WWF In Your House #6
February 18, 1996
Louisville, KY
Louisville Gardens

The current WWF Champs were as follows:
World Champion: Bret Hart (11/19/1995)
Intercontinental Champion: Goldust (1/21/1996)
World Tag Team Champions: Vacant (2/15/1996)

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry Lawler.

Bikini-clad Sunny lets us know from the beach that ‘viewer discretion is advised’. What a great “F-U” to the FCC.

• Razor Ramon vs. The 1-2-3 Kid (w/Ted DiBiase) – Crybaby Match
  

I know it sounds ridiculous, but The Kid cost Razor the IC belt at the Royal Rumble and you can figure out how it goes from there. Kid brings a stroller with a Razor Ramon bear sitting in it just to be a little pube. Haha, Kid tries to tear its head off, but he can’t do it! Funny stuff. Instead, he just throws it in Razor’s face. Razor retaliates with a toothpick in Kid’s face. Ouch, that could have severely punctured him! Alright, here we go. Razor punches Kid out to the floor, but then gets his neck snapped on the top rope to set up a springboard clothesline. AIR KID! That gets only a one count. Kid unleashes his kick combo in the corner and then takes Razor down with a spinning heel kick as Razor off the ropes. Razor comes back and tosses Kid out of the corner and whips him back into the corner for a clothesline. Fallaway Slam connects. RAZORS EDGE already? Nope, Kid knows what is coming and rolls to the apron. Razor gives Kid an extra punch to send him to the floor. Meanwhile, DiBiase has some baby powder and throws it in Razor’s eyes RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REF! Is there no disqualification here? Possibly a jab at the Hogan/Anderson Nitro match for doing the same thing? Who knows. Kid delivers a missile dropkick for two. He follows up with some sliding legdrops and a flying splash for 1-2-NO! Kid jumps on Razor’s back and puts him ALMOST out with a sleeper! He really should have used the ropes there for leverage since he’s a dastardly heel and all. Razor finally escapes by dropping Kid crotch-first on the top rope. Both men are down. Kid crawls over for the cover and gets 1-2-NO! Razor starts his comeback, but Kid elbows off a Back Superplex and hits a flying bodypress on Razor just like in ’93! Oh, but this time rolls through for 1-2-NO! From there, Razor proceeds to give Kid a SUPER FALLAWAY SLAM! Razor calls for the RAZORS EDGE, so DiBiase starts to get DEVIOUS~! Kid has the bottle of baby powder and squirts a bunch in his hand while DiBiase distracts ref Tim White. He sneaks up behind Razor, but then gets the powder kicked back in his face. Now that the Kid is blinded, he stumbles right into a RAZORS EDGE! Razor pulls him up off the pinfall and gives him one more RAZORS EDGE for good measure and covers him for the 1-2-3. (12:02) Good opener, but it felt like Kid was the only one working hard here and there’s only so much he can do. Razor would get suspended for weed to forfeit his WrestleMania payday before coming back in April and phoning it in until he left for WCW in May. And just like the gimmick suggests, Razor puts a diaper on Kid and pours baby powder on him too. DiBiase gets the powder in the eye as well. **¾

• Hunter Hearst Helmsley (w/Elizabeth Hilden) vs. Duke “The Dumpster” Droese
  

Unless you’re into teh pr0n, you probably shouldn’t google Ms. Hilden. Anyways, Hunter cut off Droese’s long locks to turn him into a thin Big Bossman (if he were a trash man, that is) and gave him a PEDIGREE on his own trashcan lid. Droese doesn’t mess around to start and throws HHH around by *his* long locks. Triple H is in total Ray Stevens mode here tonight. After taking a press slam and a big boot, he begs off in the corner and takes the signature Ray Stevens corner bump. HHH gets a break by dropping Duke on the top turnbuckle during a ten-count corner punch. He goes for the PEDIGREE, but Duke reverses into an atomic drop. Droese charges HHH up against the ropes, but takes a backdrop to the floor. Down on the floor, Hunter sends Duke into the steel steps. Back in, HHH covers for two. Hunter drops the knee out of the corner for another nearfall. Hunter gets a couple more nearfalls off a High Knee and a suplex, but then runs into a boot in the corner. Double-KO spot ensues. Duke starts his comeback and announces that its time to take out the trash. Don’t talk about it, be about it. Duke hits the TRASH COMPACTOR (tilt-a-whirl slam) Instead of covering the man, Duke goes out and brings his trashcan into the ring. The ref gets rid of the can, but not the lid. While the ref takes forever getting the can out of the ring, Hunter grabs the lid and NAILS Duke. He tosses out the evidence and covers Duke for 1-2-3. (9:39) Nothing really wrong with it, just wasn’t all that interesting. *½

We get a recap video of Yokozuna’s face turn. It’s essentially like the Andre face turn when he split from Bobby Heenan at WrestleMania 6, except there’s no cart to take Yoko to the dressing room. Probably wouldn’t have been able to carry him anyway. BA-ZING!

And now Yokozuna is on the MIC! He finally comes clean about how Jim Cornette has treated him over the last three years by taking all the money back when Yoko had the WWF title. He says the only reason Owen had gold was when he hid behind him. Well to be fair, with your ever increasing size, the man really didn’t have much of a choice. BANZAI! Dok Hendrix tells us to get ready for a trainwreck!

• Davey Boy Smith (w/Jim Cornette) vs. Yokozuna
  

Yokozuna tears Bulldog down, but misses an elbow drop. It takes a few clotheslines, but Davey Boy finally takes Yoko off his feet. Cornette jabs him in the throat with his tennis racket. However, Yoko reverses a corner whip and avalanches DBS. Time for the Banzai Drop? Cornette pulls Davey out to safety before any 650 pound dropping can occur. Out on the floor, Davey Boy avoids a splash up against the ringpost, causing Yoko to crack his head. Back in, Davey Boy knocks Yokozuna down with a flying double sledge for 1-2-NO! Yoko presses him off. Bulldog tries another double sledge, but he gets caught on the way down. Another series of clotheslines wakes up Yoko, who then gives Davey Boy Smith a Samoan drop. Belly to Belly Suplex connects. He wants to try the Banzai Drop again, but that’s when Cornette runs in and whacks Yoko across the back with his tennis racket. Even though it has no effect, Yoko gets the win by DQ. (5:02) Cornette swings his Wilson again and again, but it doesn’t make any difference. Yoko backs Cornette into a corner as (THE MAN THEY CALL) Vader runs down to save him. Together with Davey Boy Smith, they handcuff the big guy to the ropes for a wide open beat down. Finally, WWF agents and evil lawyer/Johnnie Cochran parody Clarence Mason puts a stop to the mayhem. ¾*

• Shawn Michaels vs. Owen Hart (w/Jim Cornette) – Winner gets the WWF title shot at WrestleMania XII
  

This is where Shawn swings down on a rope from the top of the house. Vince finds this to be…UNBELIEVABLE! Owen lets Shawn know early that he will kick him in the head and go to WrestleMania. With that, HBK slides underneath Owen and goes to the floor to high five his little Kliqsters all around ringside. And I mean, around the ENTIRE ring. Back inside, Owen tries the same hotdog move and gets no love from the fans at ringside, so Shawn dives out on top of Owen. Shawn takes Owen back in the ring and blasts him with a flying double sledge for two. HBK grabs a headlock and pulls on Owen’s hair while Cornette complains to ref Earl Hebner about hair pulling. Off an Owen hiptoss, both guys kip up to the feet. HBK catches Owen with a hurracanrana, but then gets whipped in for a Belly-to-Belly Suplex. Owen begins to target the lower back with stomps and a backbreaker. Reverse neckbreaker gets two. Sharpshooter attempt is foiled as Shawn kicks him away, but Owen is right back on top of HBK. Owen sits down on a camel clutch. Shawn fights out, but runs into a knee. Jackknife cover by Owen gets two. Shawn elbows out of a chinlock, but then eats a Spinning Heel Kick for our first head kick that knocks him all the way to the floor. Shawn counters a suplex on the apron and takes Owen out to the floor. He jumps down on Owen off the apron, but Owen catches him for a powerslam on the floor! Back in, Owen connects with a missile dropkick for 1-2-NO! Shawn does his signature corner bump and stumbles around into a devastating clothesline! Just awesome. Here comes the SHARPSHOOTER! Shawn crawls for the ropes, so Owen brings him to the center of the ring. Ahh, but Shawn still manages to make the ropes. Owen stands over HBK and fires off a snot rocket, so Shawn pulls him into a roll up for 1-2-NO! Before HBK can begin any more offense, Owen delivers the ENZIGURI HEARD ROUND THE WORLD-D-D-D-D-D-D-D! Shawn falls out to the floor and looks pretty much dead. All Owen thinks he has to do is put Shawn back in the ring and cover him and he’s going to WrestleMania. Well, he follows through with that simple nugget (ha) of logic, but only gets a two-count. Owen misses a corner charge and receives an inverted atomic drop. Shawn hits the Flying Forearm and KIPS UP! Shawn hits another Flying Forearm and connects with the Flying Elbow Drop. Cornette gets nailed off the apron. HBK sets up for SWEET CHIN MUSIC, but Owen ducks and tries another enziguri. Shawn ducks that, and connects with SWEET CHIN MUSIC for the 1-2-3. (15:58) What a freakin’ great match with a fantastic story behind it. Just entertaining from start to finish, which becomes the norm for Shawn throughout 1996 regardless of his awful attitude. After the match, Shawn celebrates with a little Kliqster. ****

Now let’s kill some time as the ring crew sets up the cage and make some WrestleMania matches. Roddy Piper, the Gerald Ford of WWF Presidents, is welcomed by Todd Pettingell. He declares Shawn Michaels as the #1 contender to the WWF title for WrestleMania to face the winner of tonight’s cage match. Duh Roddy. The second item on his agenda is to settle the problems between Yokozuna and Vader. He makes a jock strap/face mask joke directed at Vader, but then thinks that Vader is 520 pounds. I bet Vader would be *quite* offended by that statement since he’s only around 400 pounds. On the other hand, Yokozuna has gone from 650 pounds (Vince’s words) to 640 pounds (Piper’s words) to 600 pounds (Piper’s words twenty seconds later). Either everybody has no clue how much he weighs, or the man has lost 50 pounds in one hour. Anyways, Piper reinstates Vader since he was suspended for beating up the former interim WWF President Gorilla Monsoon and makes Vader/Yokozuna at ‘Mania, which thankfully gets changed to a six-man with Camp Cornette against Yoko and friends. Here comes Jim Cornette with Clarence Mason as Lawler sarcastically refers to Piper as a “loose cannon”. Piper immediately tells Cornette to SHUT UP. Probably the wisest thing to do considering once you get Cornette talking, you’re going to be a while. Piper tells Cornette to show him some respect. Cornette goes and does the complete opposite by telling Piper that as a person who used to wear a shirt that said “No Fear” on it, he does in fact fear Vader. Piper gets the last word saying that if Vader loses, Cornette just might find himself cheek to cheek with Yoko. Oh yeah, and at WrestleMania, we’re going to see people that are going to fight! Hmm, that must be Roddy Piper’s equivalent to Bill Watts’ “Let’s HOOK EM UP!”

• WWF World Champion Bret Hart vs. Diesel – Cage Match
  

The near two-year long PPV rivalry between these two ends tonight. They trade blows until Diesel corners Bret to bury some knees and punish him with a boot choke. Bret kicks at the knee every chance he gets, but Diesel is just too powerful in the early going to have it really affect him. Bret takes Diesel into the cage to take him off his feet. Diesel stops Bret from climbing out and buries a knee into Bret up on the top rope. Diesel drives Bret back-first into the cage and starts to walk the cage door when Bret comes over and crotches Diesel as he tries to walk over the top rope. Bret beats Diesel back into the cage and headbutts him between the legs. From there, they take turns crawling for the door with nobody securing the win. Bret goes back after Diesel’s knees like he has in all four of their PPV matches. Diesel comes back with a Side Slam, but misses an elbow drop. Bret starts to climb out while Diesel crawls for the door. Well that’s stupid. Bret notices Diesel is closer to winning than he is and lunges at him to prevent Diesel from touching the floor. Bret hammers on the knee some more and tries to climb out again, but Diesel pulls him back in and slams Bret off the top turnbuckle. Bret hits a flying bulldog and we see another failed attempt at climbing out the cage by Bret. Diesel brings him in with a back suplex, but he falls close to the door. Bret starts to crawl, but Diesel puts a stop to it and elbow drops the champ. Diesel misses a big boot in the corner, allowing Bret to continue his destruction of the knee. Diesel reverses a corner whip for Bret to do his chest-first running bump. He buries more knees in Bret in the corner, but then Bret starts kicking at Diesel’s knees and makes a quick climb up the cage. He gets over to the other side, but Diesel pulls Bret back in the cage by his hair. Diesel sends Bret face-first into the cage and then whips him into the corner for another chest-first bump. From there, Diesel delivers the limping Bossman Straddle to sell his sore knees. Bret shoves off a Snake Eyes attempt to send Diesel into the steel. SHARPSHOOTER? Nope. Diesel thumbs his way out of it. Instead of going back to the knees, Bret starts to hammer away on Diesel’s lower back to deliver the Russian Legsweep to the much bigger man. What a great little bit of psychology there. Diesel gets kicked down when Bret tries to climb out. Instead of just leaving the cage, Bret delivers the Flying Vertical Elbow Drop. Diesel thwarts another climb attempt with a HUGE low blow! Diesel makes the long crawl to the door and kicks Bret in the face to avoid getting pulled back into the ring. He looks like he’s going to win the match when up from underneath the ring comes THE UNDERTAKER! WHAT. He pulls Diesel with him under the ring while Bret makes the easy climb out the cage to win the match. (19:14) While these two had some great matches together, it didn’t translate into a good cage match. You can feel that Diesel and Razor Ramon just didn’t care once they knew they were going to WCW. It’s a cool ending though that sets up Diesel/UT at WrestleMania, but you can bet Bret had to be pissed as his tenure as ‘transitional champion’ continues. His name is announced by Finkel, but you don’t even see him after that. Diesel comes back from under the ring with his pants torn up and an EXTREMELY scared look on his face. He’s not stupid enough to stick around as Taker freaks him out of the cage real quick, fast, and in a hurry. *

Coliseum Home Video Exclusive: WWF Intercontinental Champion Goldust (w/Marlena) vs. The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer)

We’ve got JR and Dok Hendrix on commentary for this one. Goldust shields himself from Taker by molesting Earl Hebner. Both men try to psyche each other out, but it’s Taker who throws the first uppercut at Goldie to send him out on the floor. Goldust tries to distance himself from Taker and stomps him on his way in the ring, but then Taker catches Goldust with a backdrop. Taker misses an elbow drop and gets nailed with a powerslam. Taker SITS UP and big boots Goldust. This is what JR would call a methodical match. Taker connects with Old Skool and chokes Goldust in the corner. A low blow turns things around for Goldust. Apparently, his balls are in fact still alive. Back on the floor, Goldust rams Taker’s 45 pound head into the steel steps. In the ring, Taker wins a slugfest. Goldust catches Taker with a sleeper. Taker comes back from the dead to become undead again and gives Goldie a belly to belly suplex to escape the hold. ZOMBIE SIT-UP! Taker hits the Jumping Lariat and goes for the TOMBSTONE, but Goldust slips out and delivers a clothesline. Another sit-up, but then Taker telegraphs a backdrop for a piledriver from Goldust. The IC champ checks to make sure Taker’s out of it by lifting his head up off the canvas. Looks like he’s out. Instead of covering him, Goldust taunts the crowd and starts rubbing himself. After that’s over, he stands over Taker and gets GOOZLED for a Chokeslam. Taker calls for the TOMBSTONE, so Goldust rolls out to leave with Marlena and the IC title belt to give Taker the countout win. (13:40) Certainly not the worst of these CHV exclusives. Both guys were still limited by their characters to put together a real good match. *

And we close the tape out with a music video including various WWF babyfaces. Paul Bearer even! The song has the same riffs from the future Raw is War theme song “Thorn In Your Eye“, but it’s called “We’re All Together Now” and sung by a guy that looks like Sam Kinison.

Final Thoughts: It’s a quick two-hour show with nothing outright terrible. You have a **** HBK/Owen match, which is on the NEW Greatest Wrestling Stars of the ’90s set. Still haven’t bought that one yet, but it looks pretty good. Anyways, I recommend the show as a decent addition to WrestleMania 12. Similar to the Royal Rumble ’96 show, there’s not tons of asterisks, but both shows still manage to be entertaining. Mild thumbs up for In Your House #6.