WWE In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies (1996)

Very well executed

That was an excellent one.

one of my absolute favorites!

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

1st Match: Owen Hart and The British Bulldog vs Jake Roberts and Ahmed Johnson. A slow match to start the show off, that'll be the running theme for this show. I don't mind slower matches, but the match just drags on for over 10 minutes until Bulldog gets the win. Boring, next. Rating: 1.5/52nd Match: Goldust vs The Ultimate Warrior, WWF International Championship. This is just stalling, there are some funny moments, but it's just 7 minutes of stalling until Goldust finally gets counted out. No rating for this, but I'll hold it against the show as a whole for being over 7 minutes of nothing. Rating: None3rd Match: Razor Ramon vs Vader. This would be Hall's last show before going to WCW, so losing to Vader made sense. He puts up a good fight though, the match has the best pace out of all the matches so far. Hopefully Hall does well in WCW when I see him again in a couple of shows. Rating: 3/54th Match: The Bodydonnas vs The Godwinns, WWF Tag Team Championships. A short match with nothing really interesting in it. The match only exists to really have another title match on the show, so it's just going through the motions. At least it's short, that's something. Rating: 2/55th Match: Shawn Michaels vs Diesel, No Holds Barred match for the WWF Championship. The match of the night, but mostly because everything before it was OK at best. Not as hard hitting as Bret and Nash's match at Survivor Series '95, but there are some good moments. Nash goes full heel here, putting Shawn through the announce table, and even taking off a prosthetic leg from a retired wrestler in the audience. That gets huge heat, almost too much if you ask me, but Shawn wins, so it's all good. I would've preferred a rematch between him and Bret, but this is an alright substitute. Nash would jump ship with Hall to WCW in a couple months also, so it was a good match for him to go out on. Rating: 4/5Final Rating: 4 out of 10. The show isn't good, the only above average match is Shawn's match, which in the grand scheme of things isn't as good as other matches from him you could watch. The show needed guys like Taker and Bret in it to keep from being stale. I will say this though, the show's less than 2 hours, I'd rather watch a bad show that's short instead of a terrible show that's almost 3 hours long.

(04.28.96)Live from Omaha, NebraskaAttendance: 9,563Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry LawlerThe British Bulldog (W/Owen Hart, Jim Cornette & Clarence Mason) Vs Jake "The Snake" Roberts Jake is ordered to take the snake to the back. He terrorizes Camp Cornette with the snake before taking it to the back. Jake brings out plan B, Ahmed Johnson. This is now a tag team match.The British Bulldog & Owen Hart Vs Jake "The Snake" Roberts & Ahmed JohnsonBulldog and Owen win after Bulldog makes Jake submit with a leg hold. It took Cornette's tennis racket to do it, though. This was a decent way to start the show. It did just enough to make you care throughout. The finish was a tad weird. It may have been better for Bulldog to nail Jake in the head with the racket, in lieu of the submission**1/2Intercontinental ChampionshipGoldust (C) (W/Marlena) Vs The Ultimate WarriorThis match takes FOREVER to get going. Goldust is too afraid to get in the ring with Warrior. Warrior ends up doing nothing but smoking Marlena's cigar for over 5 minutes or so. The match finally commences, but Goldust runs away and gets counted out. Seriously, that's it? I get you had to protect The Ultimate Warrior, but this was a complete waste of time. Goldust could have easily retained by DQ. This makes everyone involved look pathetic. DUDOstensibly, The British Bulldog's wife, Diana Smith is in Shawn Michaels locker room. Davey is livid and flipping out backstage.Thoughts: This would set up a feud between Shawn Michaels & The British Bulldog for a couple of months. Vader (W/Jim Cornette) Vs Razor RamonVader wins with a sit-down splash. This was a really competitive match, if nothing else. Even though Razor was on his way to WCW, he certainly wasn't buried here. He got in a significant amount of offense and made you believe he could pull off the win on a few occasions. **1/4Dok Hendrix informs Vader and Jim Cornette that Vader will face Yokozuna at the next In Your House. Tag Team ChampionshipThe Bodydonnas (C) (W/Sunny) Vs The Godwinns (W/Hillbilly Jim)The Godwinns have the match won after Henry nails Skip with the slop drop. Sunny distracts Phineas with a photo of herself, allowing Zip to pull the Bella Twins switch with Skip. Zip gets Henry Godwin in a small package for the win. I'm kind of glad this was short. I wasn't really looking forward to this match. Looking at Sunny is rather painless, to say the least. *1/4WWF Championship (No Holds Barred)Shawn Michaels (C) (W/Jose Lothario) Vs DieselShawn retains the title with the superkick. This is an excellent match that was quite brutal at times. You really believed that these two hated each other with how they beat the crap out of each other. Some of the spots in this match were rather shocking for the WWF at this time. The biggest shocker is Diesel using Maurice Vachon's synthetic leg as a weapon. My only complaint is that Michaels got up too quickly from a jackknife through a table, He didn't exactly sell it and got up too quickly.****This PPV is worth watching for the main event alone. Nothing else on the show is all that memorable, though. The Ultimate Warrior Vs Goldust is a humongous waste of time and really ruined the mood for me as far as the show was concerned for a while. WWF was about to rebuild in a major way. Razor and Diesel left the WWF shortly after this PPV for WCW. 6/10

1. 1-2-3 Kid Vs. Marc Mero - Johnny B. Badd left WCW for WWF - That was good bout but HHH caused DQ 7/10 2. The British Bulldog/Owen Hart Vs. Jake Roberts/Ahmed Johnson - I don't know, Roberts had his spot in pro-wrestling in early 90s, he doesn't work for me in 1996. Bulldoq pinned him. 6/10 3. Intercontinetal Championship: The Ultimate Warrior Vs. Champ-Goldust(entranced first...) - No match, only insult. hate "I'm stuck in 80s" Warrior. 1/10 4. Vader Vs. Razor Ramon - Yes, clean victory for Vader in decent match. 7/10 5. WWF tag Team Championship: The Godwinns Vs. Champs-The Bodydonnas - Candido did great work but match wasn't memorable 5.5/10 6. WWF World Heavyweight No Holds Barred match: Diesel Vs. Champ-Shawn Michaels - Shawn retained in last Diesel's WWF match. 6.5/10

At certain times in WWF history promoters have put on shows crammed with dozens of matches, most of them meaningless and pointless. On the other side of the coin, promoters have also put on shows with only a few good matches which is better for everyone. In Your House 7 was one of those events.There are only a few matches on here but they are all good(with the exception of one).In an Intercontinental Title match, champion Goldust defended his title against superstar the Ultimate Warrior. Actually, he didn't defend it. He spent most of the match prancing around acting like a fool and there was no proper match, just a load of funny business. At the end the Ultimate Warrior got a few shots in but it cannot be described as a true match.The card had three matches which were absolutely brilliant. Razor Ramon wrestled in his last high profile match before going to the now defunct WCW against the big monster Vader. It was a brilliant match.The late Owen Hart and the late British Bulldog wrestled in a cracking match against the veteran Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Ahmed Johnson in a heated match where you could actually suspend your disbelief and imagine that they were all enemies.In the main event the currently retired Shawn Michaels defended his belt against Diesel who also wrestled in his last high profile match. It was a fantastic match.This was a great card from a fantastic era in WWF history and I just hope Vince McMahon can make the WWF of 2002 as good as past WWF eras.