–Vince McMahon recaps Shawn Michaels forfeiting the Intercontinental title to Dean Douglas at In Your House 4 and how Razor Ramon won the title shortly thereafter. Today, Ramon will face Yokozuna in a non-title match.
–McMahon, Jerry Lawler, and Jim Ross are in the booth and they are launching a new series of tapings from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The tapings took place on October 24.
–Opening Contest: Marty Jannetty (3-1) defeats Jake Steele after a super fist drop at 3:16:
Steele is put over by McMahon as a “newcomer,” but he is just a new jobber that looks more athletic than what viewers were used to. Steele was a Canadian worker that spent 1995 wrestling in the WWF, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and Border City Wrestling (BCW). Despite losing to Goldust at In Your House, Jannetty is in the midst of a healthy singles push, replacing Shawn Michaels on several house show cards after Michaels was beaten up in Syracuse. This is a boring squash, with Jannetty using lots of rest holds to wear down Steele before the flying fist drop. The crowd liked it, though.
–Footage of Alundra Blayze regaining the WWF Women’s title on RAW is shown. Blayze cuts a weak promo about how a real woman is once again the WWF Women’s Champion.
–Jean-Pierre LaFitte (19-2-1) beats Tony Roy after Le Cannonball at 3:44:
The announcers discuss LaFitte making off with one of Savio Vega’s Puerto Rican flags three weeks ago, but nothing comes of that riveting angle in this match. Roy does a good job selling LaFitte’s beating as the WWF’s resident pirate chalks up his twentieth win of the year.
–Dok Hendrix reminds fans in the Slam Jam that the Undertaker will face the WWF Champion at the next Madison Square Garden show, which will occur after Survivor Series. Diesel and Bret Hart cut promos about how they hope they can trust each other when they are partners in a six man tag at the Nassau Coliseum against the British Bulldog, King Mabel, and Yokozuna. The heels, along with Jim Cornette, note that the babyfaces are scared to face them.
–A camera is chased out of the locker room after stumbling in on a strategy meeting between Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Jim Cornette, and Mr. Fuji.
–A replay of Jim Ross’ interview with Shawn Michaels on RAW is shown.
–Call 1-900-737-4WWF to hear WWF Champion Diesel’s thoughts about what happened at In Your House 4.
–Duke Droese (13-4) defeats Roy Raymond after the Trash Compactor at 3:12:
Droese already beat Raymond on an episode of Superstars on April 22, but he has only wrestled twice since mid-July so most fans have forgotten about that. Droese’s alignment with the roster’s babyfaces is unchanged despite teasing a heel turn several weeks on The Action Zone, but he does modify his finisher, not whipping Raymond into the ropes before doing the Trash Compactor to end a two-match losing streak.
–Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid square off in a Karate Fighters match, with the Kid winning.
–Bob Backlund (8-1) beats Bob Clancy via submission to the crossface chicken wing at 2:02:
Backlund’s presidential campaign has kept him away from the ring and this is his first match since losing to Bret Hart at WrestleMania. He shows some ring rust as Clancy mocks him and takes him down a few times, but that only angers the grizzled veteran, who lulls Clancy into a false sense of security with some stalling and getting Clancy to look into the crowd for approval on whether he should shake Backlund’s hand, before winning the match in one move. After the bell, Backlund refuses to break the hold until some WWF officials run into the ring.
–Clips of Owen Hart winning a battle royal on RAW for an Intercontinental title shot on next week’s episode are recapped by the announcers.
–Barry Didinski encourages fans to call 1-800-TITAN-91 to get a toy WWF title belt and/or Intercontinental title belt for $20 (plus $3.95 shipping & handling). The belts come with three never released pictures of Diesel and Razor Ramon. The pictures are not autographed, though, so Didinski hyping the pictures is ridiculous.
–Owen Hart & Yokozuna (w/Jim Cornette) (15-1-1) defeat Razor Ramon & the 1-2-3 Kid (1-1) when Owen pins the Kid after a belly-to-belly suplex at 9:48 shown:
After building a Ramon-Yokozuna contest throughout the show, the match is turned into a tag team encounter when the Kid and Owen start fighting with Ramon and Yokozuna after the opening bell. Logically, that change makes little sense for Owen because he would benefit from his larger partner wrestling Ramon and resting himself for RAW. Disguising Yokozuna’s limitation is becoming very difficult at this point as he spends most of his time in this match putting Ramon in a nerve hold. Owen brings the match back to life after a commercial break and after the Kid gets some shine in the hot tag segment, Owen catches him with a belly-to-belly suplex, arguably the most underrated move in his arsenal, and wins the match for his team. Ramon has had very little success with tag team partners in 1995, going 0-3-1 with Savio Vega and now stands at 1-2 with the Kid. Rating: ***
–Hendrix discusses the Meadowlands card scheduled for November 12. Bret Hart is booked to face the British Bulldog and he discusses, without a tear in his eye, how he is going to get revenge for SummerSlam ’92. The Bulldog and Jim Cornette respond by saying that they are going to eat Bret up for costing the Bulldog the WWF title at In Your House 4.
–Tune in next week to see Bret Hart square off against Sid with members of the Saskatchewan Rough Riders football team hanging out in Bret’s corner!
The Last Word: The tag match to end the show was much better than a ten minute Razor Ramon-Yokozuna match would have been like so for that viewers should be grateful. The tag match also continued the Ramon-Kid storyline of the Kid being the “weak link” in the friendship while also giving a chance for fans to get more invested in the Ramon-Owen Hart Intercontinental title match on the upcoming RAW. The rest of the show was pretty dull, though, as all of the squashes until Backlund’s went too long.
The company resumed its touring schedule after In Your House 4, now only running one set of “A” shows since the “B” shows drew horribly up to this point in the year. Here is a sampling of the results of those cards (courtesy of thehistoryofwwe.com):
Tacoma Washington – October 25, 1995 (2,700): Owen Hart wrestled Fatu to a double count out…WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze beat Bertha Faye…Goldust defeated the 1-2-3 Kid…Barry Horowitz beat Skip…Sid defeated Bam Bam Bigelow…Hakushi beat Rad Radford…Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon defeated the British Bulldog…WWF Champion Diesel beat Yokozuna.
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada – October 28, 1995: Barry Horowitz pinned Skip with a Thesz press at 8:52…Hakushi defeated Rad Radford after a hurricanrana at 10:51…WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze beat Bertha Faye after a hurricanrana into a pinning combination at 5:00…WWF Champion Diesel defeated Yokozuna after Yokozuna missed a Bonzai Drop at 8:52…Owen Hart pinned Barry Horowitz (substituting for Fatu) after a belly-to-belly suplex at 7:42…Goldust (substituting for Dean Douglas) beat the 1-2-3 Kid (substituting for Shawn Michaels) after the Curtain Call…Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon beat the British Bulldog after a school boy roll up when the Bulldog tried to revive the referee
And here were some news items concerning the WWF near the end of October (courtesy of thehistoryofwwe.com and The Wrestling Observer from October 30 and November 6):
*The WWF managed to attract over 10,000 fans to the Winnipeg Arena for In Your House 4 due to some good promotional work, although the card kept changing. The WWF used press conferences, radio appearances, and local newspaper coverage to get fans to attend, but they still fell short of selling out the arena since it seats about 17,000. However, the show did have the largest live audience for a B-level pay-per-view to date.
*Brian Adams, who wrestles as Crush, was sentenced to five years probation by a judge. Crush pleaded no contest to steroid and weapons charges arising from his arrest in March. The WWF severed ties with Adams over the incident. He was the third place finisher in the Royal Rumble this year.
*The buy rate for In Your House 4 is a disaster as it is the first show in company history to achieve less than 100,000 buys. This means that the company likely lost money due to the costs of airing a pay-per-view, which would outweigh the $600,000 gross of the show. And with house shows doing poorly, this is a bad sign for the WWF’s fiscal health since it is relying on pay-per-view to be a big revenue stream. Dave Meltzer speculates that the declining buys for the In Your House pay-per-views could result in a price increase above the $14.95 that the shows have been selling for.
*The WWF might be looking into signing Public Enemy, one of ECW’s big tag teams.
*Dean Douglas suffered a larynx injury after taking a Razor Ramon clothesline at In Your House, which is why he was replaced on house shows this week.
*Avatar’s botches on RAW were probably caused by a combination of nerves and ring ropes that were stretched and slippery from the battle royal that took place earlier in the show.
*To build interest for the Royal Rumble, the WWF might be signing some agreements with Smoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW), the United States Wrestling Association (USWA), and Japan’s Wrestle and Romance (WAR) to make the show a clash of promotions.
Up Next: Monday Night RAW for October 30, 1995!