What the World Was Watching: In Your House: It's Time

-Vince McMahon and Jerry “the King” Lawler are in the booth and they are live from West Palm Beach, Florida.

-Free for All:  Rocky Maivia defeats Salvatore Sincere (w/Jim Cornette) via disqualification when Jim Cornette interferes at 6:01:

Sincere is Cornette’s latest attempt to get back at Maivia, who refused his managerial services.  Both men get in an equal amount of offense, with the veteran Sincere leading the young Maivia through the match.  Sincere nearly scores the upset by rolling through a flying body press, but he eats a shoulderbreaker shortly after this, leading to Cornette charging into the ring and causing the disqualification.  This match did what it needed to do in giving Maivia a victory and was your typical Free for All fare.  Rating:  **

-Now onto the pay-per-view, where Jim Ross joins the announce team…

-Flash Funk (w/the Funkettes) pins Leif Cassidy with the Funky Flash Splash at 10:32:

This is Funk’s singles pay-per-view debut and Cassidy is now a singles star in the promotion, although he’ll need a new gimmick in order to get over.  I’m not sure what it was with the WWF thinking that tag team taking on old team names and putting “new” before them was a good idea.  The Rockers and the Blackjacks were already legendary teams and the copy is not going to be as good as the original.  McMahon can’t keep himself from dancing during Funk’s entrance and Ross gives a hilarious critique of it at ringside.  They go through some fun sequences on the floor, where Cassidy belly-to-belly suplexes Funk over the top rope and follows with a springboard somersault plancha and Funk follows minutes later with a springboard plancha.  This is a textbook example of how the WWF could have built its light heavyweight division, since both guys bust out lots of high risk moves, but mix in some technical wrestling throughout.  Cassidy was expected to lose here, but he went down fighting and enhanced his credibility in this contest.  Rating:  ***½

-Call 1-900-737-4WWF to hear Steve Austin ranting about the WWF!

-Kevin Kelly interviews WWF Tag Team Champions Owen Hart & the British Bulldog and Kelly asks the Bulldog about Steve Austin.  Owen says Austin doesn’t matter and accuses Kelly of trying to distract the Bulldog prior to their tag team title defense tonight.

-WWF Tag Team Championship Match:  Owen Hart & The British Bulldog (Champions w/Clarence Mason) defeat The Fake Razor Ramon & The Fake Diesel when the Bulldog pins Razor after Owen hits Razor with a spinning heel kick at 10:44:

This was the pinnacle of the Fake Diesel/Fake Razor pairing in storyline terms, as they would disappear from the company after the Royal Rumble.  Pierroth and Cibernetico from AAA show up in the aisle, which would appear to set up a confrontation with the winner of this match for the titles, but that never took place.  After Pierroth and Cibernetico go back to the dressing room, Steve Austin comes out and he and the Bulldog tussle on the arena floor until WWF officials separate them.  With these distractions done, the match settles into a good groove, as the Fake Razor and Fake Diesel proceed to give the tag team champions a run for their money with several effective double teams of Owen.  The four way brawl to end the match is well executed and the crowd pops big the finish, when Owen saves the Bulldog from a Razor’s Edge with his spinning heel kick and helps his team retain the titles.  After the match, Austin comes back out and chop blocks the Bulldog.  Looking back, this match could’ve resulted in a more sustained push in the tag division for the Fake Razor and Fake Diesel, but their gimmick was already past its expiration date.  Rating:  ***

-The Nation of Domination is shown giving some dictation to the WWF technology crew who is operating the America Online chat rooms.

-McMahon interviews Ahmed Johnson, who says that he’s lost everything he’s had since he got injured at the hands of Faarooq.  Faarooq and the Nation of Domination appear in the crowd and Faarooq calls Ahmed an Uncle Tom.  Ahmed in response leads the crowd to chant “Your going down” to Faarooq.

-The announce team runs down the Royal Rumble card.

-A video package recaps the Hunter Hearst Helmsley-Marc Mero feud.

-Intercontinental Championship Match:  “Wildman” Marc Mero (w/Sable) defeats Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Champion) via count out at 14:06:

Helmsley now has “Ode to Joy” as his theme music, which is much more effective for an entrance than his original theme.  During the pay-per-view, there was satellite trouble during this match and McMahon had to be going apoplectic at ringside since the satellite feed went out after these two faced off at In Your House:  Beware of Dog earlier in the year.  Earl Hebner has one of the better spots of this match, as he gets Helmsley to cower in the corner when Helmsley tries to push him around.  Mero’s offense carries the match, as Helmsley has still not perfected the art of keeping the crowd engaged while he is on the offensive.  Both men counter each other’s finishers and in a nice piece of continuity, Helmsley kicks out of a slingshot into the ring post and a Merosault, moves that Mero used to beat him in two prior pay-per-view encounters.  We get a ref bump and Helmsley’s attempt at using the title belt as a weapon is thwarted by Mero.  Goldust comes out and accidentally nails Mero with the title belt when he’s aiming for Helmsley, but then nails Helmsley after the miscue and Mero has just enough energy to get back into the ring for another unsatisfying finish over Helmsley.  After the match, Mero gives Helmsley a Wild Thing for a moral victory.  The middle of the match dragged, but the closing sequences were well done and brought up the rating of the match.  Rating:  **½

-Dok Hendrix interviews WWF Champion Sid, who says that Bret Hart doesn’t scare him because Shawn beat Bret and then he beat Shawn like a dog, which makes him the better man.

-A video package recaps the Undertaker-Executioner feud.

-Armageddon Rules Match:  The Undertaker defeats The Executioner (w/Paul Bearer) with a Tombstone at 11:31:

This is technically a Texas death match, where you can pin your opponent and after the fall is counted your opponent has ten seconds to get to their feet and resume the match.  After the Undertaker has been in a life and death struggle with Mankind over the last six months, this feud just appears silly by comparison.  The match is quite sad, as Terry Gordy can’t really hold his share of the contest, so Mankind has to run out and make this a de facto handicap match.  Mankind takes all of the big bumps, as the Undertaker throws him through the In Your House set, thereby disproving to the marks that there’s an actual house there.  Just when this couldn’t get sillier, some independent wrestlers dressed as security personnel come out and subdue Mankind and eventually put him in a strait jacket.  The Undertaker throws an Executioner double into a water embankment on the outside of the arena and beats up Mankind, who tries to charge him in the strait jacket.  The Executioner then returns and we get a funny visual that has water spraying out of his boots as he takes the Tombstone.  The match was a complete wreck and it never used the stipulations.  However, Mankind did make some of it entertaining so I’ll give it ½* for that alone.  Thankfully the Undertaker is moving onto better things after this.  Rating:  ½*

-Hendrix interviews Bret Hart, who says that he’s ready to face Sid.  Shawn Michaels theme music starts playing during his interview time and he becomes irate and screams about how much he hates Michaels.

-WWF Championship Match:  Sid (Champion) pins Bret “the Hitman” Hart after a powerbomb at 17:04:

Shawn Michaels is the guest commentator for this match, as he will face the winner at the Royal Rumble.  Michaels commentary really enhances the match, since he just shoots all over Bret and Sid and helps to codify his new persona of not caring what anyone thinks of him or his actions.  Going into this match, I gave Bret no chance to win.  The match lacked a strong build and I didn’t think the WWF would give Bret the title when he had bigger issues to settle with Steve Austin and Sid still had to finish his issues with Michaels.  My young mind also recognized that it made very little sense to run Bret-Michaels at the Rumble, when you could do it at WrestleMania and make more money.  Bret works the back for nearly ten minutes and Sid shouldn’t be able to walk at all after that point, but when Sid goes on the offensive he forgets all about the back.  Austin makes his second sneak attack of the evening by chop blocking Bret on the floor and the British Bulldog comes out to fight Austin back to the locker room.  To really show you the contrast in psychology, Bret sells the one move by Austin better than Sid sells ten minutes of work on his lower back.  Of course, Sid also doesn’t even target Bret’s leg when he’s hobbling after Austin’s attack.  I mean you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that when your opponent has one bad wheel that you should zone in on it and finish him off.  They botch a sequence into a reversed turnbuckle, so they have to redo it so Bret ends up eating the steel.  Sid pushes Michaels near the commentary table and when Michaels gets on the apron to yell at Sid, Sid whips Bret into Michaels and hits the powerbomb to get the victory.    The psychology was blown throughout the match and as a result, I just couldn’t get into it.  The finish was well done, but after the turnbuckle botch I thought things fell apart.  Rating:  **¼

-After the match, Bret blames Shawn for costing him the match and assaults him on the floor.  Michaels then jaws with some fans at ringside as the pay-per-view goes off the air.

The Final Report Card:  This show was a filler pay-per-view, since there were no title changes and there were lots of “throwaway” matches at the top of the card.  The only terrible match on the card is the Armageddon Rules match, but if you like train wrecks it’s worth a look.  The show was an entertaining two hours and for the price that you used to pay for these shows, it was a worthwhile investment.

Attendance:  5,708

Buyrate:  0.35

Show Evaluation:  Thumbs Up