Mike Reviews WWF In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker

Happy Friday Everyone (hope it’s not too unlucky for your all)

We’re back with another WWF review today, as I slowly fill in my WWF review archives with In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker. As the title would suggest, this show features The Undertaker on the quest for revenge, this time against Mankind. Elsewhere, we’ve got Bret Hart battling Stone Cold in a WrestleMania re-match whilst The Road Warriors challenge for the WWF Tag Team Titles.

You can view the full card for In Your House 14 by clicking below;

WWF In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker Card

In Your House 14 is emanating from the Memorial Auditorium in Rochester, New York on the 20th of April 1997

Calling the action are Vince McMahon Jr, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

Freddie Blassie does the dramatic voice over in the opening video package. Interestingly, a version of the music used here sounds like it was recycled for Rock’s “Is Cookin'” Heel entrance theme in 2003 for the bit where there’s footage of the city and helicopter.

Opening Match
WWF World Tag Team Titles
Champions: The Hart Foundation (Owen Hart and British Bulldog)
Vs
Challengers: The Road Warriors (Road Warrior Hawk and Road Warrior Animal)

Owen and Bulldog had been slowly breaking up for the first part of 1997, but Bret Hart got them back on the same page by telling them that he loved them and wanted to be aligned again, leading to all three Heels embracing to violent boos from the crowd in a hilarious moment. The Roadies had returned in February 1997 and had been successful at WrestleMania 13 when teaming up with Ahmed Johnson against The Nation of Domination, so giving them a Title shot made sense. The Godwinns accidentally slopped The Roadies on an episode of Raw during the build-up, and that would end up being one of their big feuds of the summer when they broke Henry O’s neck with the DOOMsday Device. Bulldog is rocking long tights tonight, making it somewhat of a special occasion as he often went with trunks around this period.

Bulldog was also the European Champion at the time, and you can read more about the history of the European Title in the Mike Looks Back archives. The Champs bump around well for the challengers to start, with the crowd seeming to enjoy it. The Roadies normally match up well to smaller Heel teams who can take a kicking and make them look good, so on paper the Bulldog/Owen team seems like a good fit for them. Bulldog actually manages to muscle Hawk up for a hanging suplex at one stage, although Owen has less luck when going for The Sharpshooter, as Hawk easily kicks him away and brings in Animal for a big Power Slam. We get to see that Stone Cold Steve Austin is arriving at the venue as the battle in the ring rages on.

Hawk has his working boots on for this one, as he even comes flying off the top rope with a big Splash at one stage. Eventually Owen and Hawk bump heads and that allows Owen to lay Hawk out with the Enziguri for the cut off. Owen and Bulldog keep it simple during the heat with things like stomps and rest holds, with Hawk selling it well enough. It’s not a thrilling heat segment, but it gets the crowd behind Hawk in hopes he will tag out, so it achieves it’s aim. Hawk is eventually able to shove the champs into each other, leading to Animal getting a Powerslam from the second rope on Bulldog to seemingly win the tag belts. However, it’s revealed that Owen was actually the legal man, so the three count doesn’t, err, count.

So with the pin not counting, we have to restart the match, with Owen and Bulldog supposedly getting stripped of their belts if they don’t return. I never get that rule, as belts can’t change hands on a DQ or Count Out unless priorly stipulated. A referee can’t just reverse that rule on the fly, or at least they shouldn’t be able to legally. Anyway, we get a second heat segment on Animal now, with the crowd sticking with the match and the work continuing to be acceptable. Owen misses a top rope headbutt onto Animal though and Hawk gets tagged in, running wild on the champs, who continue to bump well in this one. Owen takes the DOOMsday Device following that, leading to Bret Hart running in to break up the pin for the DQ. Bret initially missed his cue though so the referee had to delay in making the count, although he covered for it well by trying to get the other Road Warrior out of the ring before counting.

10 Minutes

WINNERS BY DQ: THE ROAD WARRIORS (HART FOUNDATION RETAIN)
RATING: **1/4

Thoughts: This was ridiculously overbooked and didn’t really need the false three count, but the actual work was fine and the crowd seemed to be into it, so I’ll be generous with the rating

Michael Hayes interviews Owen and Bulldog backstage following that, who act like they won the match. They seem surprised to hear that Stone Cold is at the venue, and Austin did note that he was changing a tire to Pat Patterson when he showed up during the opener, so maybe The Hart Foundation tried to impede his journey somehow?

Sunny and Brian Pillman are on the Superstar Line tonight, with Sunny being flirtatious whilst Pillman is being all crazy.

Second Match
WWF Intercontinental Title
Challenger: Savio Vega w/ Faarooq, Clarence Mason, Crush, D-Lo Brown, JC Ice & Wolfie D
Vs
Champion: Rocky Maivia

Savio was a member of The Nation of Domination at the time, whilst Rocky was still a babyface and wouldn’t join the group until later in the year. Rocky had received a rocket push since debuting in November 1996, but fans had started to resent it by this stage. Savio had pinned Rocky in South Africa in a Non-Title match to put him in contention for the belt here. Rocky gives a generic pre-match promo with Kevin Kelly, which kind of highlights why he wasn’t getting over at the time as he just didn’t fit in the early Attitude Era doing the standard babyface act. Thankfully once Rocky turned Heel later in the year he found an act that worked for him and he was off the races from that point on.

There’s also another unnamed member of The Nation out there who I don’t recognise. Faarooq heads over to do commentary on this one whilst Rocky does the traditional babyface fare of arm drags and whatnot whilst the crowd doesn’t really get that invested. Savio eventually cuts Rocky off with a spinning wheel kick and works some heat, including the dreaded nerve pinch at one stage. Rocky does actually get some faint chants whilst getting worked over, so fans hadn’t completely turned on him by this stage. Faarooq lays down a challenge on commentary for Ahmed Johnson to face him, Savio and Crush in a gauntlet, which Johnson eventually accepted, leading to a match at In Your House 15.

They give Rocky a visual fall at one stage, as he catches Savio with a Fisherman Suplex but the referee is distracted by a Nation member and can’t make the count. Wrestling wise the actual action in the ring is actually okay here. Savio keeps it basic for the most part, and his work looks fine, whilst Rocky gets to do a few flashy moves like his Layin’ The SmackDown DDT, which looks nice. Rocky even busts out the Rock Bottom at one stage, but this was before he used it as a finisher so it only gets him a two count. Savio ends up flinging Rocky out of the ring, and Rocky accidentally collides with Crush as a result. This leads to Crush laying out Rocky with a Heart Punch whilst the ref isn’t looking and that leads to Savio winning by count out.

9 Minutes

WINNER BY COUNT OUT: SAVIO VEGA (ROCKY RETAINS)
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Wrestling wise this was okay, but the crowd didn’t really get that into it and the finish was pretty lame. It did at least have a storyline reason for existing, but it didn’t help with making Rocky look that good. Rocky would soon lose his IC belt to Owen Hart and he would then get injured, leading to him coming back with a more grounded style as a Heel and beginning his journey to mega stardom

Crush and Savio argue following the match, with Savio feeling that Crush cost him a chance to win the belt. This was all building to The Nation eventually disintegrating and Faarooq forming a new Nation with himself, Ahmed Johnson, Kama Mustafa and D’Lo Brown. Speaking of Ahmed, he runs down with a 2×4 to save Rocky from a post-match Nation beatdown, which the crowd reacts well for. Ahmed agrees to the gauntlet challenge, setting up In Your House 15.

Ken Shamrock is on the Superstar Line and is apparently going to challenge Mike Tyson soon. I’m not sure if that ended up happening.

Michael Hayes is with Marc Mero and Sable. Mero and Sable seem to be getting on, with Mero saying that he’ll soon be back from his knee injury. Meanwhile, as the interview goes on, Owen Hart and British Bulldog head into the men’s room to seemingly attack Stone Cold, doing a fun double take when they see the camera documenting it. I find it interesting that they didn’t notice Hayes, Sable and Mero doing a promo segment right next to the room they charged into to be honest, but I guess they had tunnel vision.

Third Match
Rockabilly w/ The Honky Tonk Man Vs “The Real Double J” Jesse Jammes

Rockabilly would be better known as Billy Gunn. The story here was that Honky had been teasing for a long time that he was going to bring in a protégé, with rumours online and in the dirt-sheets being that it was going to be Disco Inferno, who had recently left WCW after refusing to lose to Jackie Moore. However, it ended up being a repackaged Billy Gunn instead. I’m not sure if Disco was ever in the discussion or if that was just random musings that became news. Gunn didn’t especially live up to all of Honky’s hype and he practically enters to silence once he’s announced, which is never really a good sign when you get a repackaging. Jammes was someone who they had originally teased as Honky’s protégé, but he wanted no part of it and destroyed one of Honky’s guitar, hence why he now has to fight the new protégé in this match so that Honky can make an example of him.

Gunn actually seemed to turn Honky down at first, but Honky kept pursuing him and eventually got his man. The fact that they’d already had Gunn turn Honky down does lead some credence to the idea that they had someone else in mind and then had to pivot when that person became unavailable. Gunn and Jammes would eventually form the New Age Outlaws later in the year, but they had to go through this miserable lower card feud first. Workwise, the action here is okay, with Jammes doing generic babyface stuff like hip tosses and dropkicks well enough whilst Gunn bumps around. Gunn seems really enthusiastic here actually, as you get the feeling that he wants this new gimmick to get over on its maiden voyage. Gunn works at a quick clip and is throwing himself around during the babyface shine to make Jammes’ offence look good.

Gunn eventually catches Jammes with a Rocker Dropper for the cut off and works some heat. The crowd doesn’t seem to care, but Gunn is hamming it up as much as he can and his offence looks decent. Jammes sells well, which was always one of the best aspects of his in-ring work. Gunn eventually misses a Stinger Splash in the corner and that leads to Jammes making the comeback, complete with his trademark jabs, although we sadly don’t get to see the Shaky Knee Drop. Jammes makes a decent comeback actually, but the crowd doesn’t really seem that bothered about it. Gunn flings Jammes to the floor and brings him back into the ring to seemingly put him away with a DDT. However, Gunn takes too long and that leads to Jammes getting a roll-up for the three count.

7 Minutes

WINNER: JESSE JAMMES
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This was actually an okay match, it was just between two characters the fans didn’t really care about, and in the WWF if you’re not over your match is getting nothing, regardless of how good the actual wrestling is. Having Gunn lose his first match following a repackaging was certainly a choice, as he looked like a chump straight out of the blocks. I wonder if Disco heard this plan and that was why he decided not to come in? I’ll say this, if I worked in the WWF creative team at the time I’d certainly be in favour of pushing Gunn. WCW was kicking the WWF’s behind and the company was in desperate need of some fresh new stars. Gunn had the size, the look, some actual charisma and he was an incredible athlete. Rockabilly wasn’t the right direction for him, but the WWF were right to persevere with him until he managed to find a gimmick that clicked as one half of the NAO with Jammes/Road Dogg

Michael Hayes is hocking an Undertaker door banner. I had a Ghostbusters one during my college days I believe. No idea where it is now.

Kevin Kelly is in the locker room with Gorilla Monsoon and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Stone Cold says that he’s still going out to fight later. Gorilla, as President of the WWF, decides to rearrange the match card by sending the WWF Title match out next.

Lance Wright, of ECW managing “fame”, interviews Bret Hart, Owen Hart and British Bulldog. Bulldog and Owen blame Stone Cold for attacking them, which is why they attacked him in reply.

Michael Hayes interviews Paul Bearer and Mankind in the interview area. Mankind cuts his usual crazed promo and it’s good fun.

Fourth Match
WWF World Heavyweight Title
Challenger: Mankind w/ Paul Bearer
Vs
Champion: The Undertaker

Mankind and Undertaker has spent most of 1996 feuding with one another, leading to Mankind actually scoring some big wins over Taker in the process. However, Undertaker then moved into the WWF Title picture during the run up to WrestleMania 13 whilst Mankind spent his time tagging with Vader. Taker won the WWF Title from Sid at Mania, leading to Paul Bearer trying to become Undertaker’s manager again. Undertaker refused though, leading to Mankind throwing fire in Taker’s eyes, setting up a vengeful Taker looking to give his longstanding foe another kicking here at In Your House 14. Surprisingly, despite the pay per view being named after Undertaker’s quest for revenge, he’s actually in the semi-main spot here, although they’ve explained it with Gorilla Monsoon re-arranging the card, which gets around them kind of showing they don’t have faith in Taker and Mankind as a Main Event.

Undertaker has his face partially bandaged here, as these two old rivals pick up where they left off from their last bout by clobbering each other in a brawl, which the fans in Rochester enjoy. Mankind is taking trademark big bumps right from the off, with Undertaker flinging him head first into the metal railings at ringside and they over the railings into the crowd for some brawling out there. Yup, I think we’re in the Attitude Era alright! (I always class the beginning of the Attitude Era as Bret’s post-match rant following the cage match on Raw). Eventually Bearer brings a halt to Taker’s rampage by distracting the ref so that Mankind can lamp Taker with the urn, giving Mankind a two count in a good near fall and starting the heat segment. This was during the period in Undertaker’s career where he was more mortal and would sell for opponents, so this is a good heat segment as a result with Mankind’s offence being suitably vicious and Undertaker’s selling being on point.

Undertaker eventually fights his way out of a Camel Clutch, leading to the brawl heading to ringside again where Mankind locks The Deadman with a pitcher of water before adding a chair shot. This isn’t a DQ for some reason, which is either down to Bearer distracting the referee at critical moments or the referee showing some leeway. The commentary team doesn’t really explain this. A simple explanation would be that Gorilla Monsoon knew this was likely to be an intense battle so he’s given the referee some extra discretion to relax the rules a bit to ensure that we get a winner. It would at least give a rational reason to the fans at home why a DQ hasn’t been called. Hey, I’m not complaining about these two being let loose to clobber each other, but it needs to make sense within the wacky wrestling world so that suspense can be fully suspended in my view. Mankind eventually removes some of the bandaging on Taker’s face, revealing a bruised and burnt area of his skin that looks somewhat realistic so kudos to the makeup team!

Undertaker keeps making attempts to fight back, and this eventually leads to referee Mike Chioda getting crushed in the corner. Replacement ref Chad Patton gets clobbered by Mankind as well when he heads down, freeing up Mankind to grab the metal ring steps and bring them into the ring. Taker performs a Van Takenator by kicking the steps into Mankind’s face and then follows up with a vicious chair shot to the head, as they continue to up the ante in this one. Mankind then gets knocked off the apron with the steps through a table, leading to Mankind going head first through the table like a dart, which was an insane bump for Mick Foley to take. He was lucky not to break his neck doing that stunt. Back inside the ring we get a Choke Slam from Taker, which gets two count from the revived Chioda in a great near fall. Mankind is too weakened to really mount a comeback though, so Undertaker adds a Tombstone and that’s enough for three.

17 Minutes

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: THE UNDERTAKER
RATING: ***1/2

Thoughts: Lovely Stuff! These two just work well together, with the only issue with this one being the inconsistency when it came to enforcing the rules with no real explanation as to why. I liked that they allowed Mankind to kick out of the Choke Slam. After taking steps and chairs to the face, followed by a near neck breaking tumble through a table, allowing Mankind that kickout helped him retain his violent madman aura and meant he didn’t lose any credibility when he was eventually pinned because it took so much to do it

Following the match, we get Undertaker setting off fire in Paul Bearer’s face, which led to Bearer promising vengeance and eventually bringing Kane into the WWF later in the year in an effort to achieve it. Apparently, Mankind was originally supposed to go for the fire on Taker and accidentally catch Bearer by mistake. That looks to be the case, as Bearer gets thrown into Mankind a couple of times but Mankind doesn’t appear to be ready with the fire and nothing happens. Thus Taker has to do it, but he sets the fire off too close to Bearer’s face and it causes Bearer’s face to visibly sizzle in a gruesome visual. Having Mankind accidentally burn his manager works more with keeping Undertaker a traditional babyface, but having Undertaker do it himself does suit the Kane storyline better in some ways, so it was a bit of a happy accident.

Michael Hayes interviews Bret Hart ahead of the next match, and you can hear Paul Bearer yelping in the background in a nice touch. Bret says he’ll never forgive the American fans and that he’ll make an example of Stone Cold up next. This was a great Heel promo from Bret. He doesn’t get enough credit for his promos sometimes I think. He wasn’t an extravagant orator, but when he had an issue that he cared about and could really get his teeth into he often delivered, especially during this run.

Main Event
Grudge Match
Bret “Hitman” Hart Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin

This is a big rematch from WrestleMania 13, where Bret defeated Austin by referee stoppage and then kept attacking him after the bell, leading to Bret going Heel and Austin going Face in one of wrestling’s greatest ever double turns. Bret has since added British Bulldog, Owen Hart to his side, with Brian Pillman and Jim Neidhart soon to bolster the ranks as well, stacking the deck against Austin, who is looking to avenge that Mania defeat here at In Your House 14. Speaking of Owen and Bulldog, they try to be at ringside for this one but Gorilla Monsoon has them sent to the back in order to keep the bout one on one. In a nice touch, Austin’s in-ring style hasn’t changed much from Heel to Face, as he is still the same violent jerk as always, he’s just doing it to Heels now instead of Faces. That’s often an aspect of a successful turn that people miss, with some wrestlers totally changing their ring style when they go from one alignment to the other, which in turn takes away something that helped get them over to begin with.

It’s not long before both wrestlers are fighting in the crowd, with Austin getting the better of things and even mocking Bret’s “arms out to the side” taunt at one stage in a funny moment. The crowd oddly feels a bit subdued here, but the wrestlers are telling a decent story in the early going, with Austin being full of peas and vinegar, and this leading to Bret trying numerous times to run away. Eventually a chair ends up in the ring, but ref Earl Hebner and Austin collide before Stone Cold can use it, leading to Hebner being down whilst Bret destroys Austin’s leg with the chair for the cut off. Austin sells the leg well during the heat, with Bret working him over with the sort of precision you would expect. Austin mostly observes the Ricky Steamboat rule of constantly trying to fight back whilst the Heel works heat on him, rather than just lying around so that the Heel can lay a beating on him.

Austin eventually manages to catch Bret right in the Julie’s with a low blow, which Earl Hebner kind of has to pretend he misses, although it looks like he saw it and just allowed it to happen. Stone Cold stupidly tries heading up to the second rope of his signature elbow drop though and Bret moves out of the way, leading to Austin landing on his knees and hurting himself further. This one has felt quite scrappy, seemingly partly by design in how the two wrestlers want it to feel, and partly because they seem to be struggling to settle into a rhythm that works for them. Bret keeps targeting the leg of Austin, but Austin keeps trying to fight back and he eventually manages to have some success when the fight heads to the floor once again, even getting a clothesline off the apron onto Bret on the floor. It certainly has the feeling of two rugged people going in there and having a fight, but it’s lacking the magic of the Mania 13 bout between the two.

Austin ends up rewinding the clock at one stage and busts out the Stun Gun (the move, not the item) but he can’t follow it up with a Stunner and Bret manages to strike back with a Superplex. Bret looks to finish things with The Sharpshooter following that, but his Heel tactics end up biting him in the backside. Bret had removed Austin’s heavy knee brace during the heat segment to inflict further pain on Austin’s leg, and Austin finds the brace next to his body when Bret tries for the finishing hold. Austin thus clocks Bret with the brace that Bret himself removed and locks in a Sharpshooter of his own, seemingly to secure a win. However, Owen and Bulldog run down to attack Austin and that sadly causes the bout to end in a DQ.

21 Minutes

WINNER BY DQ: STONE COLD
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Ending a pay per view Main Event like that in a feud where the two guys had already done two conclusive finishes already in their feud was certainly a choice, but I also get why they wouldn’t want Bret getting pinned or made to submit so soon after his big Heel turn. Austin winning by DQ when he had the match won did an appropriate job of confirming that he was in Bret’s league without having Bret do a proper job to achieve it. It’s just a shame they closed a pay per view with a finish like that rather than doing it on a Raw instead, where non-finishes don’t quite sting as much. It seemed especially weird to end the show in such a limp way when they had a match in Mankind Vs Taker that did have a pin-fall finish and would have made a fine close to the show. As a match, this was the weakest of their three pay per view singles bouts, as it felt disjointed at points and never really got motoring like their other two bouts. It was still a good match just because both wrestlers are so talented, but it didn’t wow like their other bouts did and running this again so soon after Mania 13, with that kind of a finish, was only ever going to be an anti-climax after what had come before it

Austin stands tall to close the show as the Heels are led away.

In Conclusion

In Your House 14 isn’t a great show but I wouldn’t say it was terrible either. The last two matches were good and the undercard was dull, but not horrendous. I think having 60% of your finishes on a pay per view card ending in some kind of non-finish wasn’t the best idea though.

Like any other kind of special finish, a DQ or a Count Out can be good when done correctly and sparingly. However, by the time the Main Event came around the non-finishes had reached overkill in this writer’s mind. Undertaker’s match was the only one where someone hit their move and got a pin too, as Jesse Jammes had to win by last gasp roll-up.

Sadly lame non-finishes would become one of the calling cards of the Attitude Era, with sometimes entire episodes of Raw having no pin or submission finishes. Despite the paucity of satisfying match endings though, In Your House 14 was mostly fine for a sub 2 hour pay per view.

Mankind Vs Undertaker is really the main match worth seeking out here if you’ve never seen it, but if you do sit down to view the entire card it’s not terrible. Am I damning with faint praise? Yeah, probably.