Mike Reviews WWF In Your House 13: Final Four

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We’re back with another classic WWF review today, as we take a look In Your House 13: Final Four. I’ve actually been meaning to watch this one again for a while as I haven’t watched the Main Event in years and it’s highly regarded as one of the best matches the WWF put on all year in 1997, and that covers some ground due to the WWF having some pretty great matches that year.

The Main Event for In Your House 13 came about because there was controversy following Royal Rumble 97 when Stone Cold Steve Austin came back from already being eliminated to win the match illegally. Thus Gorilla Monsoon (the babyface authority figure in the WWF at the time) booked a match between Austin and the three entrants he illegally threw out in the form of Bret Hart, Undertaker and Vader in order to decide who would move on to WrestleMania 13.

Of course, the Final Four show closer of In Your House 13 would have an additional twist to it due to what happened in the build-up, but we’ll cover that when we get to it. Elsewhere on the card, we’ve got Triple H and The Rock tangoing on pay per view in a singles bout for the first time, as well as Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith putting their WWF tag belts on the line against Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon.

Scott Keith has also reviewed In Your House 13 and you can read his thoughts on the show by clicking HERE

If you’d like to view the full card for In Your House 13 you can do so by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1992&page=3

Let’s see how this show shapes up after all of these years

In Your House 13 is emanating from Chattanooga, Tennessee on the 16th of February 1997

Calling the action are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

We get the usual dramatic video package, focusing on how important the WWF Title is.

Opening Match
Leif Cassidy Vs Wildman Marc Mero w/ Sable

I don’t think there was much backstory to this one, with Cassidy (Al Snow) basically being a lower card mainstay who could have competitive matches with folks in the mid-card but who had little in the way of upward mobility, whilst Mero was a former Intercontinental Champ who was supposedly gearing up for a fresh push until an injury put him out until the autumn. I think they are making an effort here to suggest that Mero is going to be wrestling with a harder edge, which I believe was going to pay off with a Heel turn for he and Sable at the expense of Rocky Maivia.

Mero gets the traditional babyface shine to start with arm drags and arm bars, but he does it with some added stink to everything. Sable also gets involved at one stage by brazenly distracting Cassidy, which is continuing to push the idea that both Mero and Sable aren’t being quite as nice and smiley anymore. You might say they’ve got…Attitude! Cassidy ends up targeting Mero’s left leg with some kicks and stomps, which Mero sells well. I believe it was a leg injury that caused Mero to take some time off before coming back as a boxer later in the year.

The crowd doesn’t really seem to care about this one that much, but the wrestling itself has been fine. Cassidy in particular has looked good here, with his offence being nicely executed, whilst Mero has sold it all correctly. The crowd does eventually start to clap for Mero whilst he sells a Cassidy leg lock, but the reaction doesn’t sustain itself. Cassidy doggedly keeps working his way through a selection of leg based submission holds, and even busts out a Figure Four Leg Lock at one stage, which Mero does the big dramatic journey to the ropes in order to break, with Sable seemingly helping out.

Cassidy stalks Sable at ringside following that, leading to her slapping him. Surprisingly this isn’t a DQ, but I guess that’s because Cassidy was essentially threatening Sable so the ref decided that Cassidy made his own problem and thus didn’t want to punish Mero and Sable? Either way, they probably should have done more to explain why that wasn’t a DQ. Anyway, Mero is fired up to see that Cassidy has been encroaching on his lady and thus makes a fired up comeback, which is probably the best bit of the entire match. Samoan Drop and Shooting Star Press finish it back inside, with the moral of the story being not to take your eyes off the prize I guess, as Cassidy was comfortable before messing with Sable.

WINNER: MARC MERO
RATING: **

Thoughts: The actual wrestling was fine here, but the crowd wasn’t really into the match outside of a few moments here or there. I did like the story actually of both Mero and Sable being a bit more intense and if they’d done the dual Heel turn they might have been a pretty hot mid-card act provided they could have found a good opponent for Mero to feud with

We get clips from Raw, where Shawn Michaels tearfully gives up the WWF Title due to a knee injury. This was the infamous “lost my smile” speech from Shawn, where he basically said that being the WWF Champ had ground him down and now he didn’t smile anymore, so he was going away to find it. I think this was the third time that Shawn had given up a belt without dropping it in the ring. He had a bit of nasty habit of doing that. It’s interesting how most of the women in the crowd seemed to be genuinely moved by what Shawn was saying whilst a few of the grumpy men in the crowd were booing him.

Sycho Sid murders the English language backstage with Kevin Kelly about how he wants a Title shot against the winner of the Main Event.

Match Two
The Nation of Domination (Faarooq, Crush and Savio Vega) w/ Clarence Mason, Wolfie-D, JC Ice and D-Lo Brown Vs The Bizarre One Goldust, Bart Gunn and Flash Funk w/ Marlena and The Funkettes

The Nation were the ones getting pushed here, with the babyface trio being a pretty disparate group of loose allies looking to get some payback for some Nation attacks. Faarooq and Flash Funk actually used to be a tag team in WCW when they were known as Ron Simmons and Too Cold Scorpio respectively. The Funkettes were two dancing lasses in the vein of Brodus Clay’s “Funkadactyls” who ended up getting cut later in the year due to budgetary reasons. I’m in two minds about the Flash Funk gimmick, as I personally think Scorpio was a better character, but there’s no reason as to why Flash Funk couldn’t have worked if they’d tweaked the gimmick a bit and given him a sustained push.

Goldust had recently turned babyface by admitting he wasn’t gay (1997 was a different time) and was currently feuding with Hunter Hearst Helmsley due to HHH putting some unwanted advances upon Marlena. D-Lo Brown wasn’t really having matches much at the time and was more of a big heavy for The Nation, but he’d start becoming a more regular in-ring presence as the year went on, which was good as he’s arguably the best wrestler on the Nation side during this period and he wasn’t even wrestling! Faarooq tries to cut a pre-match promo, but Goldust starts up the fight and we don’t get to hear whatever Faarooq was planning to spit out. The Faces clear the ring and Flash adds a dive onto The Nation, but they kind of no sell it, which limits the effectiveness of the spot.

This match is more about putting The Nation over, as Goldust was the only person on the babyface team who the WWF had any plans for at the time. Bart and Flash were mostly lower card guys who usually did jobs to people the WWF actually did have plans for, hence why they’re in this one to essentially play the role of fodder. Flash tries another dive out onto The Nation at one side, but they just catch him and then beat the stuffing out him for the cut off. Faarooq actually unloads some with some problematic trash talk to Flash whilst working him over. Did I mention it was 1997? I think it’s important to repeat that. Flash ends up getting a nice counter to a double hip toss and makes the hot tag to Bart, who looks good on offence.

I personally think the WWF missed a trick on not bringing in a third Gunn brother and calling him Bort. I think he would have been the most popular Gunn of them all! At the very least they would have run out of shirts with his name on them! Bart looks to have Faarooq pinned with a bulldog from Bret’s Rope, but the referee is distracted by everyone else in the match going at it and that allows Crush to catch Bart with a cheap shot so that Faarooq can pick up the pin when the referee finally settles things down enough to notice that a cover is being made.

WINNERS: THE NATION OF DOMINATION
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: That was a bit of a weak finish as I don’t think Crush’s attack on Bart looked devastating enough to keep the Gunnster down for a three count. As an idea for a finish it was fine, but in execution it didn’t quite work. The match itself wasn’t terrible, but I don’t think the fans really bought that any of the babyfaces besides Goldust had much of a chance against The Nation and it hurt the crowd reactions somewhat

Michael Hayes is backstage with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Stone Cold says that he threw all three of his opponents over the top rope at the Royal Rumble and the fact he has to do it tonight shows that there is a clear conspiracy going on. Thankfully Austin storms off before he starts talking about 5G Towers and chem-trails.

Match Three
WWF Intercontinental Title
Champ: Rocky Maivia Vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Rock had defeated Tri on an episode of Raw in a big upset to win the belt. This ended up being a bad idea on the WWF’s part, as it led to the fans resenting the big push Rock was getting and he started getting some audible boos. Rock’s theme from this period is kind of catchy but also sounds like something you’d hear during a sports montage on a Disney Channel movie. Rock was kind of trying to be more of a fast paced wrestler bordering on being a high flyer during this period, which not surprisingly led to Rock suffering an injury and then coming back with a more grounded style later on in 1997.

Rock bumps HHH around early doors with his 1980’s babyface offence, getting arm drags, dropkicks and back body drops amongst other things. Tri takes nice bumps for all of that but eventually gains control of the contest by giving Rocky a body slam out on the floor. Rock sells the heat well and HHH gives his usual strong performance when it comes to execution and mechanics, with the crowd somewhat getting into it, especially when Helmsley tries to cheat. It should shock no one to hear that Triple H gets a nice high knee onto Maivia at one stage, with the timing being on point as Rocky ducked two other attacks before Hunter chased him down to give him a good kneeing.

Rocky makes sporadic comeback attempts, but Tri is always able to cut him off until Maivia finally manages to make the comeback proper. Rocky heads up top for a high cross body (just imagine Rock trying that even in 1998, it’d look ridiculous) but HHH is able to kick out at two. HHH tries a rope assisted pin in reply, but Rock manages to kick out and then delivers his Layin’ The Smackdown DDT, which was always one of my favourite moves of his to perform on WWF War Zone for the PlayStation/N64. Tri is undeterred and gets a Neck Breaker, but that leads to Goldust coming down to the ring for a distraction, leading to Rocky getting a Back Suplex with a bridge for the three count.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: ROCKY MAIVIA
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: I thought that was decent, although these two would have much better matches together in the future. They protected HHH not just in this bout but the one on Raw as well, as Rocky’s first win was kind of presented as a lucky pin counter due to Helmsley not taking the challenge seriously enough, whilst he looked to have things in hand in this bout at In Your House 13 until Goldust showed up to distract him. It probably didn’t help Rocky’s perception with the fans of being undeserving for this level of push that he was playing secondary to the HHH/Goldust feud. The match itself was an okay outing though in my opinion

We get a famous moment following the match, as a big beefy woman reaches over the railings to try and throttle Marlena until security leads her away. That woman would go on to be named Chyna and she formed a formidable double act with Triple H for the next couple of years that helped them both get over to levels they wouldn’t have reached on their own.

Kevin Kelly is backstage with Vader and Paul Bearer. It should shock no one to learn that Vader thinks that he’s going to win tonight, with Bearer adding that Vader has already beaten up all of his opponents in the Main Event. Vader beats up most people, that was kind of his thing.

Semi-Main
WWF Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Slammy Award Winning Owen Hart and British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith w/ Clarence Mason Vs Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon

Owen and Davey were having problems at the time and the WWF was heavily teasing that they were going to split as a unit. Furnas and LaFon had debuted at Survivor Series 1996 and had got a statement win over the Champs on that show, so now they’re finally getting the Title shot they essentially earned with that successful outing. Owen highlights the dissension between the two Champs by jumping in front of Davey during their entrance, which clearly causes Davey some consternation. I wonder if at this point they already knew that we were going to get the formed Hart Foundation later on in the year of if the current plan was just to turn Davey babyface for a feud with Owen?

There’s a good dynamic between the two teams here, as both of them have a power guy (Davey/Furnas) and a quicker technical guy (Owen/LaFon), which means they mesh well and there’s always an interesting combination of guys working in there. The challengers get the better of things in the early going for the most part, but eventually Owen is able to cheap shot LaFon and that leads to the Champs taking control of things. Furnas and LaFon had slowed down a bit since their prime as a team in the early 90’s, but they were still a solid tandem. They did feel a bit out of place in the Attitude Era though due to neither of them having a particularly bombastic personality. They were solid meat and potato guys in a company where that sort of thing would soon become blase.

Owen and Davey look good on offence whilst putting the beat down on LaFon, whilst LaFon sells everything well and the crowd eventually starts clapping for LaFon to make the hot tag. The Champs ultimately have some communication issues, which actually leads to Davey giving Owen a clothesline before then realising that his team is about to lose, thus leading to him breaking up the resulting pin in a funny moment. Furnas gets the hot tag following that, leading to the challengers taking it in turns to suplex Owen out of his boots in an effort to pick up the three count. Furnas has own pinned with a Frankensteiner at one stage, but Davey makes the save. Owen does manage to kick out under his own power following a Furnas leg drop though.

Owen buys himself some time with the Shawn Killing Enziguri following that and we get a kind-of hot tag from Davey, seeing as he is skirting the lines between Face and Heel at the time. That leads to things breaking down, with Owen and Furnas getting sent out of the ring, which seemingly leaves the door open for Davey to put LaFon away with the Running Powerslam. However, Owen stupidly clonks LaFon with his Slammy award before the move can be completed, and that leads to him costing his team the match as the ref calls for the DQ.

WINNERS BY DQ: FURNAS & LAFON (CHAMPIONS RETAIN)
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: This was a well-worked match that built to a big crescendo that we didn’t end up getting due to the lame DQ finish. Had this been given a pin fall or submission finish then it would have rated it higher, as I felt the weakness of the ending dragged it down somewhat. Obviously they wanted to get across the idea that Owen and Davey weren’t on the best of terms, but they could have done that whilst still giving us a better finish (hows about Davey has it won but Owen steals the pin for instance?)

The Champs argue following that, with Davey showing how angry he is by breaking the Slammy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think we all need to take a brief moment there to get over the horror that was the injury to Owen Hart’s wonderful Slammy award. Even as a fellow Brit, I have to call Davey Boy Smith to account for that one. That Slammy was just two days away from retirement you MONSTER!!! I guess I’ll try and continue on with the review following that, but it’s going to be difficult…

Michael Hayes is backstage with The Undertaker. Taker says that he’s rediscovering his edge, and that spells DOOM for his opponents in the Main Event. They can only accept that Undertaker will spare their souls later on.

The Spanish and French announce teams are very excited about the upcoming Main Event.

We get clips from Royal Rumble 1997 in order to explain why the following match is due to take place.

Main Event
Final Four Match to crown a new WWF Champion
The Man They Call Vader w/ Paul Bearer Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin Vs The Undertaker Vs Bret The Hitman Hart

Bret had thrown Austin out of the Royal Rumble, but Austin had snuck back in without the refs seeing his elimination and threw out Bret, Vader and Taker in order to “win” the contest. This result wasn’t allowed to stand, so this match was booked in order to decide who would go to the Main Event of WrestleMania 13. Fake Diesel was technically the third placed competitor in the bout, but Bret was the one to throw Diesel out and he was a legal entrant at the time of elimination, so Fake Diesel isn’t included in this match (sucks to be you, Glen). However, what with Shawn Michaels having to vacate the WWF Title, the winner will now get the vacant belt and will face off against Sycho Sid on Raw seeing as Sid was supposed to get a Title shot against Shawn and didn’t get it due to the belt being held held up.

We get a backstage promo from Bret Hart with Kevin Kelly before the match, where he says that everyone in the bout is tough but he’s got everything going for him and that means he will be the better man tonight. Vader Vs Taker and Austin Vs Bret were the two feuds at the time, so they mostly pair up in the opening stages, leading to some good brawling. Vader and Taker quickly head out to the floor, where Vader tries to clobber Taker with a chair, only to have the chair kicked into his face. Vader comes up bleeding from that, but the blood only seems to motivate him to keep fighting, not unlike Narcis Prince in Super Punch-Out for the SNES when you hit him in the face. In case the picture above isn’t showing, you eliminate folk by pin, submission or chucking them over the top rope here, although we’ve mostly seen guys going for pins thus far.

Austin and Vader head to the floor at one stage, and just beat the ever loving heck out of one another using anything they can get their hands on, including ring steps and even the WWF Title belt! It’s truly brutal stuff and not the sort of thing you saw a lot in the WWF at the time. This is a match you’d usually see more in ECW, which showed the influence ECW was having at the time. Indeed, most of the much vaunted Attitude Era was just the WWF poaching ideas and concepts from ECW but doing them on a bigger stage with better production values. Hence we get these four being allowed to cut loose and go at it here in a wild fight, and it’s super entertaining. Vader of course tries busting out the Moonsault at one stage, what with this being a big match and all, but Taker is able to save his sternum by dodging it at the last minute.

We do eventually get some over the top rope teases, with Austin and Taker trying to throw each other over at different times, only for each attempt to be unsuccessful. Our first elimination does end up coming from someone being thrown over actually, as Bret gets the better of Austin and heaves him out from a firefighter’s carry position. There wasn’t actually a lot of build to that in all honesty. Bret kind of just grabbed Austin and went “right, time for you to go” and off Austin went. I believe there’s always been a suggestion that Austin hurt his knee in this one and that caused his elimination to come sooner than planned? If his knee was hurt he still managed to make it to WrestleMania 13 at any rate.

Stone Cold Steve Austin eliminated by Bret Hart (1) – Over the Top Rope

We get to see Vader and Bret go at it for a bit after Paul Bearer clonks Taker with the urn, and it’s good stuff and makes me think that a properly promoted singles match on pay per view between the two could have been a lot of fun. Bret even busts out a Superplex onto Vader at one stage, although when he applies The Sharpshooter it surprisingly gets broken up by Undertaker. I can only guess that Taker wants Vader’s scalp for himself? Even if so, Taker probably should have just let Bret get the elimination there, and then kicked The Hitman square the mush as soon as Vader’s removal from the bout was made official. Stone Cold runs back down to stomp at Bret following that, whilst Vader heads up to Bret’s own rope in order to try and squish Taker with a Pump Splash. However, Taker recovers in time to clock Vader right in his Rocky Mountains before dumping Vader to the floor to give us our second elimination.

Vader eliminated by The Undertaker (1) – Over the Top Rope

Taker clocks Austin so that he can go after Bret himself, leading to Taker getting the Choke Slam onto Bret as the crowd goes nuts. Tombstone looks to follow for The Hitman, but Austin just won’t go away and he ends up breaking up the Tombstone by trying to pull Bret out over the top whilst Taker has the move set up. This leads to Undertaker going after Austin again, and in the commotion of it all Bret is able to clothesline Taker over the top rope in order to win. Thus Austin’s interference ended up inadvertently leading to Bret picking up the win, which is a nice example of the Heel being hoist by their own petard. Austin would make sure to get the job done on Raw the next night though by costing Bret his newly won Title to Sid.

The Undertaker eliminated by Bret Hart (2) – Over the Tope Rope

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: BRET HART
MOST ELIMINATIONS: BRET HART (2)
RATING: ****

Thoughts: You’d have to actively go out of your way to ensure that a match between these four in February 1997 wouldn’t be excellent. All four were healthy enough to work at the level needed to make this into a great Main Event, and all four could hold their own in a frantic brawl based environment like this. The match ended up being one of the best early examples of the WWF taking the ECW formula and making it their own, with the result being a tremendous fight that had the crowd losing their mind as it entered the closing stretch. This may have been Vader’s best night in the WWF in some ways, as he looked the part, wrestled the part and got over as a big scary dude who only really got eliminated because he took a chance from the second rope that he didn’t need to take as he already had things in hand. Just a great brawl and well worth going out of your way to see if you’ve never seen it before

Bret celebrates with his new belt, but Sycho Sid joins us for a stare down in order to set up the Main Event for Raw the next night.

In Conclusion

In Your House 13 is all about the Main Event (“Final Four” is the subtitle of the show for a reason) but the rest of the pay per view is a reasonably easy watch for the most part and there’s a good chance that quite a few readers might enjoy the WWF Tag Title match quite a bit as well depending on what styles of wrestling you like to watch. In Your House 13 isn’t a terrible use of 1 hour and 45 minutes and it certainly ends on a strong note. So with taking all of that into account, I’ll give In Your House 13 a mild thumbs up!

Mildly recommended show!