinns and The Bodydonnas. Technically, gold is on the line, the latter team are defending their tag titles, but this is all about Sunny. The camera shows her off from every angle, Jerry Lawler decides to slut shame by declaring that she's "been around more than a carousel", yikes, and she distracts Phineas O. Godwinn, who fancies himself a ladies' man, by presenting him with a signed photo of herself. That allows The Bodydonnas to pull off twin magic (which is BS, by the way, Chris Candido and Tom Prichard look nothing alike), and roll up Henry O. Godwinn to retain.
- Main event time, as Shawn Michaels and Diesel do battle one more time, with Shawn defending his WWF Championship in a No Holds Barred match. I got on Shawn's case in my last review for his blasé attitude before a supposed grudge match with Owen Hart, but this time, there's no hint of showmanship or crowd involvement, as he enters with the meanest scowl he can muster, prepared to go to war with his former friend. I love how well the WWF has carefully plotted Diesel's downfall, with his jealousy and suppressed rage finally boiling over, and the crowd is very into seeing the destruction these two men cause. Diesel batters Shawn without remorse, stealing Earl Hebner's belt to whip and choke the champion, bringing a chair into the mix, and even delivering a Jackknife Powerbomb through the announce table, a shocking spot for this era that brought the crowd to their feet. I loved the chaos that ensued after that move, with Vince and Lawler both having their headsets knocked off, and Shawn fending off the monster with a fire extinguisher, before unleashing all the babyface fire he can muster in an awesome comeback. Diesel, the absolute scumbag, sinks to the lowest level possible by ambushing Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon, seated in the crowd as a bit of a local celebrity, as he's from Omaha. Diesel steals Vachon's prosthetic leg, and gets hit by karma when Shawn utilizes it instead, as Diesel tastes Sweet Chin Music to seal this title retention. This was far from the most brutal or dramatic weapons brawl I've seen, but both men sold their hatred and disdain perfectly, and gave us just enough violence to make it feel personal. I've said it before, but I wish we had gotten longer with Diesel as a main event heel. The swagger and danger Nash brought to the role was excellent, and there was much more he could've done with the character if Vince had made the change sooner. Ultimately, WCW got to cherry pick the best version of Nash for his debut several months later, and it's safe to say without the work done towards developing the heel Diesel persona, wrestling history might look very different.
6/10
1996 Average: 5.86 (Up from 5.83)
While most of the night's action ranged from average to poor, In Your House 7 lived and died by it's main event, and luckily, it was fantastic. I highly recommend checking out that show closer, and everything about Diesel's character arc from last year's Survivor Series up until this point, because it's highly underrated and some of the best long-term booking Vince McMahon has ever produced.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: In Your House 8: Beware of Dog, where nothing on the card would be quite as historic as what Mother Nature had cooked up for ole Vinnie Mac. See you soon.
- Henry
Comments