Welcome to the third, Tybo Talks 1995. We are continuing from Wrestlemania XI with the first ‘In Your House’ PPV
With the ease of access to pretty much all of WWE’s back catalogue on the WWE Network I thought it would be cool to change it up a bit and do some classic reviews (with a twist). As some of you may know I have already done this with WWE in 2002 and 2003, but this time I’m doing it a little different.
In the past, I have reviewed all the PPV (from the year) but watched all Raw and Smackdown episodes too. This time as it’s 1995 I’m watching all PPV, but I’m watching WWE Raw, ECW’s Hardcore TV, and WCW Nitro (when it starts in September)… Wish me luck!
The idea behind WWF producing the ‘In Your House’ PPV was simple, they wanted to create more PPVs to accompany the ‘Big Five’ (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, King of the Ring, Summer Slam and Survivor Series) but didn’t think fans would pay the full PPV fee every month.
So they created ‘In Your House’ a shorted PPV (just about 2 hours long) and charged less for it. This turned out to be a huge success.
The opening vignette is just an overview of the upcoming show, no particular match gets more hype than any other. On commentary, we have Vince McMahon and Doc Hendrix (Michael P.S. Hayes)
Hakushi (with Shinja) vs Bret Hart
This match came about because of what went down on ‘WWF Superstars’ (which is currently not on the WWE Network). Bret was being honoured by the Japanese media, and Hakushi wasn’t happy about it. Not much is known about the fully tattooed Hakushi, except that he is undefeated in WWF at this point.
FunFact: Hakushi translates to mean ‘white one’ which could be why Shinja painted his face white.
There is a lot of mat wrestling in the early match, with Hakushi looking like he is botching a little, just trying to keep up with Hart. The match (annoyingly) cuts to ‘The King’ because he has a match with Hart later in the show.
There is some great, solid heelwork from both Hakushi and Shinja taking turns to distract the referee, and Hakushi hits a beautiful diving head-butt off the top rope. Hart eventually turns the match around and the crowd can’t get enough, after some great back a forth, and well-executed high-flying from Hakushi, Bret gets the roll-up. This is easily the best match I have seen all year from Hakushi, shame nothing really comes from it.
Winner – Bret Hart
Backstage – They show the 1-800 Superstar Room. All of the night’s winners will be there throughout the night chatting to fans who phone up. This is so 90’s it’s unreal!
Stephanie is at the ‘In Your House’ stage. The stage is a house because a fan is going to win a house!
FunFact: There was a police escort for the armoured truck with the 340,000+ entries in it
Jeff Jarrett & The Roadie vs Razor Ramon
FunFact: This is the first-ever handicap match on WWF PPV.
(I was shocked at this one!)
This match goes all the way back to before Royal Rumble in January and has been a solid feud throughout, even getting some ‘Match of the Night’ on my PPV reviews. This was originally supposed to be a Tag Team match with 1-2-3 Kid teaming with Razor, but he was injured so here we are.
FunFact: This is actually Roadie’s first televised match.
There is some great heel work from Jarrett and Roadie in this match, distracting the referee and quick tags. Razor is great at mounting a little comeback only to be instantly shut down.
Great chemistry between all three guys, Razor is really selling that the odds are too much for him, but the crowd are still right behind him. He slowly starts to shift the momentum of the match and hits a ‘Razor’s Edge’ on Jarrett. This possibly gets the crowd pop of the night.
Razor gets the win, but Roadie and Jarrett instantly start a double beat down. Aldo Montoya comes out to help ‘The Bad Guy’. Then someone else is in the ring, but no one knows who it is? They play this like it’s a fan trying to help Razor, and he is even escorted out of the ring. (this was the debut of Savio Vega)
FunFact: Did you know Aldo Montoya would go on to be the ECW mainstay Justin Credible.
After a promo hyping that the next PPV is King of the Ring, we see Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler arguing with Jack Tully (who was the on-air WWF President at the time) wanting his match with Bret Hart right then. Tully was obviously saying no.
Backstage: There is an interview with Sid on his upcoming WWF championship match, this is a dark and intense interview showing just how unhinged Sid was when he was a ‘psycho’.
King of the Ring: (Qualifying Match) Mable vs Adam Bomb
It’s crazy to think there was a qualifying match for the King of the Ring on a PPV when in 2019 they didn’t have any qualifying matches and the whole tournament was spread over Raw and Smackdown and the finals weren’t even on a PPV.
Mable is massive! I know, obviously, it’s Mable but he a whole lot of human!
Honestly, Adam Bomb has been completely lost in my memory of this era, but as soon as I see him I remember I have a friend who absolutely loved him (his name was also Adam). I even text him while watching this PPV and he could still tell me his finisher and where he was from, so someone remembers him.
This match isn’t anything to write about, although Adam Bomb is far better in the ring than I was expecting. That being said Mabel seems to hit one or two moves and gets the win.
Winner – Mable
Backstage: Razor Ramon is in the Superstar call room where he introduces Savio Vaga as ‘one of the biggest stars from the Caribbean’
Tag Team Championship: Owen Hart & Yokozuna (w/ Jim Cornett) (C) vs The Smoking Gunns
FunFact: This is the first PPV in both Owen and Bret’s career that Owen has walked in with gold and Bret hasn’t.
I never really think about how good The Smoking Gunns were when I think about the career of Billy Gunn. It’s almost forgotten that Billy was an established tag team wrestler before D-Generation X and The New Age Outlaws. The Smoking Gunns has a solid gimmick, great chemistry and impressive double team moves.
This match felt really quick and as good as they looked and the great chemistry between the four guys, with a solid back and forward, the match could of went on for longer. Hart and Yokozuna used the classic attack and roll up to get the win, which was good to see the new team on the same page.
Winners – Owen Hart & Yokozuna
Backstage – Diesel sends out a heartfelt message to all the mothers out there after losing his mother earlier in the year. It was great to see a little bit of a character break from Kevin Nash. He then gets back to business cutting a fired up promo about his match with Sid.
‘I am the walrus… ku… ku… kachu!’ – Diesel
‘The King’ is in the ring waiting for Bret Hart, with a woman he is calling his mother. This is clearly some model, who is younger than Lawler. This is a weird segment, that honestly makes little sense, except it’s Mother’s Day?
Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler vs Bret Hart
Hart walks to the ring with a joke limp, while the crowd pops for him. This match is exactly what you would expect, the pace is fast, and the moves are hard-hitting. Bret is the angry face who is giving it everything he has and Lawler is playing the ‘weasely’ heel to perfection. This was a fairly solid match, Bret even no-sold the piledriver, and looks to end this one quickly.
Then something goes a little wrong and the referee ends up hanging upside down with his leg in the ropes. While this is happening outcomes Sinja and Hakushi, Hakushi hits Hart with numerous diving head-butts off the top rope. With the referee now free ‘The King’ gets the pin and wins the match. There was so much going on in such a short time, I’m still not sure how much was planned.
Although Lawler gets the win Hart immediately goes in for the beat-down, and stands tall, without the win.
Winner – Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler
There is a break in the show so someone can win a house! This is just madness, who’s idea was it to have someone win a house? It may be crazy, but it really happened and Matt really won a house!
WWF Championship: Diesel (C) vs Sid
The match starts with these two standing face to face, both men are huge but Diesel looks small which is no easy feat. Diesel hits quick, you can tell he is going to try and use his speed and strength in this one.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a lot from this one. Neither man is known for being fantastic wrestlers and is probably only in the position they are in because of their size.
That being said there is actually some phycology to the match. Diesel is almost the underdog, hitting Sid with everything he has with little effect. Sid is slow and methodical but makes every move count. Sid’s whole persona is fitting with his ‘psycho’ gimmick. It’s unfortunate that the execution of the match was not better, although Sid does manage to hit Diesel with a Powerbomb which was impressive to see.
The match ends after interference from Tatanka, and a two on one beat-down on the champ, until Bam Bam Bigalow comes to make the save, cementing Bigalow as the new babyface in town.
Winner – (via disqualification) Diesel
After the show, there is an advert where two aliens decide not to destroy the earth because they like WWF. I had completely forgotten this was even an advert! ‘You never know, WWF could be saving the world’
Overall
This was a really fun PPV to watch and didn’t take itself too seriously, solid matches and someone won an actual house!!
Considering this was the first In Your House PPV, the quality of matches was far higher than I ever thought they would be. It would h
WWE seemed to do the opposite making the PPV feel like it was an important part of the continuing rivalries and even title matches. They even cleverly started setting up next month’s King of the Ring PPV, with the first qualifying match.
Match of the Night: This would be between Bret Hart vs Hakushi. I think it would have to be Hart vs Hakushi because Hakushi really shocked me in the ring, it is just a shame that he never got the push he clearly deserved, they could have easily built on his affiliation with ‘The King’ to get him on TV more, he had an interesting gimmick that could or been explored. Even putting him up there with the more ‘supernatural’ superstars.
It seems even more clear that Bret Hart could make anyone look great, even in a somewhat ‘throw-away’ match, Bret still shows that he was and still is a wrestling genius.
Rating: In Your House – 2.5 / 5
Tybometer ’95
(1995 PPV’s scored out of a possible five)
Royal Rumble – 4
Wrestlemania – 2
In Your House – 2.5
Look out for the next Tybo Talks, where I review
Recent Comments