Hello wrestling fans, you are in for a treat this week – another two part edition of Coliseum Corner!
In anticipation of the WWE DVD release ‘The Best of in Your House’ expected in 2013, let’s take an early look into some of the best IYH moments in WWF history.
The In Your House name was used with a subtitle for each event. Beginning on May 14th 1995, Mother’s Day, “Premier” featured Diesel defending his WWF Title against Psycho Sid. The final In Your House pay-per-view was Backlash, with The Rock challenging Stone Cold Steve Austin for the WWF Championship on April 25 1999.
When ‘In Your House’ began, these events were just two hours long and priced at $14.95. The major events (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, King of the Ring, Summerslam, Survivor Series) were priced at $24.95 and had 3 hour running times. IYH was not an annual event but a PPV designed to build feuds leading up to the major events. During its run, there would be seven IYH PPVs annually, except for its first year (1995) when there were five, and its final year (1999) when there were two. In 1996 Acclaim even released a console game in its name.
From 1995/96, some matches have stood the test of time and some are more likely to be on an episode of ‘WWE’s Are You Serious’. Take the Hog Pen Match between Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Henry Godwinn or the Cry-baby match between Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid as examples. On the flip side, we will be looking at three great matches from that time.
From Hershey Pennsylvania on December 17 1995 Seasons Beatings offered its viewers a classic main event between WWF Champion Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and his brother-in-law The British Bulldog.
In what might be considered a rematch from Summerslam 1992 where Bret Hart relinquished his Intercontinental championship, these two men put on a wrestling clinic. In August of 1995 The Bulldog had turned heel against Diesel and for the first time in WWF history had turned his back on his fans. The Hitman had just regained the WWF Championship from Diesel and Davey Boy was named the number 1 contender. In the build-up to this match Bret’s sister had declared that she was no longer torn between her brother and her husband; her full support was with The British Bulldog.
The match immediately begin with wrestling manoeuvres and holds, so fluid were these two men, brawling and power moves were not a factor in this match. Although The British Bulldog was a powerful man and his signature moves were used, technical wrestling prevailed. This encounter offered excitement and anticipation and involved Bret being busted wide open consequently turning the canvas blood orange. This definitely is one to watch.
At Wrestlemania XII Shawn Michaels realised his dream of becoming the World Wrestling Federation Champion. 1996 really was his year.
In his first Pay-Per-View as champion, he defended his title against his friend turned rival Diesel. This In Your House (7) was christened ‘Good Friends Better Enemies’. This match took place in Omaha, Nebraska on April 28 1996 and was fought under the No Holds Barred stipulation. In the build-up to this match, Diesel had turned on the Heartbreak Kid prior to Wrestlemania. Obsessed with winning the WWF title back, Diesel had Shawn in his sights.
These two beat the living daylights out of each other with Michaels going through a table, Diesel ripping off legend Mad Dog Vachon’s prosthetic leg (Mad Dog, uncle of Luna Vachon was spectating from the front row) and attempting to use it as a weapon, plus, Shawn makes full use of a chair. This is one to watch over and over. This was Diesel’s last pay-per-view as a month later he’d show up on the screens of WCW under his real name.
As Shawn’s reign of success continued, he lived up to his reputation and put on another classic with Mankind at Mind Games, live from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 22.
Shawn yet again put his WWF Championship on the line against another dangerous man. One month before at Summerslam, Mankind defeated the Undertaker with the help of Undertaker’s manager Paul Bearer. Gaining new momentum as well as a new manager, Mankind was the perfect threat to Shawn’s reign. At In Your House 10, these two tangled in what Mankind (Mick Foley) considers one of his top three matches. In this violent classic, a table becomes a factor yet again, at a time when the WWF didn’t use such extremities. The match combines great wrestling ability with the good guy fighting back from a severe beating. This match is still a classic and one of the greats from 1996.
Join us next time Coliseum Corner fans, when we pick it up from 1997 for more of the best moments of ‘In Your House’ history.
I would like to give season beatings to people who make best of’s on dvd’s instead of anthologys to dvds that need them. like the rest of survivor series, king of the ring & In Your House. Those need anthology’s on dvd. No Best Of’s.
Agreed. And, add Starrcade, Clash, and other NWA/WCW events to the list of anthology sets. With the advent of blu-ray this is a very real possibility that hopefully becomes an affordable reality soon.
I don’t remember IYH 5 being called “Seasons Beatings”. I thought they didn’t start naming the IYH events until IYH 7, Good Friends, Better Enemies.
I perfer this as an anthology not the best of.
I always enjoyed the In Your House events, and definitely can’t wait for the Best of In Your House DVD set coming next year. Even most of the undercard matches were good. I actually enjoyed the Hog Pen match, lol. Or the Carribean Strap match with Savio Vega vs Stone Cold. The WWE championship match with Bret Hart vs Bulldog was of course classic. “Mind Games” was another good PPV in that it was the first time ECW showed up on WWE television, I think, and sat front row. The steel cage match between Diesel and Bret Hart at Rage in the Cage was good too.
So many great memories from In Your House events.
IYH was a fun event…use to love the setup with the house and garage. There was one in particular with Undertaker vs Executioner in an armageddon rules match and Taker tossed Mankind through the “house” set..pretty cool moment.
Ha, yes I remember that match actually. Another good match is the first Shawn Michaels / Undertaker match from “Ground Zero”. Everyone remembers their next encounter at the first Hell in a Cell at Bad Blood, and I think the Ground Zero match is very underrated because of it.
Something that a lot of fans don’t realize is that the In Your House events didn’t start having “sub-names” until Good Friends, Better Enemies in April ’96. All In Your House events prior to that were only simply called “In Your House”. There were no sub-names for those shows.
It wasn’t until many years after the In Your House series ended that WWE retroactively gave the early In Your House events sub-names. I believe it was when 24/7 On Demand started airing those events that WWE gave the December ’95 event, for example, the sub-name “Season’s Beatings”. The first 6 events in the build up to the events and on the events themselves never had a sub-name. I never understood why WWE felt the need to retroactively give them names.
I agree…from what i gathered the first few IYH events had sub names but weren’t really official:
IYH 2: “The Lumberjacks”
IYH 3: “Triple Header”
IYH 4: “Great White North”
IYH 5: “Season’s Beatings”
IYH 6: “Rage in a Cage”
Classics on Demand aired IYH 6 a year ago and titled it Rage in a Cage. Coliseum Video released it in North America as “Spring Explosion”, IYH 4 and 5 was titled “Winter Combat”, IYH 2 had two releases (Canadian was “Lumberjacks” and US was “Terminators”) and IYH 3 was dubbed as “IYH Vol. 2”.
This is true. In the UK it wasn’t until IYH 7 that a sub heading was added. On some American releases the In Your House Logo wasn’t even displayed. It always was in the UK with the original logo displayed up until 19 (d-Generation X)
Coliseum Video(and thus SilverVision) for whatever reason when the home videos were releases decided to give all the In Your House PPV’s their own name that had nothing to do at all with the event. Slamathon ’96, Rampage ’97, Maximum Impact, Wrestlefest ’96 and on and on. None of those titles had anything to do with the actual PPV events. It was just something that Coliseum added themselves. Like I mentioned above, if anyone remembers that time period, May ’95-February ’96, the WWF never gave those In Your House any sub-names at all. During Raw, Superstars and the other weekly tv shows it was simply billed as In Your House. And if you watch the actual In Your House events themselves nowhere on the show are any of those sub-names used at all. Good Friends, Better Enemies was the actual first In Your House to have a legit sub-name used in advertising and promoting the event. Giving the first 6 IYH events sub-names was something that WWE decided to do in 2004 when they launched 24/7 On Demand. Again, I have no idea why. I guess just to simplify things.
Just want to also make note that in September 1997 once the In Your House events moved to 3 hours and the price went up to $29.95 to match the big 4 PPVs(or 5 at the time), the In Your House name actually began to be phased out in favor of the sub-name. The In Your House name actually became the sub-name. By the time we got to 1998 and 1999 the In Your House name was pretty much nothing more than just an afterthought and rarely ever mentioned at all. It was still used for the advertising posters(in very small print), but for the most part the PPV name itself(No Way Out, Unforgiven, Fully Loaded, etc.) was the actual name that was pushed on tv instead of the In Your House name.
Personally I only consider the first 16 In Your House events as the real ones. The 2 hour, $14.95 events. Once it moved to 3 hours and full price starting with Ground Zero that was when the novelty was gone of what made the In Your House events what they were.
The only ppv I ever attended was in 1996 in Charleston South Carolina when they had to redo the matches with lights. T.V tapings,a house show, and a ppv all in one night! Vince came out and announced that The Ultimate Warrior did not show up or was hurt and would not be facing Vader. After a few minutes the Warrior did come out and attack Vader with his trademark moves. Warriors no-shows were documented in the “Self Destruction of Ultimate Warrior” dvd. I always wondered how many shows the Warrior actually missed during this time. I was
The Warrior only missed 3 shows and they were in late June of ’96. He worked the King Of The Ring ppv and the Raw tapings the next(where they taped 4 weeks worth of shows). The Warrior himself actually talked about why he missed those 3 shows in an article in Raw Magazine following his suspension/quitting. His father passed away that week and he flew home to go to the funeral. He was also having business differences with the company when it came to marketing and merchandising.
That “Self Destruction” dvd is such a smear job and only tells half the story obviously. Like how the Warrior “held Vince up for more money at SummerSlam ’91”. That’s how Vince likes to spin that story. If you listen to the Warrior’s side of the story it was that he never received his ppv bonus from WrestleMania VII and Vince continuously blew him off whenever Warrior brought it up. So on the day of SummerSlam ’91 Warrior told Vince essentially that enough was enough and wasn’t working another ppv until he got his check for the last ppv(Mania 7).
Warrior certainly wasn’t perfect and had his faults, but it says something about Vince when he makes a dvd about a guy who, in their words, was a joke and didnt deserve the push he got and then a couple of years later invites the guy to be in the Hall Of Fame in Phoenix(Warrior’s hometown). Warrior said he’d do it if Vince agreed to acknowledge that the DVD was all BS. It’s a valid point. You make a documentary telling your audience that this guy is a joke and you completely bury him, but then you want your audience to accept that this guy was great and is a Hall Of Famer. Make up your mind Vince.
Sorry for going off on that tangent.
IYH always had atleast one rare gem…majority of the events weren’t even that good overall though.
I always thought IYH 4 (Bulldog vs Diesel main event) was garbage from top to bottom. Even Bad Blood 97, if it wasn’t for HIAC the whole PPV would have been an absolute DUD…even the tag team flag match wasn’t that good since 3/4 of the wrestlers were injured.
Canadian Stampede has been my favorite IYH…great ppv from top to bottom – only 4 matches but it was a quality ppv.
Actually looking forward to the IYH set…at least they will put the good stuff on there rather than the junk.
I would definitely agree that Canadian Stampede is the best and that the first Hell in the Cell was a classic. Stay tuned for the next part of IYH.