WWF In Your House Review

Hakushi and Bret Hart stole the show

Listen to Volume II of our May 1995 podcast, reviewing In Your House in full.

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​May 1995 saw the WWF embark on a new era, and era that really didn’t end until the start of the WWE Network, that being monthly pay per views. They were dipping their toe in the water with this one, these new PPVs were shorter, cheaper and (in this case) missing a fair amount of star power. Owen Hart, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Bam Bam Bigelow all didn’t feature on the show.

What did feature on the show was a WWF Title match between Diesel and Sid Vicious. Sid had turned on Shawn Michaels following Wrestlemania, setting up the match between the two giants. Elsewhere, Bret Hart was doing double duty. Following Jerry Lawler’s months of accusations that Bret was a racist, Bret would not only face Lawler, but also “Hakushi” the representative of the Japanese people that Bret supposedly hated so much.

Bret Hart vs Hakushi (w/ Shinja)

This really was good, the first match in 1995 that the WWF could genuinely say held a candle to the match of the year awards. Bret and Hakushi worked through the gears, with some solid technical action morphing into some excellent high flying work, including a springboard asai moonsault by Hakushi to Bret on the outside. With Shinja turning the match regularly into a 2 on 1 contest, Bret takes the fall with a victory roll countering a Hakushi German suplex. Really excellent stuff. After the match, Bret injures his knee getting out of the ring.


Razor Ramon vs Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie

This match was initially scheduled to be a tag match, but the 123 Kid’s neck injury put pay to that – although the Kid did do a phone interview in the early stages of the match. This was a classic handicap match, with Razor dominating the opponent he had but constantly being checked by the opponent he didn’t. Roadie held up his own in his WWF debut, before Razor hits the Razor’s edge for the win. During a post match beat down, Razor is saved by Savio Vega, AKA Kwang.


Mabel vs Adam Bomb (King Of The Ring Qualifier)

Brief, thankfully brief. This match wasn’t horrid (it could have been fair worse), but Mabel is so limited and Adam Bomb so one dimensional it needed to be fast. Mabel does a falling back kick, before catching Adam Bomb in a crossbody, hitting a World’s Strongest Slam and picking up the victory.


The Smoking Gunns vs Yokozuna and Owen Hart for the WWF Tag Team Titles

A match that can feel short changed having barely gone five minutes. Lots of fast tags, particularly to limit Yokozuna’s in ring time. Yokozuna eats some ring post after Billy ducks, and the Gunns to a lovely back suplex/neckbreaker combination to Owen Hart; but just like at Wrestlemania Yokozuna does the damage with the leg drop on the outside, and Owen gets the cover. Good match, would’ve been much better if they’d have got the time that Adam Bomb and Mabel got on top of the time they got.


Jerry Lawler vs Bret Hart

Ever since Lawler had found out that Hart was injured he had been pushing nee, begging, for his match with Bret Hart to be bought forward. He got his wish and started the segment in ring with his “mother” (a woman at least 15 years his junior). That bizarre segment aside, Lawler looks giddy until he finds out Bret’s knee injury was a fake. Bret “limps” to the ring with a shit eating grin on his face and the colour quickly drains from Lawler’s face.

The match itself was perhaps understandably, quite brief. Bret dominates for the most part, before the referee gets caught inbetween the ropes and dangles to the outside. Off the distraction, Hakushi and Shinja come out and Hakushi drops two diving headbutts. The referee comes back around, and Lawler picks up the victory.


House Giveaway

We get the ever-enthusiastic pairing of Stephanie Wiand and Todd Pettengil giving away the house. They claim, perhaps fancifully, that they’ve had 340,000 entries for the contest. After a wrong number, Pettengil gets through to the 11-year-old who won the house. Fun gimmick, but probably not worth it.


Diesel vs Psycho Sid for the WWF Championship

This match had the potential not to be awful, but unfortunately it was. The two meshed about as badly as you might expect, with long rest holds breaking up the poor action. Both managed to land very impressive powerbombs (although Diesel injured his elbow taking the bump on his). To top it off, the match ends in a disqualification. Poor, poor showing.


Overall, if you paid $15 for this card, with this main event, you probably got your monies worth. Bret vs Hakushi was excellent, the handicap match was pretty good too. The rest was what it was but delivered no more or less than it promised on paper.

Go Back and Watch: Bret vs Hakushi
Score Rating: 6/10