And also, Hunter Hearst Helmsley was not quite undefeated going into his glorious one-minute squash by the Ultimate Second Amendment Activist.  The WWF decided, brilliant people that they are, to end his undefeated streak by feeding him to Bret Hart a few weeks before WrestleMania and having him tap (only not TAP, 'cause they didn't do that in those days) to the Sharpshooter.  Certainly made his match much more compelling.  Or something.”

Thanks for the reminders Garth.  In regards to the Austin/Savio situation, it bugged me when I wrote up that review because I thought there was more than that lame tag match incident, but I couldn’t remember it.  That’s what you get when you drink too much homemade beer.  I’m glad I now know that there was at least a bit more going on with that.

As for the HHH undefeated thing, I certainly would have never remembered that RAW match, but what I SHOULD have remembered is that he got pinned by the Undertaker at Survivor Series ’95.  There was no excuse for missing that.  Either way you look at it, Hunter losing wasn’t as big of a deal as I originally made it out to be.  Amazing how I forgot HHH jobs.  They are so few and far between, you would have thought I would have them all memorized.

OK, enough talk about how lame Wrestlemania was, let’s move onto something more important…like talking about how lame this PPV was.

OOld Tyme Rasslin Revue for WWF In Your House:
Good Friends, Better Enemies

Emanating from the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, NE

Your commentators are Vince McMahon and Jerry “the King” Lawler

- Show begins with the British Bulldog coming down to ringside seemingly for his one-on-one match with Jake “the Snake” Roberts.  But something seems afoul as he is being followed by not only Jim Cornette, but Owen Hart and Clarence Mason also.  We cut to the back where Jake begins to cut a promo about “going downtown”, but Vince cuts him off before he says anything that we’ll all regret.  Jake now comes down to the ring with snake in tow.  The referee informs Jake that Clarence Mason has a court order preventing the snake from being at ringside.  Jake rips the paper up and brings out the snake, causing Cornette to faint.  The snake is taken to the back and in his place, Jake brings out Ahmed Johnson.  Everyone thinks it would be swell to have tag match, so now we really begin with…

Jake “the Snake” Roberts and Ahmed Johnson vs. The British Bulldog and Owen Hart

Jake takes it to Owen right away, so he quickly tags the Bulldog.  Jake, in return, tags Ahmed.  The heels argue over who will actually get in there with Ahmed and Owen loses that battle.  Ahmed manhandles Owen as the Bulldog tries to cheer on Owen.  Jake is tagged back in and tries for a quick DDT, but Owen bails.  A thumb to the eye by Owen finally allows the heels to go on offense.  The Bulldog comes in but misses an elbow on Jake.  Jake tags Ahmed and once again the Bulldog tags out not wanting anything to do with Ahmed (for note, the Bulldog had recently lost an arm wrestling contest to Ahmed on RAW).  Ahmed sloppily executes a few more moves on Owen until the Bulldog blindsides him and then just remains in the ring.  The Bulldog slams Ahmed, but he quickly gets up and begins to no-sell his and Owen’s moves.  Ahmed press slams Owen and then tags Jake.  Owen knees a charging Jake and then connects with a dropkick.  The heels begin to make frequent tags and work over Jake.  This makes Jake your mismatched tag partner-in-distress.  Owen locks on a sleeper, but Jake jawjacks him to escape.  Both men tag out and Ahmed easily takes down the Bulldog with a spinebuster.  All four men come in until the faces clean house.  As Owen drags Ahmed to the outside, the Bulldog grabs Cornette’s tennis racquet and repeatedly hits Jake in the knee with it.  He then puts Jake in a half crab causing Jake to quickly submit.

Bottom Line: A pathetic end to a total yawnfest of a match.  I also wasn’t buying the scaredy cat routine the heels were doing when it came to wrestling Ahmed.  They just faced him last month and had no problem with him.  Jake once again gets Pay-Per-View time and once again proves this comeback is making him nothing more than a glorified jobber.  ¾ *

WWF Intercontinental Championship Match: Goldust (champ) vs. the Ultimate Warrior

Goldust comes down with Marlena and a burly bearded man.  No match actually takes place as Goldust has a hurt knee and does a bunch of stall tactics until the Warrior gets impatient.  The Warrior puts out Marlena’s cigar on Goldust’s hand, clotheslines him out of his director’s chair and scares him off.  As a bonus “attraction”, the Warrior does his 30 second squash set on the bearded guy.  By the way, all of this took over 10 freakin minutes!!!

BL: This was just a horrible, horrible waste of PPV time.  The Warrior once again fails to earn his paycheck.  I can’t believe they couldn’t find any sort of substitute match with Goldust being legitimately hurt.  Someone on the booking team had a major brain malfunction.  -***

- Dok Hendrix informs us that for the last few minutes the Bulldog has been very upset and wants to see Shawn Michaels.  I’m sure it’s probably because his Kliq membership card hasn’t come in the mail yet.

Razor Ramon vs. Vader

A lockup leads to Vader launching Razor over the top rope.  Vader delivers some stiff shots to Razor’s midsection.  Razor has yet to get any offense in this match.  Coming off the ropes, Razor finally lays in a couple of shots.  He then tries for the Razor’s Edge, but gets backdropped to the floor.  Coming right back in, Razor continues to punch away on Vader.  Razor connects with a series of clotheslines; the third of which sends Vader to the floor.  Vader tries a sneak attack, but Razor catches him.  An avalanche and clothesline by Vader knock down Razor.  Vader gets a nearfall after a big splash.  Out of nowhere, Razor catches Vader with a back suplex and gets a 2 count.  After slamming Razor down, Vader goes up and hits the Vader Bomb.  Vader covers, but Razor kicks out at 2.  Huh?  Vader remains in control until Razor blocks a Vader suplex and hits one of his own.  That gets 2.  Razor catches Vader coming off the top rope and slams him to the mat.  A bulldog by Razor gets 2.  Vader tries for another Vader Bomb but Razor nails him and then tries to give him the Razor’s Edge.  The weight of Vader is too much for Razor to complete the move, however.  Vader goes up for a moonsault only for Razor to come over and throw him off.  Razor signals for the Edge, but when he goes for it, Vader backdrops him.  Vader then just sits on him for the 3 count.  Bye, bye Razor!

BL: With Razor on his way out, this needed to be more of a squash than what it was.  There were some sloppy moments where it looked like they weren’t on the same page as to what was supposed to happen next.  Worst of all, they had Razor kick out of the Vader Bomb, which didn’t do any favor in getting that finisher over.  A sour note to end Razor’s stay in the WWF.  * ¼

- Dok informs Cornette and Vader that next month at In Your House, Vader will face Yokozuna, which doesn’t sit well with Cornette.  But I’m sure once Cornette cools down, he’ll devise a way for Vader to injure Yoko severely enough that he’ll have to be carted away via a forklift once again.

WWF Tag Team Championship Match: The BodyDonnas (champs) vs. The Godwinns

We’re shown how Sunny flashed Phineas a shot of her ass to win the titles last month at Wrestlemania and then gave Phineas a frontal flashing backstage during tonight’s Free For All.  So the storyline here is country goober falls in love with big city manipulative woman.  The BodyDonnas try to double team Henry early on unsuccessfully.  Phineas tries to slop Zip, but he scampers away.  Henry catches Skip coming off the ropes and slams him.  He follows that up by ramming Skip’s head into the turnbuckle.  The BodyDonnas try a phantom switch, but the referee catches them and forces them to tag.  What’s this?  A referee who’s alert and can do his job? He has no business being in the world of pro wrestling.  We only want the blind and incompetent.  Phineas boots a charging Zip in the corner.  As Phineas runs toward the ropes, Skip pulls down the top one causing Phineas to fall to the floor.  After attacking him on the floor, Skip throws Phineas back into the ring and Zip covers him for 2.  The BodyDonnas begin to doubleteam Phineas making him your inbred redneck-in-distress.  A hurricanrana by Skip gives him a nearfall.  As Phineas begins to fight back against both BodyDonnas, we see Sunny has gotten a framed autographed photo of herself.  Henry gets the hot tag and continues the pummeling of the BodyDonnas.  Sunny goes over and hands Phineas the photo, but then Hillbilly Jim chases her away with the slop bucket.  Inside, Henry hits the Slop Drop and covers but now the referee is tending to the matters on the outside.  Henry goes over to get the referee allowing the BodyDonnas to make a phantom switch.  When Henry goes back over, Zip small packages him and gets the 3 count.  I hate that finish.

Postmatch: Henry yells at Phineas to stop being so smitten with that crack whore.  I’m paraphrasing, of course.

BL: A pretty pedestrian match until the lame finish.  Nothing stuck out as bad, but then again nothing good stood out either.  One of those matches that you forget about 5 minutes after it’s over with.  Sadly, that finish meant we weren’t done seeing these two teams go at it.  * ½

- Dok interviews WILDman Marc Mero about the attack he received from HHH during the Free For All earlier tonight.  In watching a replay of HHH giving Mero the Pedigree, Dok points out “That couldn’t have felt good.”  What insightful commentary!  Interview ends with Mero making some generic threats at HHH that were anything but WILD.

- A review of Shawn Michaels and Diesel’s storied past shows how close they’ve been and now how the desire to both be champion has put them on opposite sides of the ring.  We end with each man cutting a promo and in his, Diesel promises a surprise for Vince.  A little good-bye present perhaps?  Aww, that’s so sweet of him.

No Holds Barred match for the WWF Championship: Shawn Michaels (champ) vs. Diesel

Diesel comes out and from the ring throws his vest onto Vince, which causes Lawler to cackle in delight.  Shawn comes out stone-faced and doesn’t bother doing any of his usual dancing.  Instead, he comes right in and begins to pound away on Diesel.  Diesel stops him in his tracks with a high knee.  Shawn comes right back with a dropkick that sends Diesel to the outside.  A baseball slide by Shawn, who then goes up top and hits Diesel on the floor with a flying crossbody.  As Diesel recovers, Shawn grabs a boot off one of the Spanish announcers and uses it as a weapon.  That gets 2.  Diesel whips Shawn to the corner where he flips and flops to the apron.  Diesel then shoves Shawn off the apron into the guardrail.  In the ring, Diesel pounds away on Shawn and also frequently makes menacing looks in Vince’s direction.  With Shawn down and out, Diesel undoes his wrist tape and uses it to strangle the referee!  Diesel then takes Earl Hebner’s belt and whips Shawn with it.  Using the belt as a noose, Diesel chokes out Shawn and then ties the long end of the belt to the ropes and leaves Shawn hanging.  Now Diesel has a chair and repeatedly hits Shawn with it in the back.  Shawn avoids one chair shot, causing Diesel to hit the ropes and have the chair fly back in his face.  Before Shawn can use the chair, Diesel lowblows him.  A back bodydrop by Diesel gets 2.  Shawn tries to mount a comeback, but Diesel keeps knocking him down.  As the fight spills to the floor, Diesel grabs Shawn and sets him up for the Jackknife.  Instead of powerbombing him on the floor, however, Diesel turns and puts him through the main announce table.  Crowd is stunned over that bump.  As Lawler and Vince try to get the TVs off Shawn, Diesel walks around in the ring with the title.  Shawn somehow crawls back to the ring and sprays Diesel in the face with a fire extinguisher that was under the ring.  Inside, Shawn hits Diesel with the running forearm and kips up.  After blasting Diesel with 2 chairshots, Shawn whips him to the ropes, but gets nailed when he puts his head down.  Diesel nails Shawn with a big boot, but when he goes for the Jackknife, Shawn punches his way out.  Shawn hits the big elbow and tunes up the band.  Diesel blocks the superkick and drops Shawn with a clothesline.  Another clothesline sends Shawn to the floor.  Diesel picks up Shawn and drops him across the guardrail.  Instead of going back inside, Diesel walks over to Mad Dog Vachon, who’s sitting in the front row, and steals his prosthetic leg.  Vince is AGHAST over this action.  Before Diesel can use it as a weapon, Shawn lowblows him.  Shawn grabs the leg, winds up, and nails Diesel with it.  As Diesel gets back up, Shawn connects with Sweet Chin Music, covers him and gets the victory.  Shawn then immediately gets up and flips off Diesel  and tells him to get the hell out.

BL: What an absolutely wild brawl.  Shawn was clearly very fired up throughout this match and it added that much more to the match.  These two pulled out some spots and bumps that hadn’t been seen as of yet in the WWF.  This could easily be used as a benchmark for future WWE main events.  Last month, Shawn delivered the goods in a mat wrestling match and here he did the same in this brawl.  Unlike Razor, Diesel was able to leave with a lasting impression.  ****

Final Thought: I don’t know if it was a Wrestlemania hangover or what, but there was not a lot of good here, save for the main event.  For the second month in a row, the WWF scores big with their main event.  I generally won’t recommend a show based on one match, but the main is really good.  Plus, this show being Diesel and Razor’s last before they headed down South, made it somewhat historic.  I’ll say check it out, but be prepared to just fast-forward straight to the main event.

Next time, Stone Cold Steve Austin gets his highest profile match yet in the WWF and…Hey!  Who turned out the lights?

Until then, thanks for stopping by the OOld Tyme Rasslin Revue.