In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies - Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha Nebraska, April 28th 1996

This is the first WWF In Your House to have an actual name. Good Friends, Better Enemies is the official name of this B PPV which gives it an interesting historical fact if nothing else. The other In Your House PPVs up to this point have retroactively been given names and subtitles for their home video releases and being put up on the WWE Network (now Netflix). For anyone interested, those retroactive names are;

In Your House: Premiere

In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks

In Your House 3: Triple Header

In Your House 4: Great White North

In Your House 5: Seasons Beatings

In Your House 6: Rage in the Cage

The opening match is scheduled to be Bulldog vs. Jake Roberts one on one but before the match, after a replay of the altercation between these men in Germany (which I recapped on the previous Raw, pay attention guys), Jim Cornette and his legal aid Clarence Mason are deep in conversation with the referee. Backstage Jake starts to cut a promo but Vince cuts him off, basically urging him to get to the point. He has a plan B in the face of all of Bulldog’s backup and Jerry Lawler assumes he means his snake. Jim Cornette’s legal team has paperwork banning the snake from ringside so Jake tears that up and gets his snake out anyway (not like that) and scares Camp Cornette with Jim basically fainting and totally overselling the thing. Jake disappears backstage so you’d think this segment was over but he returns with Ahmed Johnson as back up. Clarence Mason helps a distraught Jim Cornette to the back and that leaves us with a tag team match, which is probably a better outcome than a singles match between Jake and Bulldog anyway.

Owen Hart and The British Bulldog vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Ahmed Johnson

Ahmed sustained a broken thumb during that arm wrestling contest with the Bulldog two weeks ago so has his hand taped up. He overpowers Owen and demands he tag in Bulldog but the Brit isn’t keen to get back in the ring with Ahmed and lets Owen continue to try his best. He’s slung around and so Ahmed, realising that Bulldog won’t face him, tags out to Jake. Bulldog is happy to tag in with Jake now legal but quickly bails out of the ring again when Jake tags Ahmed back in. He is determined to avoid Ahmed Johnson - given how clumsy he was in the ring, I would too. The crowd are really into this and Ahmed and Jake isolate Owen until the 1994 King of the Ring counters Jake’s charge in the corner and puts him down with a missile dropkick. That allows Bulldog and Owen to reverse their fortunes and isolate and work over Jake in their corner. He sustains a beating until finally mounting a comeback and fighting off both men. It breaks down and Ahmed rushes into the ring to help out. While he and Owen brawl on the outside and the referee is distracted by that, Bulldog uses Cornette’s tennis racket, hammering Jacke in the knee twice and then locking in a standing leg lock I’ve never seen him use before or since to get a surprising submission victory. This was a fine match but I’d struggle to call it good.

Between matches Vince plugs the Superstar line which currently has Wildman Marc Mero and the 1-2-3 Kid on it. They wrestled on the Free for All (Mero won) and because she's a babyface, hilariously Jerry Lawler of all people calls Sable ugly.

WWF Intercontinental Championship

Goldust © (w/Marlena and “Bodyguard”) vs. The Ultimate Warrior

Goldust has a thick man dressed as a gangster with him when he makes his entrance. He doesn’t stick around; I think this is his only appearance with Goldust and it would make sense that he’d get some backup for this match. The bodyguard is played by Mike Halac, better known as Mantaur! Earlier tonight on the Free for All, Goldust interrupted an interview with the Warrior and blew gold dust into his face.

The Ultimate Warrior gets a ton of pyro for his entrance and the fans LOVE him. In hindsight bringing him back was a mistake on Vince’s part but in 1996 with the crowd going bananas for him it’s impossible to argue with results.

Goldust has a bandage on one of his knees and a heavy limp as he runs around the ring trying to avoid the Warrior. He runs all the way up the entrance ramp to get away and Warrior picks up Marlena’s cigar and has a little smoke; Vince hilariously has to go on the defence and starts explaining to the fans that his big babyface hero does NOT smoke. Warrior has some fun getting Marlena’s directors chair into the ring too and having a little fun, daring Goldust to come back to the ring and get his ring jacket and wig. The crowd loves this but it feels weirdly unscripted. I did a little research and it appears Goldust really did have a bad knee so all of these theatrics were designed to fill time without actually having a match. The crowd starts chanting the F slur at Goldust which is INCREDIBLY uncool but that kind of thing flew in 1996 I guess. It prompts Goldust to grab a microphone and tell the crowd to shut up or he will come out there and KISS each and every one of them. This is all very silly but in truth, I’m enjoying it more than actually watching Warrior wrestle.

Warrior does eventually convince Goldust to trust him and get in the ring, returning the cigar and coat and letting Goldust sit down. Weirdly I did notice Goldust removed one of his gloves and wondered why but it turns out to be a planned spot; Warrior burns his hand with the cigar and clotheslines him out of the chair!

Goldust has had enough and leaves with Marlena, officially losing this “match” via count out so Warrior takes his frustrations out on “bodyguard”, pumping up the crowd and hitting all his signature moves without taking his jacket off. He did the same last month at Wrestlemania too - maybe the arenas were cold? Warrior celebrates with the bodyguard’s hat on and even tries on Goldust’s wig. Nonsense.

Dok Hendrix brings us a report from backstage; The British Bulldog is going ballistic, demanding to see WWF Champion Shawn Michaels and yelling something about his wife Diana (who’s been shown in the crowd at most shows over the past month including tonight). Scandal and drama abounds and I’m sure we’ll hear more about that (we will)

Vader (w/Jim Cornette) vs. Razor Ramon

Cornette has gotten over his snake related scare earlier and is back by Vader’s side. This is the first we’ve seen of Razor since the night after Wrestlemania. I mentioned it at the time but when Razor, Diesel and the 1-2-3 Kid broke the news to Vince that they’d be leaving for WCW at the end of their contracts Razor was suspended and taken off TV. The 1-2-3 Kid was also demoted and used significantly less too; Diesel got away with it because he was already involved in some big storylines that couldn’t be changed. Spoilers for both this match and for the main event but this PPV marks Scott “Razor Ramon” Hall and Kevin “Diesel” Nash’s final on screen appearances as WWF Superstars.

Vader overpowers Ramon, shoving him out of the ring from a tie up and then clobbering him with forearms and punches. Razor just sells and crumples after every body blow. Vader is dominating the only four time Intercontinental Champion in WWF history (at this point in time). It’s good that Razor was brought back for this one final match just to make new star Vader look good. His every attempt to come back is shrugged off with Vader no-selling his big punches and backdropping him out of the ring. Razor does finally tee off with some punches and hammers Vader down in the corner but the big man comes back up swinging. Razor’s trademark punches do start to wear him down and Vader bumps hard off a string of clotheslines. The fans still love The Bad Guy even with him having been off TV for two months.

Vader takes a moment on the outside to compose himself and then comes back and continues to just club Razor with punches, forearms and clotheslines. There’s a little botch as Razor was supposed to move out of the way of an elbow drop but didn’t roll far enough and still kind of gets caught by it. Razor fights back with a desperate back suplex but Vader kicks out and then just slams Razor and follows with the Vader Bomb. Razor Ramon kicks out! That is a shock. They got back and forth a little more with Razor countering a suplex attempt into one of his own - that was very impressive, Vader is MASSIVE. Vader shakes it off and tries another Vader Bomb but Razor gets up and tries for a Razor’s Edge off the middle rope instead. He’s not able to hold Vader up and collapses and that leads to an attempted moonsault off the top. Razor once again stops it and brings Vader down with a big slam off his shoulders. This has been a good match!

Razor sets up another Razor’s Edge but Vader backdrops out of it and then just SITS on Razor which is enough to keep him down for the three count. 450lbs to the chest will do that to a person. I enjoyed that match and it’s a fitting end to Razor’s WWF career.

Post match, Dok Hendrix runs down to ringside to break the news to Vader and Cornette that Gorilla Monsoon has already decided on his next big match; next month at the next In Your House Vader will face Yokozuna! Vader and Cornette are shocked; they assumed they’d taken Yoko out for good. Cornette tells Yokozuna he’s entering the danger zone and Vader will make him pay for it.

In addition to the Superstar line, WWF fans in 1996 could also talk to WWF Superstars online in an AOL chatroom. Some nerds did the typing for them of course and tonight it’s Paul Bearer (and The Undertaker) sitting answering questions. Bearer pantomimes the Mandible Claw so while we can’t hear what he's saying he’s pretty clearly talking about Mankind’s attack on The Undertaker a few weeks ago.

WWF Tag Team Championships

The Bodydonnas © (w/Sunny) vs. The Godwins (Phineas I and Henry O. Godwin w/Hillbilly Jim)

This is a rematch from last month’s Free for All Tag Team tournament finals. The Godwins are already in the ring when The Bodydonnas come out. The storyline here is that Sunny has been flirting with Phineas to distract him and help Skip and Zip win BUT poor P.I.G has caught feelings and is being suckered in by her nefarious plan. For fun, here’s the same music video starring Sunny that was on Raw last week. Enjoy!

Sunny Music Video

Henry overpowers Zip and keeps him in the Godwins corner, threatening to slop him but he scrambles to get away. I’ve mocked Vince McMahon previously for claiming opponents can’t tell the Bodydonnas apart but in fairness to him, I’ve gottne them confused twice already as I write this so what do I know?

King makes a couple of gross jokes about Sunny which border on calling her a slut and implying she had a lot of underage sex. That’s especially creepy given his legendary taste in much younger women. I hate Lawler and I won’t pretend otherwise.

I don’t have much to say about this match as its very back and forth with the teams tagging in and out and taking turns hitting lots of basic moves like head locks and clotheslines. Skip and Zip try to isolate Phineas and do a good job of cutting the ring in half; basic tag team stuff. Phineas finally mounts his come back and tags in Henry as Sunny disappears backstage and comes back out with a framed picture of herself, presenting it to Phineas. It distracts him as like a big idiot he thinks she ACTUALLY likes him. He’s arguing with Hillbilly Jim as Henry hits the Slop drop. He has the win but with no referee to count, the Bodydonnas switch places and the illegal man steals the pin with a small package. The Bodydonnas retain the Tag Team Championships in a fairly nothing match but the main story is that Sunny is proving to be a master manipulator and a very effective manager. Poor P.I.G is very upset that he cost his team the match but H.O.G and Hillbilly Jim give him a hug and console him which is nice; there’s no tease of a break up here.

There’s a commercial for next months’ In Your House which reveals two more matches already signed; in addition to Vader vs. Yokozuna we also see Marc Mero vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega. Dok Hendrix interviews Mero backstage and he asks why HHH would dare to uncage the Wildman? He stuck his silver spoon in where it didn’t belong and he’s going to make him pay for insulting Sable. Earlier tonight as mentioned Marc Mero defeated the 1-2-3 Kid on the Free for All but his joy was short lived as Helmsley ran down and drilled him with a Pedigree afterwards. As it turns out, Mero actually beat the Kid by disqualification which is less impressive than it originally sounded.

No Holds Barred match for the WWF Championship

There’s a video package for this match as you’d expect and it's a good one; a tighter version of the story we saw on Raw.

HBK vs. Diesel build up

Before the match Vince suggests that while at the Iron Man match we saw all the technical wrestling but tonight it’ll be very different being No Holds Barred. I’m into it and, spoilers, I remember this being a really good match so lets hope it lives up to my memory. With the no disqualification and no count out rules they certainly have enough shortcuts to help them out.

Interestingly before the match, Diesel issued a threat to Vince McMahon by name which he also did on Raw. Lawler teases Vince about it and asks if he’s scared. This is a little bit of 4th wall breaking as they start to make insider jokes about the fact that the goofy commentator is actually the owner of the whole company. You can see that in the video above.

More pre-match setup as Shawn is shown looking very intense backstage while in the ring, Diesel throws his ring jacket at Vince while riles him up and gives King a good laugh. In the front row, wrestling legend Mad Dog Vachon is shown watching the match; he only has one leg, which will be important later.

Michaels throws up the Klique’s too sweet hand signal at his real life best buddy Nash as he rushes to the ring and starts off throwing punches before he even finishes removing his entrance attire. He’s shut down with a big knee to the gut.

HBK is like a pitbull and sends Diesel to the outside and follows with a death defying moonsault from the top rope all the way to the floor. He keeps up the intensity, stealing one of the Spanish commentator’s cowboy boots and cracking Diesel in the head with it from the top rope for the first near fall. Diesel stops his momentum knocking him off the apron and crashing into the security wall.

Diesel slows things down and works over HBK with knees, elbows and slams all the while shouting abuse at Vince McMahon (who does a big comedy gulp of fear) Jose Lothario (“this is how we do things in the 90s old man!”) and he even attacks the referee so that he can remove his leather belt which he then whips Shawn Michaels with to a loud mix of boos and cheers from the crowd. I don’t think the cheers are for Diesel so much as the increased violence in the WWF’s product lately. He chokes Shawn with the belt and even hangs him out of the ring with it as Jerry Lawler dares Vince to get in the ring and help him. Diesel grabs a steel chair next, apparently determined to hurt Shawn Michaels badly and cracks him in the spine. This would all be tame by modern standards but in 1996 it all got a WILD reaction from the crowd.

Michaels avoids the third steel chair shot attempt and slows Diesel with a low blow but he’s too hurt to follow up and Big Daddy Cool was back on his feet before the Champion. Michaels fights up out of a chin lock and Diesel keeps flooring him with punches but HBK won’t stay down and continues to bounce back to his feet asking for more. This “never say die”, refuse to give up stuff is something Michaels is SO good at. Diesel has had enough and in an awesome spot, picks up Shawn and Jackknifes him through the announce table! It explodes, monitors going everywhere as Vince and Lawler are dramatically knocked off the air!

The show continues with no commentary as Diesel confidently celebrates in the ring with the WWF title belt that he hasn’t won yet. Shawn fights to his feet as Vince begs him to just stay down and let this be over. HBK refuses and grabs a fire extinguisher from under the ring, spraying Diesel in the face and blinding him! The fans go wild as Michaels shakes off the assault and gets in Diesel’s face - you can REALLY hear how loud the crowd is for him with no commentary. Vince actually grabs a microphone so that he can continue to call the action. Michaels has a massive burst of adrenaline and waffles Big Daddy Cool with a pair of chair shots to the head to get himself back in this fight. This is great! Diesel shakes off the two chair shots and puts Shawn down with a big boot before signalling for a second Jackknife, this time in the ring. Michaels fights out of it with punches to the face and comes off the top with a gorgeous diving elbow drop. He sets up for the Sweet Chin Music, stomping on the mat for the first time, but Diesel catches it and clotheslines him down. We get a good look at the somewhat ramshackle commentary setup as both men lay in the ring struggling to continue.

On the outside, Diesel gets an idea and goes around to Mad Dog Vachin, grabbing him by the throat and pulling him out of the crowd; he steals the old man’s fake leg! I told you that would be important later. He’s going to hit Shawn Michaels with the prosthetic leg but HBK stops it with a low blow, uses the leg himself to knock Big Daddy Cool out and then follows up with the Sweet Chin Music, tuning up the band and all. He collapses into the cover and Shawn Michaels retains the WWF Championship in an AWESOME match!

Michaels closes the show standing defiantly in the ring, symbolically telling anyone and everyone to come and get some and posing with his title belt. This was a good show thanks mostly to the fantastic main event but Vader vs. Razor wasn’t bad either. This is a very important show because, as I mentioned, it's the end of Razor and Diesel both leaving for WCW. Shawn seems to acknowledge that, asking off mic “you want a big boy to play with?” (WCW’s slogan was “where the big boys play” at the time, which is lame). I’ll actually talk a lot more about them and their actual departure from the company in the next Preview as they had a couple of final non-televised dates before disappearing completely.