Mike Reviews WWF In Your House 18: Badd Blood

Happy Friday Everyone!

We continue our journey into 1997 WWF with In Your House 18: Badd Blood. We’ve got Shawn Michaels Vs The Undertaker in the inaugural Hell in a Cell match and pretty much bugger all else, so this could be another chapter in my unofficial “One Match Show” review series

You can view the full card for Badd Blood by checking below;

In Your House 18: Badd Blood Card

Badd Blood is emanating from the Kiel Centre in St. Louis, Missouri on the 5th October 1997

Calling the action are Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler in the last time that we’d see that trio due to a little something called The Montreal Screw-job next month

Steve Blackman’s theme is the theme for Badd Blood tonight, as Blackman was still a month away from debuting

During the entrances for the opening match; Vince McMahon lets us know that Brian Pillman has passed away, and then they just get on with the show

Opening Night
Three on Two Handicap Bout
The Nation of Domination (D-Lo Brown, Kama Mustafa and Rocky Maivia Vs The Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal)

Ken Shamrock was originally supposed to be on the babyface side here, but he got injured wrestling Vader in Japan, so he’s out of this match and The Roadies are going to go it alone. Rocky had only just recently joined The Nation, and he’s already drawing some “Rocky Sux” chants from the crowd. Rocky slips pretty comfortably into the Heel role, with some good facial expressions and Heel mannerisms. This is a competently worked match, with The Roadies getting to shine in the early going whilst Brown and Rocky take some decent bumps in order to make the babyfaces look good. Both Hawk and Kama decide to no sell a double clothesline at one stage, because of course they do, and the crowd is reasonably into the action but not going nuts either.

Rocky eventually sneaks into the ring with an illegal DDT on Animal, and that’s the cut off leading into the heat segment. Animal sells all that well enough, with the Heels settling into a groove of Kama being the tough scary one whilst Brown and Rocky are like the hyenas peppering away when they get a chance and drawing boos from the crowd. The crowd sticks with Animal in the heat segment, although I personally feel like the heat maybe goes on a bit too long, even though it’s competently worked. Hawk eventually gets the hot tag and runs wild, with Brown of course accidentally hitting Rocky at one stage, because being the resident goof was his role in The NOD at the time. Faarooq ends up running down to help his stablemates by distracting Animal and the referee, which allows Kama to sneak attack Hawk so that Rocky can get the Rock Bottom for three after about 12 minutes.

WINNERS: NATION OF DOMINATION
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Not an especially exciting match, but it was totally fine as an opener. It would have been nice to see The Roadies prevail somehow in order to pop the crowd, but it would have done more damage to The NOD to lose than it did The Road Warriors, so the ending made sense and it’s not like Hawk and Animal looked weak in the match either. They went up against three wrestlers and gave a good account of themselves on route to a close defeat, with the three needing help from a fourth wrestler in order to seal the deal. Zero damage was really done to The Road Warriors here and they’d bounce back on Raw the next night anyway

Sunny and Michael Hayes are on the Superstar Line, with folks from USA, Canada and the UK being able to call in should they wish

Vince McMahon takes a bit more time to give us a proper update on Pillman’s death, extending his condolences to the family and introducing the next match

Match Two
Mexican Mini Madness
Mosaic and Tarantula Vs Max Mini and Nova

This was supposed to be Brian Pillman Vs Dude Love, but sadly that now can’t happen so the mini’s have been brought in to fill time. This isn’t Mike Bucci playing Nova but rather a small Mexican man. Mosaic is a really cool name for a luchador actually and someone should use it. It sure beats “Hologram” at any rate. There’s plenty of pratfalls in this one. Pratfalls and arm drags are the main thing on display here actually, and it’s all competently done. The crowd doesn’t especially get THAT into it, but they don’t hate it either and there are some murmured chuckles and cheers at points. Max is by far the most over of the four, mainly because he’s the only one the crowd seems to recognise or care about, and to be fair he’s probably the best wrestler of the four as well.

Tarantula clears nearly half of the ring with a big splash from the top rope at one stage, which is pretty impressive for a guy his size. Max gets dropped on the English commentary table at one stage, which Lawler laughs at because he doesn’t like Max for wearing Lawler’s crown on a previous show. The longer this goes on the less the crowd cares about it, with them essentially wrestling to silence at one stage, which makes me feel bad for them as they are working hard, although some of the work has gotten progressively more sloppy as the bout has gone on. Max ends up catching Tarantula with a sloppy pinning hold and that’s enough for three after about 7 minutes.

WINNERS: MAX MINI & NOVA
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This started out okay but got kind of brutal the longer it went on for as the crowd lost interest and the wrestling started getting pretty sloppy as the bout continued

Sunny is our special guest ring announcer for this one, as they weren’t really using her as a manager anymore at this point, with scuttlebutt being that they were actively trying to marginalise her in favour of promoting Sable. Seeing as Sable seemingly keeps herself out of trouble these days, whilst Sunny has quite literally killed someone due to drinking whilst bombed out of her head, the WWF was probably betting on the right horse all things considered…

Match Three
WWF Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Head Bangers (Mosh and Thrasher) Vs The Godwinns (Henry and Phineas) w/ Uncle Cletus

Cletus is Tony Anthony with a new gimmick. The Head Bangers nearly kill Phineas with a botched flapjack early on, but Phineas’ neck is seemingly made out of concrete and ham, as he just gets back up and keeps going. Vince actually outs himself as a southerner in this one, noting that he was born in North Carolina. The Head Bangers do get a reasonable amount of time for their babyface shine, but then Henry obliterates Thrasher with a clothesline behind referee Tim White’s back and that’s the cut off, leading to The Godwinns beating Thrasher up, with Uncle Cletus also getting stuck in whenever the referee isn’t looking. Thrasher takes some decent bumps for the Heels, and the crowd mostly sticks with him. Mosh eventually gets the hot tag and runs wild, with Cletus even taking a shot at one stage, which gets a decent reaction. Phineas turns a Mosh rana attempt into a Powerbomb though and that’s enough for the flash three count after about 12 minutes.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: THE GODWINNS
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: The Godwinns were just transitional Champs, with The Road Warriors winning them on Raw in a match where they also put their careers on the line. Putting the belts on The Road Warriors made sense, but it would have been nice for The Bangers to get a slightly longer run with them first. I found the bout itself to be quite dull actually, but it wasn’t terrible or anything outside of that awful botch on the flapjack that Phineas was lucky to survive. All of the tag matches on this show have seemingly been booked by Paul Orndorff though as they all have been structured like Pretty Wonderful bouts whereby we’ve had a long shine, a longer heat and then the finish comes really quickly following the hot tag

The Godwinns do a post-match beatdown but then have to leave otherwise the decision will get reversed

We get a video package showing Stone Cold Steve Austin dishing out Stone Cold Stunner’s to Jim Ross, Sgt. Slaughter, Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon, getting increasingly more over in the process even though he couldn’t actually wrestle at the time due to a serious injury. We then get clips from Raw where Vince McMahon tells Austin he can either get a doctors note to keep wrestling, or sign a document to absolve the WWF if they allow Austin to wrestle, or be fired

Michael Cole interviews Owen Hart in the locker room, where Owen demands that Stone Cold leave him alone tonight or the WWF will be facing a lawsuit

In another segment added to the show in order to fill time for Brian Pillman’s death, we get a legends roll of honour with Gene Kiniski, Jack Brisco, Dory Funk Jr, Harley Race, Terry Funk, Sam Muchnick and Lou Thesz all heading down to the ring to receive a plaque from Jim Ross and Sunny. This was a nice segment done well, and the live crowd at Badd Blood liked it, although Kevin Dunn was supposedly against it because he didn’t think anyone would know who the legends were. That was never likely to happen though as the WWF had covered for that by having introductory videos for each legend narrated by Kevin Kelly. It was nice that even in the Attitude Era you could still get an appreciation for the past, although that would wane the longer the era ran on for

Michael Hayes interviews Faarooq ahead of the next match, with Faarooq saying that he’s going to kick Owen Hart’s butt and he doesn’t care about Stone Cold Steve Austin

Vince McMahon notifies us that the authorities don’t believe that there was any foul play in Brian Pillman’s death but they think it was a drug overdose. I’m oddly impressed that they actually gave an update during Badd Blood. I must say though, having all the Pillman references have given Badd Blood a sense of tonal whiplash as we go from very serious real-life stuff like that and then it’s straight back to the Pro Wrestling show like nothing happened

Match Four
Final of WWF Intercontinental Title Tournament
Faarooq Vs Owen Hart

Stone Cold Steve Austin had to vacate the belt after Owen Hart injured him back at SummerSlam, so they’ve had a tournament here to decide who will claim the belt. Both wrestlers are Heels strangely enough here, which is a bit of a weird decision but I guess it makes sense when you think about what the Intercontinental Title matches at both the November and December pay per view’s were going to be. Stone Cold is sitting at ringside, and is probably the most interesting part of the match, as he messes with both competitors in the match and also steals the headsets of the commentary team to mess with them as well. The match itself in the ring is almost an afterthought, even though both Faarooq and Owen are working hard and are having an okay back and forth match that the crowd doesn’t really care about because they don’t like either of the wrestlers. Jim Neidhart eventually runs down to cheer on Owen, leading to Neidhart and referee Jack Doan arguing. This allows Austin to clobber Owen with the Intercontinental belt so that Owen can get the three count after about 7 minutes.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: OWEN HART
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Austin helping Owen makes sense in that he wanted to win the belt from Owen, so Owen needed to win it first. Having Faarooq as the opponent made sense in that case as well, as it meant Austin was screwing a Heel and not another babyface. Austin probably wouldn’t have been booed anyway, but this was an added level of insurance that made sense. Plus, by screwing over Faarooq, it opened the door for Stone Cold to feud with The Nation of Domination once his feud with Owen Hart was over. The match itself was totally overshadowed by Stone Cold’s antics and the crowd didn’t really get that into it

We get clips from Raw, where The Hart Foundation beat up Vader and Patriot before burying them under the Canadian flag

Match Five
GANG WARZzzzzzz
Los Boricuas (Savio Vega, Jesus Castillo, Jose Estrada and Miguel Perez) Vs The Disciples Of Apocalypse (Crush, Chainz, Skull and 8-Ball)

This would be Puerto Rican gang members, led by Savio, taking on angry bikers, led by Crush, as the Gang Warz continue to go on with seemingly no end in sight. This is a totally fine Shotgun Saturday Night match that they’ve put on Badd Blood, with The DOA doing power stuff and brawling whilst Los Boricuas use the numbers game to swarm the bikers like piranhas (which Lawler even mentions on commentary in fact). The crowd doesn’t seem to really care that much about it, outside of a brief faint “DOA” chant at one stage, but it’s a watchable match for the most part, with Los Boricuas working some heat on Chainz until it’s time for the hot tag to Crush. Things breakdown following that, with that finally waking the crowd up a bit, and we get another bit of Pretty Wonderful booking, as they quickly take it home following the hot tag after a long heat segment, as Crush gets Jesus with a Back Breaker and that’s enough for three after 9 minutes.

WINNERS: DOA
RATING: **

Thoughts: Not really “pay per view quality” but a totally fine match for what it was

Michael Cole interviews Bret Hart and British Bulldog, who cut a pretty generic promo ahead of the next match

They raise the flags for the next match, with Old Glory obviously going up second so that the crowd can cheer

Match Six
Tag Team Flag Bout
The Hart Foundation (WWF Champion Bret Hart and British Bulldog Vs Vader and The Patriot

This was a continuation of the Bret Hart Vs USA feud, as Patriot and Vader have put their personal differences aside in order to fight together for the honour of MURICA against the evil Canadian and Brit. You can win here by capturing your country’s flag or by pin-fall/submission. Patriot got essentially destroyed in this feud by getting one fluke win over Bret and then getting beaten in every subsequent match whilst also getting laid out multiple times. Patriot was already fighting an uphill battle anyway with his traditional gimmick feeling out of place in the modern WWF, so he needed as much protection as possible and he had no chance of bouncing back once this feud was over. According to the commentary team, pretty much everyone is walking wounded in this one, as Bulldog has an injured knee, Vader is carrying wounds from his match with Ken Shamrock in Japan, and Patriot is laid low with the flu.

They do a wild brawl to start, which is actually quite good, leading to the referee ringing the bell whilst Patriot and Vader are in the ring whilst Bret and Bulldog sell on the floor. For some reason the USA team don’t decide to go for the flag during this time, which leads to Lawler and Ross actually agreeing that the babyfaces are dumb for not trying to win, leading to Vince having to scramble on commentary in order to explain it, noting that maybe it can’t be legal until all four wrestlers are in the ring or that Patriot took a shot to the head in the brawl and had his bell rung so he was a bit absentminded because of it. You can tell that Vince was lagging behind both Ross and Lawler at the desk during this period and that was probably a contributing reason to Vince stepping away from commentary, as well as his impending Heel turn in 1997. Interestingly they push the idea on commentary that Bret and Bulldog are probably the least cohesive duo inside the Hart Foundation, perhaps giving the team an out should they not prevail here?

The actual wrestling portion of the match isn’t as good as the brawling section to start, which is kind of surprising when you consider the talent in there, but The Hart Foundation crew supposedly didn’t like working with Patriot much and Bret/Vader never really seemed to have much in the way of chemistry as opponents in the rare times they would work together (Final Four being the exception of course as that was probably Vader’s best night of his WWF run). Patriot spends most of the match getting whomped, although he is allowed to reverse The Sharpshooter at one stage to a decent pop, as the WWF had that happen at both the September and October pay per views prior to Survivor Series, almost as if they were priming the fans to recognise it should it happen at that event. Honestly everything either fell into place perfectly for the WWF or Vince McMahon is a Machiavellian Genius who was playing 4D Chess the whole time.

Vader’s hot tag gets a good response at least, especially when he charges through Bulldog with the Running Body Attack at one stage. Vader actually attempts to climb for the flag at one stage, but Bret attacks him and that seemingly gives us our second heat segment as the air just goes out of the crowd. This match did not need the extended Midnight Express Vs Rock N Roll Express double heat structure. It feels like the WWF thinks that this needs a lot of time because it’s the penultimate bout on the show and involves Bret Hart, but it really doesn’t. 15 minutes max would have been fine here. They don’t even bother doing an actual tag to end the second heat segment, as Patriot just gets in and puts Bret in a Figure Four, which the referee just allows for some reason. This of course means there is ZERO pop for Patriot running wild on Bret because it wasn’t an actual hot tag and the crowd seems confused by it.

Patriot actually gets a sustained period of offence in on both Bret and Bulldog, and looks decent in all honesty. They probably could have gotten more out of Patriot if they’d protected him more in the booking, because he was a decent worker and had a good look, but this feud basically finished him off and he wasn’t in the promotion much longer. We now get our THIRD heat segment, this time on Patriot, as this match is DRAGGING. Holy crap, WHY are they doing three heat segments in this match that nobody really cares about. The crowd is basically comatose for the third hot tag segment, and I don’t blame them at this stage. Vader does land on his feet when Bulldog dodges his Moonsault attempt at least, which was very impressive and deserved more of a reaction from the crowd. Vader did stumble a bit to be fair, but it was still very impressive.

The fight spills to the floor, where Bret gives Patriot a mule kick and then clocks Vader with the ring bell, as this match just KEEPS GOING. Seriously, whose idea was it to give them this much time? We get what is either our fourth of fifth hot tag of the match (I’ve lost count) as Patriot runs wild on both Heels and even gets his Full Nelson Slam move onto Bret, which seemingly leads to a fan trying to get into the ring. I’ve no idea if that was a work or a shoot, but I’m guessing shoot because they don’t show the dude on camera after he’s taken away. It does set up a Pump Splash on Bret from Vader though, so either it was planned or they just ad-libbed smartly. Bret reverses an O’Conner Roll on Patriot and that’s the three count after 23 minutes.

WINNERS: HART FOUNDATION
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: I don’t know how I got six paragraphs out of this match considering it was a 23 minute match with barely anything that interesting going on in it. Honestly if this was Bret’s ceiling by the end of 1997 then it was probably for the best that he left, although it could have been done in a nicer way of course. If this had been 10-15 minutes then it likely would have been a bit better. The flag stipulation didn’t really add much to things and Bret Hart just felt like a mid-carder who happened to be the WWF Champ. I don’t know if that was by design in the booking or if Bret just wasn’t capable/didn’t care to elevate this feud to something more worthwhile

WWF European Champion Shawn Michaels is interviewed by Michael Hayes backstage. Shawn does his usual thing of acting like the European Title doesn’t matter to him, which had to partly be to needle The Hart Foundation seeing as he politicked to win the belt from British Bulldog in England to begin with. Shawn does cut a good promo following that though. In a funny botch, Triple H tries to talk but gets cut off as we go to the pre-match video package with a U2 sound-alike music for the first part of it detailing Shawn’s old babyface days leading into the tone changing when he clocks Undertaker with a chair to signify his Heel turn in a clever production decision

Main Event
Hell in a Cell
Shawn Michaels Vs The Undertaker

These two fought to a no contest back at the September pay per view with folks also running in at points, so they’ve shoved them in a cage with a roof for Badd Blood so that we can get an actual winner, with the winner then going on to Survivor Series in order to face Bret Hart for the WWF Title. Shawn is of course the underdog here, but he’s a Heel underdog, with the draw of the match being that we finally get to see the conniving little s~~~ get his butt whipped by a big angry Deadman. They make sure that Sgt. Slaughter and Earl Hebner check under the ring before the match starts to make sure that no one is hiding under there and then they bring the cage down. Shawn was still using “Sexy Boy” at the time but they’d change it to the DX theme by the end of the year. Personally, I would have preferred they keep the Sexy Boy song and save the DX theme for when DX wrestled as a unit, but I get why they did it the way they did as they wanted Shawn to have a bit of a harder edge and it’s hard to that when you have such cheesy entrance music. This was during a short-lived period where Rick Rude was DX’s “insurance policy” (possibly an inside gag at Rude claiming a Lloyds of London policy at the time) but he’d bolt to WCW following Survivor Series 1997. Rude was a weird fit with this version of DX anyway, although he would have been great as a member of The Corporation in 1998/99 with this look.

Shawn is just generally fantastic in this match, as he’s cocky during his entrance, but once the cell comes down and they lock the door, the reality sinks in to Shawn that he’s locked in the cell with a very scary man and he sells the fear of it all great. Shawn Michaels may have been an absolute jerk in 1997, but he was pretty much unsurpassed in the ring at the time, as this match shows. Undertaker just destroys Shawn in the early going, with Shawn having no answer for it and bumping all over the place in his usual impressive style. Jim Ross ranting about people at home saying “he knows how to fall” would fall a bit flat in 2001 when Tough Enough came along and showed that, indeed. wrestlers are taught how to fall in order to limit the damage done via bumps. This is not only an effective babyface shine for Undertaker, but it also gives the Shawn hating section of the crowd their monies worth as they get to see Shawn get the promised beating, meaning that the match has in effect already delivered and the crowd will then have some patience for the section where Shawn is able to work some heat.

Shawn is eventually able to knock Undertaker off the apron into the cage, which is enough for the cut off, especially when Shawn follows with a TOPE SUICIDA and an elbow drop after climbing the cage wall. I like how Shawn got kind of lucky with the initial cut off but then followed it up with a series of high impact moves in order to cement it, showing that Shawn isn’t an ineffective chump but he did need a little bit of good fortune in order to give himself an opening. Shawn follows that up with a Piledriver onto the ring steps, which is executed perfectly but is done in a way that makes it sound like Undertaker had his skull cracked open like a walnut. In a tease for what is to come; Shawn yells at the camera operator for getting too close, setting something up later on in the contest. Shawn tries to destroy Undertaker with a chair, which is how this feud started back at SummerSlam in a nice call back, but Undertaker survives two chair shots to the back and keeps coming.

Undertaker catches Shawn with a back body drop, which leads to Shawn landing on the camera operator. Shawn does something many who worked backstage in the WWF were probably used to seeing around this timeframe, as he loses his temper and acts in a very unprofessional manner, which in this case means that Shawn beats up the camera operator, which they set up previously by having Shawn yelling when the other camera operator got too close. This leads to the cell door having to be opened so that the injured camera operator can be attended to, which gives us an organic way for the two wrestlers to fight outside of the cell. This leads to Shawn getting thrown face first into the cage numerous times, with the clips of one of them being used in the Raw intro for a while after this. The WWF would of course overdo the trope of wrestlers getting out of the cage to the point that from No Mercy 2002 onwards they didn’t do it for quite a while because it was becoming cliché and it was getting too dangerous for the wrestlers to always have to fight outside the cell and end up on the roof or some such scenario. However, in 1997 this stuff was all brand new and it really adds to the match.

Shawn climbs the cage in hopes of escaping Undertaker’s wrath, but Undertaker follows him and we get another first, as the two wrestlers fight on the roof of the cell. Thankfully the first version of the cell had a strong roof, unlike the one from King of the Ring 1998, so Shawn is able to take both a back body drop and a press slam onto the roof with it surviving both moves with ease. In one of the more gruesome shots of the pay per view, Shawn bleeds from the roof of the cell down onto the camera inside the cell, leading to some blood actually showing up on the camera itself. Shawn’s next big bump is to get knocked off the cell through one of the ringside commentary tables, although Shawn at least climbed down part of the way first so it wasn’t quite as terrifying as Mick Foley’s bump in 1998. There are a few scattered “EC-Dub” chants following that, and this match at Badd Blood is kind of an example of the WWF’s “ECW; but with a budget and slightly less violence” product in 1997. Undertaker puts Shawn back into the cell following that and delivers a Choke Slam before BLASTING Shawn with a chair shot to get his revenge and payoff that story thread. However, Shawn is the one getting the title shot at Survivor Series, so THAT’S GOTTA BE KANE debuts and he rips the door of the cage (something that Jim Cornette apparently lifted from an angle involving Doug Furnas years prior to this) before giving Undertaker a Tombstone so that Shawn can drape an arm to win after about 30 minutes.

WINNER: SHAWN MICHAELS
RATING: *****

Thoughts: This one lives up to the hype if you’ve never watched it. Not only was the wrestling great, but it was a fantastic way to debut the new stipulation and it was also one of the best outside interference finishes that the WWF ever did, as it gave Shawn a way to win without making Undertaker look weak and gave both Shawn and Undertaker reasons to move on from their feud for a bit as Shawn was now going for the WWF Title whilst Undertaker had Kane to contend with. The way the match was structured also ensured that any fans tuning in or buying a ticket to see Shawn get killed ended up getting what they wanted whilst Shawn still got to win so that the assorted storylines could move on as they needed to. Great wrestling, great storytelling and great booking combine to make this one of the best matches in WWF/E history

In Conclusion:

Badd Blood is all about the Main Event. Granted, it’s an AMAZING Main Event, but you can easily watch that match for free on WWE Vault, so there’s really no reason to watch the rest of Badd Blood so I can’t really recommend it. Definitely watch Hell in a Cell if you’ve never seen it though as it’s tremendous