DeGeneration X: In Your House - Springfield Civic Centre, Springfield Massachusetts, December 7th 1997

The opening video for the event is a tweaked version of the commercial for it which you saw in the Preview. I’ve included it anyway because it is cool and has some updated clips from the most recent episodes of Raw

There’s a strong argument to be made that this is the first PPV of the Attitude era. The DX branding obviously does a lot of the heavy lifting there but with the loss of Bret Hart last month the New Generation is well and truly over and done with. This show also has a unique stage with big metal structures formed into a d and X where the wrestlers enter.

Light Heavyweight Championship Tournament Final

Taka Michinoku vs. Brian Christopher

I think someone messed up because Brian Christopher doesn’t enter to the theme song he had been using on TV and instead comes out to a heavier rock instrumental which I know as the music Darren Drozdov used as his theme music in 1998-1999. Maybe they’re just trying different things?

Brian Christopher beat Flash Flanagan in the first round but then got a bye thanks to Kane in the second but given that he has the most personality and has been the most heavily featured on TV in this new division, it’s fair to say he’s the favourite. We get our first look at the new Light Heavyweight Championship belt too - I quite like it, but I think the sort of deep red, almost maroon strap makes it look quite old fashioned already! It’s kind of an antique shade? Is it just me? 

Jerry Lawler is really into this match which helps given that they’re both still newcomers really. JR keeps teasing him about Brian being his son, something which they both deny. The match itself is good; Christopher works as the more powerful wrestler but Taka is a lot faster and there’s some nice counters and dives. Taka lands on his feet after a monkey flip and avoids Brian’s dive to the outside - he hits his face on the metal railing and busts his mouth open, I bet that hurt!

Taka hits a gorgeous moonsault from the top rope to the floor and in a fun spot, Jerry actually abandons commentary to go and check on Brian’s bloody mouth while he’s outside the ring. He gets a near fall with a nice sit down powerbomb and the two are pretty evenly matched! Christopher has the advantage when the pace slows and he can keep it on the mat but connects with a gorgeous missile dropkick to the back of Taka’s head! He wastes a lot of time taunting and showing off for the crowd between moves, and stops to get encouragement from Jerry Lawler.

Brian works over Taka for a while but misses the leg drop off the top rope and Taka follows up with the Michinoku Driver to pick up the win and become the first ever WWF Light Heavyweight Champion. This was a great match and the fans popped big for the finish! 

Taka is presented with the title by WWF officials Tony Garea, Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson, and the ring fills with Japanese photographers to get shots of the new champion; his signing with the WWF was a pretty big news story in Japanese wrestling at the time. I love Taka, this was a good moment and it lasted a while so I got to hear his theme song for ages. I’ve said before I really like Taka’s theme music!

Los Boricuas (Miguel Perez Jr, Jesus Castillo Jr, and Jose Estrada Jr with Savio Vega)

vs.

The Disciples of Apocalypse (Chainz, 8-Ball, and Skull)

This match wasn’t announced ahead of time but this feud has been ongoing since the summer and they can dust these lads off to fill up a card at a moment’s notice. Weirdly, Los Boricuas are all carrying microphones and take turns singing/rapping along with their own theme song. They’ve never done that before.

Now that Crush has left the company officially, Los Boricuas have a one-man advantage in this feud. Savio isn’t allowed to stay at ringside but I’m sure we’ll see him again before the end of this match.

This match turns into a big of a crowd pleasing house show match with Miguel and Chainz playing up to the crowd to see who gets the bigger cheer before actually starting to wrestle as the initial legal men. Chainz shows way more personality than he has done previously trying to pump up the fans. Jerry Lawler exhausts the “people who’ve been to prison” chapter of his joke book during this match but none of them are funny enough to make note of. I do not like Jerry Lawler and I hope that comes across. 

Either Skull or 8-Ball dominates until a cheap shot from Jose on the apron allows Jesus to put him down with a Thez Press and then Los Boricuas isolate and work over the big twin in their corner. Miguel comes off the middle rope and lands on his feet but immediately collapses, dramatically selling his leg like he’s broken his ankle or hurt his shin or something. They kept the cameras on him as he rolled to the outside so I don’t know if it's a legit injury or not; no one comes out to check on him except his own partners who are now in a two vs. three situation. After going it alone for a few minutes, Savio Vega comes back out and gets up on the apron to try and take Miguel’s place but referee Tim White refuses to allow it. Los Boricuas are doing pretty well even being a man down, but this has allowed them an excuse to get their leader back down to ringside. The match breaks down and with the referee still arguing with Los Boricuas, Chainz hits a big sidewalk slam on Jesus and has the match won until Miguel springs up - he was never injured after all - and hits a front flip into a leg drop across Chainz’ head, reversing the pin and giving Los Boricuas the win! The match was nothing special but I did like that finish, it was clever.

Dok Hendrix interviews Butterbean who actually won a boxing match on another PPV the night before this. He says that he’s going to make Mero pay for how he treats Sable; what is he talking about? Here’s a video package to explain it.

Toughman Contest

Marc Mero (w/Sable) vs. Butterbean

Mero does have a legit boxing background obviously but the reason this is marketed as a Toughman contest rather than as a straight up boxing match because this isn’t real. Michael Cole speaks to Sable before the match and, despite her saying that she’s behind Marc Mero he STILL yells at her for doing an interview without his permission and accuses her of stealing his spotlight. She doesn’t need to try very hard, Marc.

The two of them circle each other throwing punches and after the first round ends, Mero confirms that this isn’t real by clipping Butterbean in the back of the head with a light punch and causing a little bit of a fight and a pull apart so both men can do to their corners and drink water, refresh and rejuvenate. The crowd are so into this match that they keep chanting for Sable. 

Mero kicks it up into pro-wrestling shenanigans with a running knee strike and then choking Butterbean with his wrist tape while the referee is busy arguing with Butterbean’s corner man. Mero even tries a couple of eyerakes and Butterbean stumbles around taking body blows. Mero’s cheating has put him firmly in control by the end of round 2. Mero throws a dropkick at Butterbean’s back and the big man is pissed when round 3 starts. He no-sells Mero’s punches and by the end of the round, clobbers him and seemingly knocks him out. He doesn’t want the fight to end yet so dumps a bucket of water onto Mero’s face to wake him up and make sure round 4 begins. It does and Butterbean hits Mero clean and puts him down. Marc hits a low blow right in front of the referee to officially lose by disqualification and then cracks his little wooden boxing stool over Butterbean’s back! Mero leaves quickly and celebrates like he won but Butterbean shakes off the attack and chases after Mero! This was pretty boring and the crowd wasn’t into it, but it did make Mero a bigger heel so job done I suppose.

It’s not scheduled but Luna leads The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust out onto the stage. The pair of them are dressed outrageously in mostly pink and Goldust reads “a little diddy he wrote as a child” and then reads Dr. Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham while putting on a very camp, gay voice. He keeps leaving huge gaps between lines so this feels incredibly awkward and boring. Luna finally gets sick of listening to him and hits him before dragging him backstage on his leash. I’ll be honest; I hated this. I’ll save talking more about The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust for the Royal Rumble when he’ll actually be back in the ring.

Before the next match, Michael Cole interviews the Legion of Doom. Animal rants about how Road Dog and Hawk are sissies and how no one can beat them in a fair fight. I like the LOD but they had been doing this same gimmick for well over a decade so Mr. Dog and Mr. Ass calling them old was a little on the nose. Hawk compares the champions to a booger that needs picking out of their noses. That’s disgusting.

WWF Tag Team Championships

Road Dog and Bad Ass Billy Gunn © vs. The Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal)

The new champions have all the pieces of their well known act. Billy has dropped the second D off “Bad” so now it’s spelt correctly, they have their theme music and Road Dog is workshopping his opening spiel and prematch promo. Tonight it's all about how the fans need to not feed the dinosaurs, talking about them like they’re a zoo exhibit. He talks a little too long so Hawk and Animal chase them backstage and Road Dog is really quick on his feet, still with the mic in hand pretends he and Billy had some last minute stretching to do. Hawk and Animal need to control themselves and let them get to the ring! 

They try to leave again but this time, the WWF officials are there to chase Road Dog and Billy back towards the ring and Hawk and Animal catch them and get this match started, slapping Road Dog around and dominating him in and out of the ring. Animal catches his leapfrog and spikes him with a powerbomb which would have ended this match with a title change if not for Billy breaking up the three. Hawk has his fun beating up Road Dog too and Billy is sent into the ring steps for trying to help his partner - the champions are very outclassed by the challengers in this match so far.

On the outside, a well timed low blow from Billy and then Road Dog using the big drinks cooler full of ice from under the ring as a weapon, Hawk is finally put down and the champions isolate and work him over, tagging in and out and dropping fists and knees on him. Road Dog does the worm into a pin on Hawk which got a laugh out of Jerry Lawler who seems to have decided he likes this team now after calling them immature and jackasses for the past month on Raw. Generally speaking, Jerry Lawler supporting you on commentary is how you know you’re a heel. 

Hawk makes the tag to Animal after avoiding a big splash in the corner from Mr. Ass and the LOD rolls trhough the champions with powerslams and clotheslines. They set up a Doomsday Device on Road Dog but with Billy distracting the referee, The Godwins run down and hit Animall with their slop bucket! Hawk loses it and grabs the bucket, using it on Billy, Road Dog and even swings at the referee for trying to control him! That is obviously a disqualification so Road Dog and Bad Ass Billy Gunn not only retain their Tag Team titles but actually win the match too. LOD celebrate anyway - they were crazy popular a month ago and maybe it's just this city and crowd but by this point, they aren’t getting anywhere near as positive of a reaction. Perhaps the WWF’s youth movement and new attitude is making them seem too old by comparison? 

Boot Camp match

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley (w/Chyna)

This match needs a video package, and it's basically the same one we saw on Raw. A lot of new fans had no idea who Sgt. Slaughter was so the WWF needed to make him seem like a fair opponent to Triple H. 

No more Ode to Joy as Triple H enters to the D-Generation X theme song. Slaughter used Lex Lugar’s old “rah rah America” theme song on Raw but here he comes out to The Patriot’s theme song, which I guess was a good clue that Del Wilkes wouldn’t be returning to TV even after his injury healed up. All of these jokes about Slaughter’s age - how old was he at the time? He was 49 years old which, in fairness, is pretty old to be a professional wrestler. Slaughter goes on the attack with his riding crop, punching and clubbing Helmsley around the ring and chopping him in the corner. He beats him up slowly around the ring too and goes for a pin on the outside, which the referee refuses to count because it’s not pin falls count anywhere. Back in the ring, Sarge takes off his belt to whip Triple H with that too and after a good few minutes of being on the wrong side of a beating, Triple H finally reverses an Irish whip and sends the Commissioner tumbling roughly to the floor.

He follows him out and throws him over the security rail and beats him up in the crowd with basic stuff like punches and chokes. This feels pretty heated which is logical given what Triple H has said about Slaughter’s wife and kids. Triple H goes to get the ring bell and Mark Yeaton the time keeper won’t let it go and fights with him over it. Hilariously Triple H struggles to overpower him so he hits him in the face with the ring bell and knocks him out cold! Back in the ring, HHH uses Slaughter’s belt to whip and choke him and slows things down. He wraps a chain around his first for some right hands - a move which would kill someone in real life - but Slaughter fights back and manages to get the chain and use it too. He tries to slam Triple H but collapses which might be him selling but could also just be a sign that he hasn’t wrestled for a long time and is 49 years old and is struggling for real. He does hit the suplex but then makes the mistake of going to the top rope so Triple H catches him and launches him with a gorilla press slam from the top to the mat.

Slaughter withstands the abuse and counters a sleeper into his patented Cobra Clutch! Chyna gets in the ring and rakes his eyes to break it up but when she tries to use powder, Slaughter kicks it back into her own face and goes back to the Cobra Clutch. The second time she breaks it up is with a big punt kick to the balls and Triple H follows that up with a Pedigree onto a steel chair to pick up the win in a hard fought match which I quite enjoyed! It felt physical and intense and Slaughter did well considering his age and how long it's been since he wrestled. 

The Undertaker vs. Jeff Jarrett

Michael Cole interviews Jeff Jarrett before the match but the only thing of note he says is calling Michael “Mark”. His theme music is a solid futuristic sounding instrumental which I quite like, but it has audio clips of Jeff announcing himself and telling us all how great he is. His gimmick is that he is a big money player who demanded and got a huge contract from Vince McMahon and is now throwing his weight around, while also not actually being as good as he thinks he is. It’s quite a modern gimmick, and I do prefer his ring gear here compared to when he was Double J with the weird strappy numbers. 

Undertaker hasn’t wrestled since Badd Blood, and we’ve only seen him in person once since the debut of Kane. Jim Ross mentions how much stress the Deadman must be under with Kane’s rampage and Paul Bearer’s constant demands for him to face his brother in the ring. He’s still saying that will never happen. JR takes the opportunity to take some shots at WCW and Hulk Hogan “There’s a lot of men out there who claim to be legends and icons and maybe they were in their day, but those days are long passed and The Undertaker is the real deal”. 

This is a slow back and forth and not particularly interesting but it only lasts 6 minutes so it's not important. What is important is that as Undertaker gets on a roll, the lights go out and Kane arrives! 

In the ring, Jeff Jarrett is a little too forceful in encouraging Kane to attack The Undertaker so Kane spikes him with a chokeslam. That gives Jeff Jarrett the victory via disqualification. Kane slaps The Undertaker in the face and steps up to him wanting a fight but the Deadman still refuses so Kane triggers his pyro and just leaves with Paul Bearer cackling maniacally. They want to provoke The Undertaker into being the one to attack them first.

With Kane gone, Jarrett attacks Undertaker from behind and tries to get him in the Figure Four but he snatches him by the throat and gives him a second big chokeslam - Undertaker actually misstepped and almost fell over while doing the move but recovered and dunked Jarrett successfully. With Undertaker gone, a shaken Jarrett demands the referee come back to the ring and raise his arm as Howard Finkle announces him as the winner. He struts and makes the referee raise his arm a SECOND time too. He seems pretty proud to have won this match by any means necessary. 

Up in the crowd, Michael Cole is sitting with Mark Henry! We haven’t seen him on TV for a few months because he’s been off training to wrestle after his first couple of (pretty poor) performances. Cole asks when Mark will be back in the ring and he says he’ll be back in a week or so! He makes it sound like he’s been out with an injury which I don’t think was really the case.

WWF Intercontinental Championship

Stone Cold Steve Austin © vs. Rocky Maivia (w/Faarooq, D’Lo Brown and Kama Mustafa)

This match is one that time travellers would find fascinating; the first PPV meeting of the two men who became the biggest stars of all time. I probably don’t need to sell this to you because if you don’t know what a big deal those two are, why are you even on this website?

The Rock has the Intercontinental Championship belt but he is not the champion. Before the match, Dok Hendrix interviews him and he corrects him - he wants to be known as The Rock. He has said he’s not going to just beat Austin but embarrass him. Good luck to you Rocky! 

Stone Cold drives his pickup truck to the ring and is attacked by all four members of The Nation. He back drops D’Lo Brown up and over the top rope, smashing the windshield of the truck and then drops him with a Stunner on the roof! Awesome stuff. He and The Rock’s match officially starts and when Kama and Faarooq try to get involved again, Kama swings a chair for Austin which hits Faarooq instead (kind of - he missed but JR did a good job of covering for it) and then whips Kama into the side of the truck so hard that it dents the bodywork! 

The match continues in the ring and Austin hasn’t even got his leather jacket off and is wrestling in his vest! The crowd is rabid for this, loudly cheering everything Stone Cold does and alternating between chanting Austin and 3:16. The Rock delivers the move we’d later know as the People’s Elbow but when he goes for a second, he removes the elbow pad! He misses that one and Stone Cold retaliates with stomps in the corner. His first Stunner attempt is blocked when Kama jumps up onto the apron and the referee makes the mistake of coming up behind Stone Cold who instinctively drops him with a Stunner! The Rock puts on brass knuckles to try and win that way but Stone Cold hits ANOTHER Stunner and a second referee runs down to count the three and give him the victory.

Stone Cold retains the Intercontinental title and destroys all four members of The Nation in what I thought was an awesome segment - I couldn’t say it was a great match because it only went about five minutes but it was a damn entertaining fight and Stone Cold is second to no one as the most popular man in the WWF. After he leaves there’s some controversy as Stone Cold did stun a referee, even if it wasn’t something he intended to do. That should have been a disqualification right? 

WWF Championship

Shawn Michaels © (w/Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Chyna) vs. Ken Shamrock

This match gets a video package and, just like the main event of Survivor Series, the dramatic “walking to the ring” backstage shots for both Shamrock and Shawn Michaels. HBK’s prematch promo is about his total lack of respect for everyone which is a point he makes by insulting Jim Ross’ weight and appearance. He was riding high, finally the top man in the WWF and rid of Bret Hart with no more rival for his position. It’s a shame he didn’t get to enjoy it for very long before his own in-ring career was cut short but that’s a story for next month.

Michaels starts out quickly and keeps his distance from Shamrock but one swift kick to the chest sends him bailing to the outside to regroup with Triple H and Chyna.

That’s the story of this match as Shawn tries to keep things moving fast but Shamrock is too strong and blocks his roll ups with a choketoss into the corner. He hammers Michaels and tries for a belly to belly suplex which HBK blocks by grabbing the referee’s shirt and then a well timed low blow! He throws the World’s Most Dangerous Man out of the ring and then dives off the top rope with a splash which looked messy - Shamrock didn’t bump quickly enough so his shoulder was driven into Michaels’ ribs. A little bit of distraction and interference by Triple H and Chyna gives Michaels opportunity to hit a running splash off the apron and then he focuses his attack on HBK’s ribs back in the ring. He did have internal injuries during his brief feud with Faarooq so that’s a smart strategy.

Shawn slowly grinds Shamrock down with a long, long sleeper and when Ken does fight back we get a good example of how new to this sport he was; he runs the ropes but his head slips a little low and he almost decapicated himself on the top rope. That’s an incredibly dangerous mistake to make and he was very lucky he didn’t seriously injure himself. Michaels recovers the match with a hurricanrana, throwing him out of the ring to be beaten up a little by Triple H and then moves into the finishing sequence with a bodyslam and then his beautiful top rope elbow drop. HBK tunes up the band in the corner but Shamrock ducks the Sweet Chin Music, hits the belly to belly suplex and then locks in the ankle lock! We’ll never know if Michaels would have tapped out as Triple H and Chyna rush the ring and attack, getting Shawn disqualified. 

The three members of D-Generation X beat up Shamrock and throw him out of the ring and while Trople H and Chyna are busy with him, Owen Hart makes his return to TV! He runs to the ring and knocks Shawn off the apron sending him crashing throug the announce table! The Black Hart pounces on Michaels and hammers on him, clawing at his face until Triple H tries to rescue him. Owen escapes over the railing and runs away through the crowd as Triple H checks on Shawn. HBK looks really angry about the attack and Jerry Lawler stays quiet to make this feel like it might have been real and unscripted. Ken Shamrock throws a temper tantrum and kicks at the ringsteps, screaming and roaring as referees and officials usher him to the back. The PPV ends with Shawn Michaels smugly celebrating the fact that he is STILL the WWF Champion despite the disqualification loss but the big story here is that Owen Hart is back and he’s gunning for D-Generation X. 

This was a good show! There was nothing on this I didn’t like (apart from that terrible Goldust and Luna segment) and while the main event wasn’t great it was immediately overshadowed by the return of Owen Hart so that doesn’t matter as much. The Boot Camp match over delivered and there’s no doubt that Stone Cold Steve Austin is the hottest act in the company. Thumbs up across the board!