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DVDVR Network Viewing Club: WWF In Your House #2


Josh Mann

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I caught myself changing my mind a few times on what to watch/pimp here. I originally was going to do No Mercy 2002 in the wake of the whole Taker/Lesnar thing, but I found that was a REALLY hard show to get through for a number of reasons. There are a couple of really good matches on it, but between Katie Vick, Al Wilson and Hot Tub Girl it was also a WrestleCrap supercollider. However, I had to pick something for my Viewing Club slot. This I had watched on Network about a week or so ago, or more accurately, had watch/listened, since I used it for background noise while I was working. And since Cibernetico gave me a deadline of Sunday and knowing I wasn't going to be home much this weekend, strapped for a workable show, I was able to rewatch this in two hours and have a decent draft in 2 1/2 hours. Which was one of the things I liked about the old IYHs before the jump to three hours and then their eventual demise: They were lean and mean and everything had to move at a quicker pace because of it. 

 

The Roadie v 1-2-3 Kid

 

This is a match I appreciated more in hindsight than I did at the time, since at the time the Roadie was nothing but Jeff Jarrett's lackey but the future Road Dogg ended up being the unsung hero of the whole evening, starting here, even though both in name and persona was a generic version of what he'd become later. The two of them go out and try to have a good little opening wrestling match. Emphasis on try to, since Roadie doesn't seem to have a clue on how to sell Kid's stuff for a good potion of the match, but Kid sells the shit out of Roadie's stuff. Camera keeps panning back to Jarrett not giving a shit about Roadie's match and more concerned about his singing debut. Kid does what I think is the first-ever frog splash in Fed history which is followed by Dogg doing the first ever sitout powerbomb. And then there's the indy-tastic finish which hasn't been seen before or since in WWF, with Roadie winning with a piledriver off the second rope. Sean Waltman, you're out of your fucking mind for taking that.  Also, it's clearly not your father's Tennessee anymore when that move doesn't also include a body bag. Ricky Morton (figuratively) died for your sins, WWF. 

 

 

Razor Ramon/Savio Vega v Men On A Mission 

 

This is right after King Of The Ring, so this match makes perfect sense in hindisght, since I have the benefit of knowing where it was going to go, but a month after beating Undertaker, Razor ends up next on Mabel's job list. As a match, it's OK and goes where it needs to go. Let me rephrase that: It goes where it would end up going. It needed to go in any other direction BUT Mabel getting a main event push. 

 

 

And now, Jeff Jarrett has a song for us all. Of course, with the benefit of it being almost 20 years later NOW it's obvious that it was Road Dogg singing and I'm sure at the time it was meant to sound red-flaggy anyway, but it was Jarrett's last night in the territory for a while anyway. All I can think about during this is that I'm stunned that some Kenny Blake Urban hasn't picked it up yet. Actually they kind of have in spirit. Actually, it's telling that mainstream country has moved glacially at best in the last 20 years if this could probably be a hit single for someone tomorrow. 

 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Henry Godwin

 

Bam Bam was in a really good groove at this point, flying around the ring both on offense and on defense. Not-Mideon is not-Mideon. It's a little peppier than your standard hoss v hoss WWF match, but not by much. This starts fast, slows down, eventually picks up again, but it's pretty much killed dead in the middle by Godwin's dazzling array of chinlocks. 

 

Intercontinental Title, Jeff Jarrett vs Shawn Michaels 

 

And now, the reason I picked this as my Viewer's Club choice. Jeff Jarrett, try though he might through as many other promotions as he wants and the 100 different attempts at reinvention to distance himself as far as possible from the era of JE-DOUBLE F ha ha JA-DOUBLE R ha ha E DOUBLE T and his Farrah hair and his cowboy hat, his Electric Horseman jacket and his eight singlet straps, will never ever ever ever EVER have another match in his life that's as good as this one. Ever. Sharper memories might put this in Shawn's top 10, MAYBE, Although this is far more rewatchable than the Iron Man match some months later. Jarrett is booked to be an equal (or at least competitively equal) to Shawn here, which makes it another thing TNA blatantly stole from WWF. Match ends with Jarrett getting undermined by his own Roadie accidentally on purpose, which gives Michaels an IC title he doesn't need and sends Jarrett into obscurity for months. It woudn't be the last time. Which is preceeded by 25 minutes of  psychology and counter-wrestling for days, GET ALL THIS. 

 

I cannot do Michael "Don't Call Me Dok" Hayes' backstage report on Jarrett/Roadie's post-match dustup justice by transcribing it. But for me, please do me a favor and don't fast-forward it, skip ahead or miss it in any way. I wouldn't steer you wrong. This is a meme before memes existed. 

 

WWF Tag Team Titles: OwenZuna vs. The Allied Powers

 

Oh lord, I'd forgotten. This plus Davey Boy is what they did with last year's car models.  Which is apropos, since Yokozuna is about the size of a Toyota Tercel here. Which, by the way, there was nothing more amusing when I was in high school than the one of the members of my BBYO chapter who had the world's most pimped-out Tercel. Neon lighting, bass cannon, all the other bells an whistles, but of course it still ran like a Tercel. This story is more interesting than the match is. And the story's not that interesting. Match kicks a little more into gear when it's Owen and Davey in there, including a particularly sick (and possibly botched) back drop that Owen doesn't fully rotate on. And, of course, Luger gets pinned after getting a visual non-counted pin on Yoko, Owen getting the drop on him and then Yoko finishing him off with a legdrop. I feel like we've been here before with Luger. 

 

 

Lumberjack Match, WWF Title, Diesel vs Sid

 

 

This matchup in one form or another headlined three straight PPVs. Read that last sentence as many times as necessary. As they pan around the ring, all of the lumberjacks are doing nothing except for the one goof in the ponytail and polo pants who is plugging his ears to sell the crowd noise. And then he was never heard from again. Your typical lumberjack match where the face gets thrown to the heel side, the heel escapes to the heel side until finally boundaries are forgotten. Wash, rinse repeat. so I think it's a good time to point out which of the lumberjacks are working the hardest. Bam Bam is the most boisterous at slamming the apron to get the crowd into it, with Bart Gunn a close second. Kama is the first one to get to fighting. And as I'm typing this, Kevin Nash out of nowhere attacks the band of heeljacks with a tope con hilo. Forget the first thing: Repeat THAT last sentence as many times as necessary. On the next outside exchange, MoM becomes Diesel's daddy. And there's your main event for SummerSlam, either next month on PPv or ten minutes from now on WWE Network, your choice. Sid with the powerbomb, but like an idiot spends 30 seconds high-fiving his buddies before trying a pin. Half the brains, indeed. Also like an idiot, Sid escapes to the facejack side and gets pummeled for his trouble including a flying Shawn Michaels. And there's your IC Title match for SummerSlam. So look for that. In the melee, Diesel gets the pin with a big boot, thus doubling his arsenal of finishing moves. Bless their heart, they tried.

 

Michaels-Jarrett is an absolute must-see. The two had amazing chemistry and it's almost a shame there was only one high-profile match between the two. The rest ranges from decent to not offensively terrible.  But the most important thing I can say about it is it's a fun show, a hell of a lot more fun than the first show I tried to write up, and that makes up for a lot of sins. 

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Watched this tonight and it wasn't awful. I can't get over the finish of the first match being a second rope piledriver. Roadie must have learned it from Eric Embry. Jarrett was the mvp of the show though. Loved the musical performance and his match with HBK was outstanding. Rest of the show was pretty flat with a shitty main event and not so good tag matches.

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I think I may have seen the opener before, or at the very least watched a clip of the finish, which was somewhat ridiculous for an opening match between two midcard acts. Granted, Dogg got his foot down before hitting the piledriver, but still a pretty crazy move regardless. The match itself was kind of sloppy, Roadie didn't seem too comfortable being on the receiving end of a lot of Kid's flying moves. They also blew off a frog splash pretty quickly, and then blew off a powerbomb moments later, both of which actually looked pretty cool in fairness. The match as a whole didn't do much for me though.

We go to a backstage interview with the Million Dollar Corporation hyping up the main event between Diesel and Merle from Walking Dead. Standard stuff from the villains, and then a shitty t-shirt sales pitch for a shitty t-shirt on the part of the babyfaces and some announcer that I've never seen before. The smallest size you could get the t-shirt in was Large, oh the nineties...

I forgot that Savio and Razor were very briefly a tag team, they both looked pretty great here. Mabel actually looked good too, he probably gets a bad rap from that one match with Diesel but he was a fine fat boy wrestler here, nailing an awesome throw on Savio at one point which Vega absolutely flew for. Razor gets the SOS on Mo early, which looks sweet being done on such a big, dumpy guy. Was surprised to see Razor do the job, but Mabel's belly to belly looked pretty credible. Mo was clearly a bit ropey, but he sold and stooged pretty well.

Roadie refers to himself as the Road Dogg during a hype for the WWF Hotline thing whilst the Kid stays silent, looking like a right gormless git. More shitty promos with the babyface lumberjacks, which seems to be a theme for the show so far. Jarrett did his song, which I believe was later revealed to be lip-synced with the Roadie doing the actual performing. I'm not really sure what they were trying to initially achieve here, since half the crowd seemed to like it because it was genuinely decent, whilst the other half still hated it because he's supposed to be a heel.

HOG vs Bam Bam wasn't anything special, and had a really shitty finish. Godwin teased a slop bucket to Bigelow after the match, and then just... didn't. Weird. Either way, this wasn't good, but at least was short. Not so short that Godwin didn't feel the need to put on a really shitty chinlock half way through, but still, short enough to not completely suck.

I've definitely seen Jarrett vs Michaels before, but ages ago. Unfortunately it wasn't nearly as good as the young me remember, although Michaels takes a mental bump to the floor at one point which is probably the highlight. When it's time to make the comeback, however, HBK doesn't really show any effects of the earlier beatdown and its kind of hard to get emotionally invested in it when half the match gets tossed aside like that. This probably wouldn't be the second best match on an average episode of Raw these days, but I guess back in 1995 there was less competition on WWE TV.

The HBK shirt that they're shilling might the the most homo-erotic effort from the merchandising department ever. Also, poor Michael Hayes does a bit as Dok Hendrix. On to the next match, the Allied Powers had pretty swanky entrance music and cool pyro for the mid-nineties. Luger actually looks really good here, his response to getting slapped by Owen is superb. Bulldog runs through his WOS sequences with Owen which look really good, but soon has to slap on a chinlock. Yoko moves really well still despite his size, and Owen is his typically good self. I liked this more than the IC Title match, although it didn't have one moment as cool as the Michaels bump to the floor.

I didn't go in to Sid vs Diesel with particularly high hopes, as lumberjack matches tend to get hampered by various shenanigans, plus it doesn't exactly sound like a good match without the stipulation. And yeah, it's pretty crap with the only notable moment being Diesel's dive over the ropes to the floor on top of the lumberjacks. It was bogged down with way too much outside interference though, and never really got going before it ended. There'd never be a pay per view main event like this any more, and the state of modern wrestling is all the better for that fact. The whole show was kinda bad, with the tag matches being the lesser of the evils, though I could definitely see people prefering the faster paced opener and IC Title match.

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Jeff Jarrett was great on this show. Ain't I great ha ha ha, that routine ruled. Always loved "With My Baby Tonight", great song and a classic memorable segment. Reminded me of when Jarrett later performed with Sawyer Brown years later. Jarrett ruled during this time as did his theme, would've liked to seen him stick around. HBK/Jarrett was good stuff for sure.

 

The opener was pretty good and I was also surprised by that finish, was definitely not expecting to see a 2nd rope piledriver out of nowhere. Always liked the Allied Powers, good team and theme. Enjoyed the main event as a fan of both guys. Also liked the build up shown to it. Fun finishing sequence and an out of nowhere actual finish. Love the ending shot of the Kliq standing tall among the babyfaces. Always great to see post-show video packages, bring em back!

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I wouldn't put Razor/Shawn anywhere near a best of 95 discussion, it's a borderline good match at best. However, Jarrett/Shawn is great stuff, and it's pretty much a carry job from Jarrett. Shawn's not bad or anything, but the match is Jarrett's style of match, it's laid out at his pace, structured in a very USWA style, and outside of a couple of nice bumps it's Jarrett who brings all the interesting offense, selling, and psychology. It's probably the best match of Jarrett's career, and maybe the best non-gimmick match of Shawn's career.

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