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WWF In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies 4/28/96
This is the last televised appearance for Hall and Nash before they left for WCW.
123 Kid vs Marc Mero
Free For All match. Vince McMahon really marked out for Johnny B. Badd. My guess is because he loved the idea of a Jew pretending to be an ambiguously gay black man. But when he hired Mero, he found out that Mero ONLY knew how to work as Johnny B. Badd, which he couldn't use in anyway in the WWF. Really awkward head scissors in the corner. Mero follows this with A Double's heat seeking missile, but with none of the impact. He goes up top and gets crotched. Kid kicks him right in the face. Superplex is dodged as HHH strolls out to hit on Sable. The match grinds to a halt so Hunner can be a creep. HHH distracts Mero, allowing Kid to baseball slide him. As he's walking out, HHH flashes the Kliq sign. That was some Illuminati looking shit. KO punch to Kid. HHH runs back down and causes a DQ. Mero fights them off, but ends up in the Pedigree. While this wasn't Kid's final WWF appearance, this was his last PPV appearance before going to WCW.
TO THE BACK. Dok talks to Warrior. Warrior says he doesn't care for the IC Championship and instead is coming for Goldust to get the spirit of the Warrior or something. Marlena shows up, blows smoke in his face, and Goldust throws gold dust. Warrior snarls and pounds his chest.
The show officially starts.
British Bulldog/Owen Hart vs Jake Roberts/Ahmed Johnson
I don't know what the fuck is going on with the water mark, but it keeps moving all over the place. The rest of the screen isn't, so it's really weird. Maybe the file was really shaky and was treated to Youtube stabilization. I guess the snake is banned from ringside. Jake doesn't give a shit and gets a disgusting beast out of his bag. Cornette faints. Unsurprisingly, Ahmed has an injury coming into the match. He throws Owen around. Diana Hart Smith is in the crowd. Owen avoids a few DDTs. Bulldog is definitely scared of Ahmed. He was probably scared of getting injured. Ahmed goes HAM on Owen in the corner. Press slam. Jake gets tagged in and is hit with a second rope dropkick. Jake plays FIP for a while. Hot tag to Ahmed. Just for him to do a spinebuster and tag back out. Bulldog attacks Jake's knee with the tennis racket. He wins via knee bar.
Goldust vs The Ultimate Warrior WWF Intercontinental Championship
Warrior wins via count out, but the match never actually started. It was all Goldust stalling and Warrior smoking a cigar. No match at all. The closest thing to a move was Warrior giving Goldy a clothesline while Goldy was sitting in the director chair. Warrior did beat up a fat body guard after the match, though. I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a ticket or the PPV for this and got 7 minutes of stalling, 1 move, and a count out.
TO THE BACK. Bulldog is outside of HBK's locker room, pissed about something.
Vader vs Razor Ramon
Vader gained so much weight between 1994-1996. They lock up and Razor goes flying to the floor. Vader isn't fucking around tonight. He's knocking the shit out of Razor. Hall tries the Razor's Edge near the ropes. Of course he's back dropped out, but gets right back in and pounds Vader down in the corner. He knocks Vader down 3 times before sending him to the floor. He's then crushed in the corner and hit with a lariatooooo. Big splash. Vader Rush in the corner. He goes for the short arm lariatoo, but it is countered into a back suplex. Vader Bomb! YOU WANT VADER?! Razor kicks out! Hall tries to fight back. Another Vader Rush. Vertical suplex from Razor. Vader wipes him out with a lariatooo. He goes up for a second rope splash. Hall turns it into a powerslam. Diving bulldog. Saber attack! Vader goes back up for a Vader Bomb. Hall tries to do the Razor's Edge, but just drops Vader as he can't support the weight. Vader goes up again, this time for a moonsault. Hall does an electric chair drop. Vader wins with an ass drop. I think this is actually one of Hall's better WWF matches.
The Godwinns vs The Body Donnas WWF Tag Team Championships
Bleh. Godwinns have never been in a good match. Not in WCW, not in WWF as faces or heels. I have no idea what Vince/JR saw in them to bring them over from WCW in the first place. Sunny can't save this. The champs win with Twin Magic. Titles retained.
TO THE BACK. Dok talks with Marc Mero. He challenges HHH to a match.
HBK vs Diesel WWF Championship No Holds Barred
Nash throws his vest at Vince, who wasn't happy about it. Mad Dog Vachon was shown in the crowd. It starts right away, no bullshit dancing and prancing. I AIN'T NO SEXY BOY. Shawn knocks Nash to the floor and comes right out with a moonsault. HBK takes Vince or King's shoe to hit Nash with. He is quickly sent into the guard rail from the apron. Short arm lariatooo. Vince is pissed at Nash. Nash occasionally talks shit to him. Side slam. The wrist tape comes off. Nash chokes Earl Hebner with it and takes Earl's belt. HBK is being taken to the woodshed! Nash literally tries to hang HBK from the ropes with the belt. He throws Fink and gets a chair. This is getting pretty intense. A few chair shots later, HBK ducks, with Nash bouncing the chair off the ropes back into his face. HBK tries to use it, but Nash low blows him. Jackknife through the announce table! WHATAMANUVER! Nash celebrates with the title as HBK gets pissed and crawls back to the ring. Fire extinguisher! Flying forearm. HBK gets a chair and unloads on Nash. Big boot stops all that nonsense. Shawn fights out of another powerbomb and hits the flying elbow. Nash blocks the superkick and spins it into a lariatoo. Vince is getting worried that Nash might leave with his title. It's really interesting how the seeds of the Mr. McMahon character really started with the Diesel tweener/heel run in 1995-1996. That was really the first time it was more than a wink wink nudge nudge thing that Vince was the boss, and Nash was kind of doing worked shoots at a time when that was unheard of. Those few months of Diesel were in a lot of ways the start of the Attitude Era. I know Nash loves to give himself more credit than he deserves, but I think he's got a pretty valid claim when he talks about being the start of that whole boom. Not in terms of drawing money, but in terms of pushing the creative envelope in a way that it really hadn't been to that point. If Nash hadn't been doing the character he was doing in his last few months in WWE, I'm really not sure the nWo angle would have worked as well. Anyway, Nash grabs Mad Dog and BY GOD HE RIPPED HIS LEG OFF! He takes Mad Dog's leg into the ring and tries to hit HBK with it. Shawn low blows him and uses it himself. Superkick. HBK wins! Title retained. Definitely one of the best leaving a territory matches ever.
DQ Count: 1 out of 6 matches.
HBK/Diesel is an unqualified great match. It's awesome. No bullshit comedy and prancing around. It's a serious, no bullshit fight. Nash is mean as fuck, HBK is on his A game and is also in dick head mode, which is the best HBK. It's Nash's best match, but I think it is easily in the top 10 HBK matches as well. Maybe even top 5. It's for real awesome. One of my favorite WWE brawls ever. It also had a lot of subtext going on with Nash and Vince during the whole thing. I feel like in a lot of ways, this is really the match where Vince started changing gears in the company. It was a hardcore brawl with chairs, tables, HBK literally being hanged, a dude getting his fake leg ripped off in an era where that stuff just didn't happen. Compare this to the last IYH, where HBK was doing comedy spots and dancing with kids. On top of all that, Nash's whole angle at the time was how he was pissed at the corporate structure dicking him around and making him be someone he wasn't. Think Batista's promo on John Cena, but in 1996. He singled out Vince regularly in an era where Vince was still just an announcer, although there were more references to Vince being the boss in general. I think that angle really played perfectly into the nWo angle. As much as Nash is a straight up carny and egomaniac, he really is a very pivotal person in the way the businesses change in the 1996-1998.
Razor vs Vader was also pretty good. I've been saying recently that I think Nash might actually be better than Hall, so I was surprised to see Razor having a really good match with Vader. I think that match was better than the Razor/Kid match from the last IYH. But IYH 6 and 7 have two of Nash's best matches back to back. In my opinion, the Bret/Nash cage match and Nash/HBK NHB match are better than any HBK/Bret match.