Ottimi due PPV......

Fantastici main event: Bret Hart vs. Vader vs. Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker
e fantastico anche il math tra World Heavyweight Title Match
The Undertaker vs. Vader

*WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS*

In Your House 13: The Final Four

Just a little bit of background information on the show:

Just a few days before the PPV, Shawn Michaels gave up the title due to a knee injury, so the main event would now be for the title.

The four men in the WWF Title match were the final four men in the Royal Rumble match (if you exclude the fake Diesel).


Marc Mero Vs Leif Cassidy

For anyone wondering, Leif Cassidy is actually Al Snow.

Snow shows his technical wrestling ability in this match, as he goes after Mero's legs. Nothing really special in this match, which ended with Mero hitting the shooting star press.

Rating: **


Faarooq/Crush/Savio Vega Vs Bart Gunn/Flash Funk/Goldust

A match that Hulk Hogan himself would be proud of; it was ended with a legdrop...

Other than that, it was a good 6 man tag match and the crowd was really into it. Some good stuff from Flash Funk, such as a flip thing he did to escape a double clothesline attempt. Goldust and Bart didn't really get in the ring much for this match, but I guess with the time they had, they didn't have much of a choice.

Rating: **1/2


Rocky Mavia Vs Hunter Hearst-Helmsley - WWF Intercontinental Title

A mini-feud a year and a half before their big feud, back when they were both young and relatively new.

This was a good, solid wrestling match. Both men good wrestle back in the day, and although Triple H can still do the technical matches, The Rock seemed to move away from any technical wrestling really (what is it with certain guys when they get to the top? Do they think "Well, I've made it now, so screw trying hard in the ring"?). One thing that did ever so slightly spoil the match was a botched DDT, where The Rock hit the ground, and Triple H landed the rest of his body on the mat way before his head went down.

The biggest surprise was probably Rocky actually winning! When he won the title with a rollup, I thnk everyone thought it was just a one-off thing, where HHH would simply win it back at the PPV. I guess we were wrong!

To top off a good match, we had the unfortunate privilage of seeing man-Chyna debut.

Rating: ***1/2


Doug Furnas & Phil Lafon Vs Owen Hart & The British Bulldog - WWF Tag Team Titles

The word "Who?" comes to mind when looking at Owen & Bulldog's opponents. I still don't know who they are, and I really don't care. It reminds me of the old Raw matches where a well known tag team would go up against a random jobber team. While WWF got to showcase their tag teams, from a fan's point of veiw, the outcome was more than obvious.

Still, just because they were wrestling nobodies, doesn't mean it was a bad match. Owen & Bulldog were a great team, and both men were great wrestlers. They could have a great match with pretty much anyone, and they proved it here.

The only thing in this match that would make people believe that Bulldog and Owen could lose the titles, was the great performance from both men who were playing on their "dissension" from the Rumble match where Owen eliminated Bulldog. Hell, even the 2 nobodies were putting on a great show, hitting some effective looking moves that would have been credible enough to give them the win.

Then, to everyone's surprise, Doug Furnas & Phil Lafon won! Luckily, it was by DQ, so no belts changed hands.

Rating: ***3/4


Bret Hart Vs Vader Vs The Undertaker Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin - WWF Title

3 of the biggest stars in the company along with 1 up and coming star battle in one of the biggest matches of the year. Slightly strange rules for this match; you can be eliminated by pinfall, submission or being thrown over the top rope.

IMO, WWF dropped the ball BIG TIME. I feel that this should have been the main event at WrestleMania 13. They could have kept the belt vacent until then, and built up to the 4 way match by having the Hart/Austin submission match at this PPV, along with a RR re-match between Taker/Vader. That way, we wouldn't have had to endure Sid in the main event (even though I like Sid), and we would have been able to see 3 great matches (Austin/Bret, Taker/Vader and the Four Way) instead of 2 good matches (The Four Way and Austin/Bret) and 1 pretty bad match (Taker/Sid). Oh well, I guess I can't complain THAT much, since we did get to see the this fantastic Four Way, and we did get to see the amazing Austin/Bret match.

Anyway, onto the match. Vader was bleeding pretty bad in this match, which added to the emotion and hatred in the match. We also saw a really bad attempt at the Sharpshooter by Vader on Bret. I don't know if it was supposed to happen the way it did, but it looked like Vader could barely turn around. All 4 men were impressive as hell, and it made the match live up to the hype that it must have had, due to the people involved.

One thing I really liked about this match, is that it was about 25 minutes before anyone was eliminated. This gave everyone a huge amount of time to showcase themselves. Austin is the first eliminated, which is no surprise really, considering he is the "smallest" superstar in the match (by smallest, I mean the others are more established and are bigger superstars).

Vader showed just how great of an athlete he is, especially for his size. He went for a moonsault (though he missed), and was suplexed from the top rope. If the winner of the match wasn't set to drop the title the very next night against Sid, I would have said Vader should be the man to win. Unfortunately, if he had own and then dropped the belt, his credibility would have shot right down. Being eliminated by The Undertaker didn't really hurt him IMO, as The Undertaker was a huge star, and would eventually go on to win the title.

Stone Cold's hatred of Hart would eventually cost The Undertaker the match, giving the win, and the title, to Bret Hart.

What a match. Probably the best Four Way ever (in WWF/WWE anyway).

Rating: ****3/4




Overall Show Rating: 7.5/10

Although the first 2 matches were nothing special, the PPV kept getting better from then on. With only 5 matches on the card, it gave the last 3 matches a lot of time, and they really benefitted from it. We got a great singles match between Rocky/Hunter, an evenn better tag match between Owen/Bulldog and Doug/Phil, and the show ended with the greatest Four Way match I have personally ever seen. A must see event IMO.




In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede

New Blackjacks Vs The Godwins (Free for All Match)

An interesting match, which was half brawl and half wrestling. When Bradshaw was in, we saw nothing more than a brawl. When Windham was in, we got to see some wrestling.

Didn't go for long, and had a pretty bad ending. It wasn't too bad of a match for what it was though.

Rating: *


Mankind Vs Hunter Hearst-Helmsley

Somewhat of a "hardcore" style match, with a suplex on the steel rampway, a steel chair being used, and that strange Man helping out HHH by throwing Mankind into the steel ring steps. What kind of name is "Chyna" for a man anyway?

Anyway... Mankind was trying to make the match more of a fight, while HHH was making it into a wrestling match. While they both had different styles, they really worked well together in 97 and any other time after that.

This match was really good, but the ending kinda ruined it. I guess it made sense, as they were wanting to continue the feud, but I didn't like it.

Rating: ***


The Great Sasuke Vs Taka Michinoku

A very solid high flying/technical wrestling match. Sasuke hit a picture perfect kick to Taka, which could have been used for the finish if he wanted, as it looked more than credible enough to pin someone with. Then he hit another big kick, this time from the top rope to Taka who was on the outside! If that wasn't enough, there was another kick to Taka that looked so devastating, which happened while Taka was in the corner.

Taka came back with a huge flying leap from the top rope to the outside, and boy did he get some distance! The crowd went crazy for that move.

You can really tell how certain things in wrestling have changed over the years, as the crowd actually thought Taka had won the match with a hurracanrana.

I'm gonna stop talking about this match now, as I would be doing nothing but writing down all the great looking moves that happened, and that would take ages. This match rocked!

Rating: ***1/2


The Undertaker Vs Vader - WWF Title

This match was supposed to be The Undertaker Vs Ahmed Johnson, but thankfully (for the fans, not for Ahmed) Ahmed injured his knee and was replaced by Vader.

These 2 had a match at the Royal Rumble at the start of the year, which was pretty good considering the time they had. Since this was a title match, hopefully they will be given more time and will put on a better match.

Probably 2 of the greatest big men wrestlers ever, they had a pretty good match. I liked it better than their Royal Rumble match too. We got to see some brawling, a little bit or wrestling, and some high flying! That's right, I said high flying! Even though I always want The Undertaker to win, I don't think I would have minded if Vader had won the title in this match. Vader is an amazing big man, and deserved to hold the WWF title at least once.

Lots of back and forth action, with neither men really having the advantage for too long. A slight botch when The Undertaker got Vader up for the Tombstone, which was reversed by Vader who fell over . I thought the match was over when we saw the Chokeslam from the top rope (everyone should really try to see it; because Vader is so heavy, the impact was amazing), but it took another Chokeslam and a Tombstone to finish Vader off. Although The Undertaker for the win, kicking out of so many big moves sort of put Vader over as well.

Not only was this match good to watch, but if I just closed my eyes and listened to it, I would have enjoyed it just the same. Commentary from The King and JR was funny as hell, and Paul Bearer was funny too.

Rating: ***1/2


Bret Hart/Owen Hart/Jim Neidhart/British Bulldog/Brian Pillman Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin/Ken Shamrock/Goldust/Legion of Doom

It was no surprise that Bret/Owen/Jim and even Pillman were so over in Canada, but I was surprised at the HUGE pop Bulldog got! Either they played Bret's music louder, or Bulldog actually got a bigger pop than Bret!

The crowd were just so into the match all the way through, and all the wrestlers involved played to the crowd so well. We had some solid wrestling, some good tag wrestling and brawling. I could go on and on about how good this match is, but I think people should just watch it for themselves.

Rating: ****




Overall Show Rating: 8/10

There may have only been 5 matches on this PPV, but 4 out of those 5 were all good matches, that just got better as the night went on. The main event would be reason enough to buy this DVD, but the WWF Title match, Japanese match and Mankind/HHH match are also great reasons to get it. Not only that, but the tagged classics version comes with IYH 13, which also includes a great main event and a decent undercard!



Overall, this is one of the best 2 disc IYH sets you can buy. Both events are great, and I would probably not see anything wrong with paying the same amount for just 1 of these events, but the fact we get BOTH is so awesome! Well worth your money!