WWF In Your House #19 - D-Generation X (December 1997)

So last month, you had Survivor Series '97. The big screwjob in Montreal that saw Shawn Michaels win the WWF Championship in controversial fashion and resulted in Bret Hart getting a less than regal exit from the promotion. We've covered that show here.

The following month, you've got the 1998 Royal Rumble, with the Rumble match itself being won by Stone Cold Steve Austin as the first step in his ascent to the top of the WWF mountain, while Shawn Michaels would retain the WWF title over the Undertaker thanks to Kane's interference. This match is also where Shawn would hurt his back, forcing him to retire for four years and miss out on the WWF's most profitable period at that time. We've also covered that show here.

In between both those shows, we have this In Your House: D-Generation X PPV to close out 1997. Because if the nWo had their own PPV, then surely DX deserved one too. They were the new hotness afterall.

Sadly, much like the nWo PPV, the DX IYH kinda sucks. Not only that, but it's not exactly a memorable show, either. nWo Souled Out felt different and unique; this was the usual bad WWF show that I would've expected from the bad ol' Diesel days... hey, maybe there's a correlation.

The opening match is the finals of a tournament to crown the first ever WWF Light Heavyweight Champion, which was their way of countering WCW's red hot Cruiserweight division, which had notable names such as Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Juventud Guerrera, and others. And how were they going to counter this? By having Taka Michinoku beat Brian Christopher in a ho-hum match to become the first champion. Not an auspicious start for either the title or the show.

The Hispanic Gang beat the Biker Gang. Next.

Butterbean beat Marvelous Marc Mero in four rounds of what was promoted as a "Toughman Contest", which is a fancy way of calling it a boxing match without directly referring to it as such... via disqualification. See, after BB knocked down Mero, Mero found a stool and hit Butterbean with it for the DQ. This was... a thing that happened. And Butterbean wouldn't show up again until Wrestlemania XV where he legally murdered Bart Gunn. And yes, I ripped that last line from Scott Keith because it's entirely accurate.

WWF Tag-Team Champions The Legion Of Doom defeated the then-newly-minted New Ages Outlaws via DQ when Road Warrior Hawk stole one of the Goddwinn's slop buckets (don't ask) and hit both Outlaws with it. Champs retain, though they'd lose the titles to the Outlaws soon enough. Bless the Road Warriors, but they were old and over the hill by this point and it showed.

Speaking of which, HHH (w/ Chyna) defeated a very old, very over the hill Sgt. Slaughter (who came out to the Patroit's old music that would eventually be used by Kurt Angle) in a near eighteen minute long Boot Camp match that went seventeen minutes too fucking long. This is anything goes and so this ended up being slow, plodding, dull, boring, sleep-inducing, and so unabashedly mind-numbing that I thought I had jumped six years forward in time and sitting through a McSon-In-Law match from that time. Slaughter had seen better days by this point and why anyone felt this needed damn near TWENTY MOTHERFUCKING MINUTES is a mystery best left to the great minds of sports entertainment.

Jeff Jarrett defeated Undertaker via DQ when, almost three minutes into the match Kane came down to chokeslam Jarrett in an effort to goad Undertaker into a fight. That didn't quite work, Kane. By the way, Jarrett left WCW so he could be chokeslamed by a tall dude who is NOT the Undertaker. Things would pick up eventually, though.

Intercontinental Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated "The Rock" Rocky Maivia to retain the title despite the Nation running interference. The feud began here in this really short match that saw Austin drive a truck to the ring, smash the windshield by tossing poor D'Lo onto it, and accidentally kicking a ref. The next night on RAW, Austin would forfeit the IC title and then throw the belt into a river a week later. Fun times, as brief as they may be... especially on this fucking show.

Ken Shamrock defeated WWF Champion Shawn Michaels via DQ when HHH and Chyna ran interference; Shawn retains the title. And then out comes Owen Hart for the first time since Survivor Series to beat up Shawn and toss him through a table... and this went nowhere fast because Shawn didn't want to work with Owen. The match blew chunks and so did this show.

I think I'm gonna go watch that nWo PPV again. It might not have been good, but it was at least different. This was just a huge pile of shit with maybe six minutes of good stuff that you could probably find on a Best Of Compilation.

On second thought, I'm gonna go for a walk.