In Your House 2 - Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville Tennessee, July 23rd 1995

The PPV kicks off with a country music song written just for the event. It’s fitting because they’re in Nashville, the home of country music. 

Commentary tonight is handled by Vince McMahon and Jerry “The King” Lawler who’s dressed as a cowboy for the occasion and has a crown on his hat which is a nice touch. He’s most excited for Jeff Jarrett’s big musical performance tonight and you know what? Me too. 

The Roadie vs. The 1-2-3 Kid

You’d think The Roadie (or Road dog to his friends) has bigger things to worry about tonight with Double J’s big concert later. This is a rekindled feud from around Wrestlemania as they didn’t get to properly finish it due to the Kid’s neck injury. These two obviously had a much bigger association with each other a couple of years after this as members of D-Generation X which is an interesting point - you can see the roster starting to shift again, moving away from the left-overs from the previous era with a ton of fresh faces who’ll be with us for a long time now.

They start fast and the 1-2-3 Kid sends Roadie to the outside with a headscissors. King says that he’s out of sorts because he’s been here since the crack of dawn making preparations for Jeff Jarrett! 

Vince says we can go backstage to see Double J watching his man in action but in the locker room, Jeff has his back to the TV. He’s far more focused on himself and warming up his throat. 

During the battle on the outside, Roadie picks up the Kid in a back suplex and runs him crotch-first into the ring post. That puts him in his place and in the ring, Road Dog chips away at the Kid getting near fall after near fall with some basic moves. The Kid fights back out of a suplex and gets a near fall of his own after a spinning heel kick and a splash off the top rope. 

Roadie counters a hurricanrana into a sit down powerbomb which was nice and as they go back and forth, Roadie blocks Kid from jumping off the top rope and brings him down with a piledriver off the middle rope! Holy hell. That is obviously enough to get the three count and as Roadie dances in victory, Vince is gravely concerned about the neck of the 1-2-3 Kid. 

Roadie is a professional and immediately heads up to the stage, doing a mic check and speaking with the musicians. He’s right back to making the arrangements for his man Double J later.

Backstage, Todd Pettengill speaks to the Million Dollar Corporation ahead of the main event. All of them will be acting as lumberjacks for Sid vs. Diesel later. This is officially the last on screen appearance by IRS who left for WCW less than 10 days after this PPV. It’s not King Kong Bundy’s last appearance but don’t expect to see him in the ring any time soon - he was consigned to the house show circuit. Sid is extremely confident, but elsewhere Diesel is JUST as confident in his own locker room with his own lumberjacks. Shawn Michaels isn’t shy about stealing some spotlight for himself.

Men on a Mission (King Mabel and Sir Mo) vs. Razor Ramon and Savio Vega

I’m not sure when Mabel knighted Mo and made him Sir Mo but I appreciate the consistency. He has a crown of his own and while it’s not as nice as Mabel’s, I’m not convinced a knight should be wearing a crown at all? A suit of armor might be a bit much I guess. 

Razor hasn’t been on TV since King of the Ring and still has taped up ribs from the previous injury. King thinks he's crazy to have accepted this match when he’s not fully healed yet. Mabel might squash him again. Vince says this is his first match in 44 days, which I don’t think is true. He’s probably been on the house show circuit. Razor pulls off the rib tape and throws it in Mabel’s face. Ok so he’s NOT injured and it was a ruse? Alright then. Ramon starts the match against Sir Mo. He throws the big man around with a fall away slam. He tags out to Savio who, after a cheap shot from Mabel, is worked over by Men on a Mission in their corner with quick tags in and out. Mo makes the first big mistake when he tries a moonsault and Savio rolls out the way and gets the hot tag to Razor. He puts Mo down with his trademark back suplex off the top rope and teases a Razor’s Edge but spends too much time taunting and Mo hits him from behind. Mabel actually goes to the top rope but Razor recovers and slams the 500lbs King off the top rope! That gets a close nearfall.

A knee to the back and a DDT leaves Razor prone for a splash but he rolls out of Mabel’s way and Mo and Savio brawl on the outside leaving it as a one on one match. Mabel squashes Razor in the corner and then finishes him with a big belly to belly suplex for the clean pin fall victory. I know he’s already the King of the Ring but a clean victory over Razor Ramon on PPV is definitely Mabel’s biggest victory to date. 

Todd Pettengill has some fun with the band for Double J’s performance before throwing to Dok Hendrix who is with a bunch of Diesel’s lumberjacks. The rumour is that Ted Dibiase has paid off one of them to help out Sid tonight. The Smoking Gunns have nice new pickup trucks. Is it them? Or maybe the Million Dollar Man is financing Man Mountain Rock’s new big tour? They all deny it.

Jeff’s big performance is pretty good, but I’ve heard this song on every episode of Raw for the past month so I’m a little over. It’s fun to see Double J finally actually perform “live”. Afterwards, Todd speaks to some people in the crowd whose reviews range from “he stinks” to “he was alright”

There’s a commercial for Summerslam 1995 where Diesel picks up some hot girl at a truck stop. Funny. 

Henry O. Godwin vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Henry is a hired gun for Ted Dibiase but is not officially a member of the corporation. He slopped Adam Bomb and screwed over Bam Bam in a match with Sid, and Vince mentions more than once that he took both Diesel and the Undertaker to the limit so I’m not sure why they’re pushing the hog farmer so hard but they are.

This match starts out quick and Bam Bam shows off with a cartwheel and then two back suplexes but on the outside, Henry sends him into the ringsteps hip-first and that gives him control. He slows things down in the ring with lots of basic big man moves like a bodyslam, back suplex and elbow drop all for near falls. 

H.O.G works over Bigelow and then goes for a knee drop off the middle rope. He misses and THAT is enough for Bigelow to get the three count. What a terrible finish. Godwin grabs his slop bucket and teases things getting physical but Bam Bam just…leaves. Alright then.

Before the next match, Todd Pettengill interviews Shawn Michaels. It was his birthday yesterday and he’s going to get his own birthday present and win the Intercontinental title for the third time.

WWF Intercontinental Championship

Jeff Jarrett © (w/The Roadie) vs. Shawn Michaels

There’s a lot of stalling and playing to the crowd in the early going of this match. The fans LOVE Shawn Michaels so there’s a long sequence of him hitting a move and posing which gets cheers and then Jarrett hitting a move and posing which gets him a lot of boos. House show shenanigans but the crowd loves it and that makes it fun to watch. Michaels finally gets control by picking up the pace after a thumb to the eye and a string of well timed right hands sending Jeff bouncing all over the ring.

The fan pleasing spots continue as Jeff bails out of the ring to check in with Roadie and teases walking out on the match but doesn’t want to be embarrassed in his hometown to comes back to the ring. Michaels dives from the top rope all the way to the floor onto both Jeff and Roadie but back in the ring, Jarrett finally gets some offence in with a big reversed backdrop up and over the top to the floor. HBK comes up selling his back and is thrown into the ringsteps and put in an abdominal stretch in the ring (with Roadie grabbing his hand to provide some additional leverage, like a good sneaky heel).

Roadie continues to help out by choking Michaels on the ropes as Jeff keeps the referee distracted but he’s dragged into the ring and Jarrett runs into his own man. Michaels’ hope doesn’t last long and he’s launched up and over the top rope and lands hard on his lower back again. That allows Roadie to clobber him with a diving clothesline off the apron and Jeff tries to win via count out and retain his title. He’ll take the victory anyway he can get it but HBK gets back into the ring.

Michaels finally fights up out of a long sleeper hold and picks the pace back up sending Jeff from rope to rope and corner to corner with clotheslines and right hands. He comes off the top rope with a twisting axe handle for a near fall and then after a slam goes to the top rope. A big diving elbow drop is one of Shawn Michaels’ trademarks now but I feel like this is the first time I’ve seen it on this journey through old shows! It gets a nearfall too, and Jeff is pulled into the ring post. Roadie shakes the ropes to stop HBK’s momentum and Double J brings him down the hardway with a superplex. An attempted Figure Four is turned into a roll up but Jeff is tenacious and goes for it again - this time he’s kicked off into the referee. Michaels is about to hit the superkick but he’s chop-blocked by the Roadie with no referee to see it. They go back and forth off the ropes and then Roadie tries to trip Michaels he mis-times it and Jarrett instead! That leads straight to a superkick and with Sweet Chin Music, Shawn Michaels is once again the Intercontinental Champion. This was a really good match, and HBK celebrates with pyro as the crowd (especially the women) go absolutely wild for him. 

Shawn heads straight backstage to celebrate with Diesel, Razor and all of the other babyfaces. The moment is ruined a little by Barry Didinski also being on the scene to aggressively try to sell us a Shawn Michaels t-shirt and pair of sunglasses. I’d have absolutely bought those when I was a kid.

Elsewhere backstage, an extremely over excited Dok Hendrix tells us that when Double J and The Roadie got backstage they were mad at each other and got into a shoving match and Roadie punched Double J! He can’t get into their locker room but says he’ll stay here and try to get us an update. Trouble in paradise. You might think with this show being built so heavily around Jeff Jarrett that this is the start of something big for him but this is the last time we’ll see Jeff in the ring until December! He was unhappy with the WWF’s plans to split up himself and the Roadie and after a disagreement with management, went back to the USWA and wrestled for his father’s promotion for a while. We’ll see him again though don’t you worry.

WWF Tag Team Championships

Owen Hart and Yokozuna © (w/Mr. Fuji and Jm Cornette) vs. The Allied Powers (Lex Lugar and The British Bulldog)

Lex and Bulldog teamed for the first time at Wrestlemania XI and right away Vince was talking about them challenging for the Tag Team titles. Given that fellow singles-main-eventers-turned-tag-team won the gold that same night this seemed like an obvious feud but this match has arrived with little to no fanfare and in fact Vince spends the bulk of this match talking about Lex and Yoko’s original feud in 1993 which is such old news. They do start the match and trade blows with Yoko coming out on top - as he did pretty much every time they wrestled.

There’s a funny spot as Lex knocks Yoko down to one knee and he lands on Owen’s foot which he sells like he’s been run over. They get into an argument and Yoko actually shoves Owen on his ass! Jim Cornette talks sense to them and calms things down and they shake hands and hug, which gets boos. 

The in-ring quality of the match improves when Owen and Bulldog get in the ring and go back and forth until a shot to the head by Yokozuna while Bulldog goes off the ropes allowing Owen to take control. The champions isolate Bulldog in their corner and tag in and out while pummelling him.

After a hot tag to Lex, the match breaks down and the Allied Powers hit a big double back suplex on the 641lbs Yokozuna. That was a cool spot. It surely has the three count but Owen breaks up the pin and then as he fights with Bulldog on the outside, Yokozuna drops a huge leg onto Lex and that wins it for the champions. Owen and Yoko retain the tag team titles in a short, kind of nothing match.

This ends the WWF career of Lex Lugar. He didn’t leave the WWF for another 5 weeks or so but this is his last televised appearance. More on where he went and what he did next after Summerslam. He could have and should have been a bigger star - he was so close to being WWF Champion and if I live to be a 1000 I’ll never understand why Vince just totally gave up on him after putting so many eggs in his basket. Such a waste. He went onto bigger and better things in WCW, but sadly his WWF career is linked to the doomed Lex Express and the many times he came up short to Yokozuna. I guess that makes this final appearance pretty appropriate for him! 

Thankfully the main event gets a Todd Pettengill narrated video package so I don’t have to recap the whole thing. The lumberbjacks follow a fairly straight forward routine - good guys are with Diesel, bad guys are with Sid and the Million Dollar Corporation

Lumberjack match for the WWF Championship

Diesel © vs. Sid (w/Ted Dibiase)

All the lumberjacks enter first but one gets a little bit more of a spotlight - Shawn Michaels comes out with Diesel and Vince calls them “two dudes with attitudes” which will be important the next time we’re at an In Your House (spoilers).

Sid jumps Diesel the moment he gets in the ring to kick things off and its a big slow exchange with them just throwing punches at each other. Sid bails to the outside and is immediately thrown back into the ring by Adam Bomb and Bob Holly. He gets slammed as Shawn Michaels’ clearly shouts “YEEEEESSSSS BIG MAN!” which made me laugh. Sid bails out on the heel side of the ring and those lads are happy to console and check on him rather than shove him back into the ring.

On the flip side when Diesel is thrown to the outside he’s beaten up by the heels before being rolled back into the ring. That gives Sid a huge advantage and he works over Diesel slowly before throwing him back to the outside. That creates a bit moment for the future as King Mabel pounces, crushing the WWF Champion against the ring post and then slamming and splashing him before rolling him back into the ring. Mabel seems to have cost Diesel the title and Sid plants him with a big powerbomb. He has the match won but instead of covering he walks around the ring highfiving the lumberjacks.

By the time he does finally pin Big Daddy Cool, he’s able to kick out at two. What an idiot. He compounds that by randomly getting out of the ring to brawl with the lumberjacks. Shawn Michaels comes flying off the top rope onto everyone and throws Sid back inside. IRS stops Diesel from connecting with the Jackknife on Sid but a running big boot to the face is…enough to end it? Diesel wins and retains the WWF title in a match which was better than their effort at In Your House but still wasn’t great and had a weird finish. 

The show closes with Diesel celebrating with his lumberjacks as Vince makes it clear that this is THE END of his feud with Sid. It’s very “ok we’re done with that now, moving on” and Jerry Lawler talks about King Mabel and Diesel wanting a piece of each other. Does that set up Summerslam next month? Why yes, yes it does.