PPV REVIEW: WWF / WWE In Your House 5: Seasons Beatings

December 17, 1995
Hersheypark Arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania

It was December 1995, the end of one of the worst years -both financially and creatively- of the World Wrestling Federation's rocky history. The ill-fated Diesel experiment had been laid to rest, in and its place we got another main event run from new champion Bret 'The Hitman' Hart, a man who had spent much of the year treading water in the mid-card before finally reclaiming his throne as the kingpin of the company. 

Meanwhile, Bret's brother-in-law, The British Bulldog had earned himself a second WWF Championship match after defeating then-champion Diesel by disqualification at In Your House 4: Great White North. Tonight, the two would collide in singles competition for the first time since their legendary Summerslam 92 battle over the Intercontinental Championship.

Yet before we get down to all that, a personal note from your reviewer:

Since I first started this blog in 2012, I've normally had a set system for reviewing these shows: Watch them in their entirity just once, then go back and watch them again, this time writing the review as I go along. Today, we're going to do things differently, just to see how it works.

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Today, I'm just going to watch In Your House 5: Seasons Beatings and record my thoughts as we go. No repeats, no rehashes, no spending forever thinking of an appropriate turn of phrase.

If it works, great. If not, we'll return to the old method next month.

Until then, let's get on with the show, shall we?

The Hart Family Divided (again)
We begin tonight's show with a Todd Pettengill voice over, hyping tonight's main event by once again playing on the 'uh oh, there's tensions in the Hart Family' for the thousandth time in the last few years.

Welcome to the show 
Cutting to the arena, our commentators are Vince 'Welcome EVERY-WAN' McMahon and Jerry 'The King' Lawler, who, among other things, showed us Santa Claus making his way through the crowds with as unlikely a pair of helpers as you could likely imagine - The Smoking Gunns. 

With that out of the way, it was onto our opening match of the show.

Sid & The Kid (w/ Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase) vs. Marty Jannetty and WWF Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon

For reasons I can no longer fathom, back when I was an eleven year-old fan in 1995, there was something that really appealed to me about the random pairing of Sycho Sid and the 123 Kid. Today, I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, but it's still nice to reminisce and see them opening up tonight's show against rivals Marty Jannetty and Razor Ramon.

Before we got to the action, Vince McMahon reminded us how most of this all kicked off the previous month at the 1995 Survivor Series, when Sid cost Marty the win over the Kid in the opening match, before 123 Kid ultimately ended up distracting Razor in that night's chaotic, 30 minute Wildcard match.

Heading back to the arena, Goldust was spotted in the crowd, ostensibly eying up Razor Ramon, though more than likely eyeing up the Intercontinental Championship he would eventually take from him by the turn of the year.

The match started off in fun fashion, Marty and the Kid trading some fast-paced action, with the latter constantly preventing the former from tagging in Razor. When the big guy finally did get his hands on his former protege, it was short lived; a blind-tag to big Sid but the kaibosh on Razor's offence and led to a beat down.

Jannetty and 123 Kid did return to the fray, though few people were actually paying much attention. Rather, they were distracted by Pettengill's efforts to get an in-crowd interview with Goldust. Fanning himself down with a copy of the recent WWF Magazine (featuring himself on the cover, no less), Goldie swooned and purred over what an attractive man Razor was, before handing the Toddster an envelope, with instructions to deliver it to the reigning IC champion.

Back to the action, Jannetty spent some time playing the proverbial babyface-in-peril before making an awesome hot tag to Razor. An entertaining, picture-perfect finishing sequence between Ramon and big Sid then led us to top-rope bulldog from the bad guy, and a win for the good guys.
Your Winners: Razor Ramon and Marty Jannetty

Afterwards, Razor attempted a Razor's Edge on 123 Kid, only for Sid to come to the save.

Jerry Laler has a big surprise.

Heading to the ring, Jerry Lawler first told the Hershey Crowd that Santa didn't like them very much, before finally unvieling the big surprise he'd been teasing since the start of the show.

That surprise? The return of J-E-DOUBLE-F, J-A-DOUBLE-R-E-DOUBLE-T, Jeff Jarrett.

Jarrett, who hadn't been seen on WWF TV since In Your House 2 that July (both he and Roadie left the company the following day), accepted a gold record from Lawler for sales of his Ain't I Great album, before announcing that he would be the first entrant in the 1996 Royal Rumble.

Dean Douglas vs. Ahmed Johnson
As Jarrett joined Lawler and McMahon at the commentary table for the next match (Jeff immediatly burrying Dean Douglas by asking 'who is this guy?') the Dean made his way to the ring and claimed that 'the doctors have done what no wrestler could do; they sidelined me.' 

Despite insisting that he could still defeat Johnson despite having a bad back, Dean then claimed that he'd been forced to find a replacement, his 'graduate student,' Buddy Landell.
No match

Ahmed Johnson vs. Buddy Landell
In a nothing squash-match, Johnson bullied Landell up to the top rope, spine-bustered him off it, then hit the Pearl River Plunge and picked up the win.
Your Winner: Ahmed Johnson

Afterwards, Lawler took to the microphone to interview (read: torment) Ahmed Johnson. Claiming that nobody was impressed by Johnson's quick win, The King spent the rest of the time putting over Double J, leading to the Pearl River Powerhouse grabbing the mic.

"Let me tell you something you Achy, Breaky Heart Wannabe, you're a FAKE" screamed Ahmed as he lunged into Jarrett. Never the smartest guy in the world, Johnson then turned his attentions to lawler, only to get attacked by a guitar-wielding Jarrett. Ending the scene, the country star cemented his comeback by drilling Johnson with several chair shots, only for the big man to make a Superman comeback and start a brawl on the way to the back.

Todd delivers Goldust's message
Backstage, Todd Pettengill gave Razor Ramon the envelope from Goldust. Whatever was in the letter, it apparently pissed off The Bad Guy enough that he stormed out of the Superstar line area.

Hog Pen Match: 
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Henry O. Godwin 
Special referee: Hillbilly Jim
We talk a lot about how Triple H was left to absorb the punishment in the wake of the infamous Curtain Call incident, but need I remind anybody that this match -where the only way to win was to dump your opponent into a filthy pig sty- took place months before Shawn, Hunter, Hall and Nash broke kayfabe.

Whatever he did to deserve this, I have absolutely no idea.This was a slow, boring, monotonous match, where the only moment of any note came in the form of a rare flying elbow from Helmsley. The Greenwhich Snob dove off the top of the pig pen onto Godwin before both men returned to occasionally hitting one another in between long bouts of lying around taking a nap.

Eventually, Hunter backdropped Godwin into the pen to pick up the win, but still ended up taking a dump in the slop after Henry picked him up for a gorilla press slam.
Your Winner: Hunter Hearst Helmsley

As Henry and special guest referee Hillbilly Jim celebrated, Hunter, his back all cut up, took several random bumps around the pen to the delight of the crowd, and was then struck across the head by a flying milkshake. Say what you want about the current COO, he earned his spot at the top with stuff like this.

Diesel's got a bad attitude
Up next, we were given a video package showing the recent change in attitude of Big Daddy Cool. Rather than smiling and playing up the crowds, the new Diesel was a snarling bad ass, out for revenge against Owen Hart after the King of Harts took responsibility for putting Shawn Michaels out of action.

Owen Hart (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Diesel

This brought us nicely to our next match, a decent -if not particularly memorable- outing, which was dominated for the most part by Diesel, despite a brief few moments where Hart got in some offence on BDC's long legs.

Regaining control, Diesel drilled Owen with a powerbomb, made a cover, and then pulled Owen up for another powerbomb. Before he could hit it though, the former champion pushed over referee Tim White, giving the win to Owen via disqualification.

The best thing you can say about this match is that it happened. It was neither good, nor bad, and mostly only done to further storylines.
Your Winner: Diesel

As Savio Vega took his turn to play 'Santa's Little Helper,' Ted Dibiase made his way to the ring and began lambasting fans for liking Christmas.

Santa turns heel
Reminding us all that 'everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man,' Ted Dibiase cut a promo on Santa.

'He's fat, and he's ancient. You're gonna tell me can circle the globe in one night? I don't think he can get from the sofa to the fridge without blowing a fuse!"'

Said Dibiase, teaching this writer a lesson. Who knew that human beings had fuses (or maybe he meant the one in the fridge.)

As Vega yelled at Dibiase and claimed he believed in the magic of Christmas, fans in the Hersheypark centre were witness to a heel turn the likes of which we wouldn't see again until Hulk Hogan revealed himself to be the 'third man,'

Yes folks, Santa Claus himself revealed even he had a price, by turning and attacking Savio Vega.

'I don't believe that's the real Santa!'  yelled McMahon, taking the whole thing rather seriously as Vega chased Santa up the isle, beat up on Santa and revealed him to be Balls Mahoney.

Casket match: 
Mabel (w/ Sir Mo) vs. The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer)

In all the time I've been writing these reviews, I've never yet seen a truly enjoyable casket match, so for one of the most entertaining I've seen to pit the Undertaker against the largely awful Mabel is something pretty interesting.

Kept reasonably short, at just six minutes plus, this wasn't exactly a classic, technical wrestling match, but it was a fun, crowd-pleasing outing with enough going on to make it enjoyable.

After a short back-and-forth battle, The Dead Man slammed both Mabel and Mo into the casket, reclaimed the gold chain that had once been his urn, and slammed the lid shut.
Your Winner: The Undertaker 

Post-match, The Undertaker returned that magic metal urn-chain to its rightful owner Paul Bearer, before repeatedly pointing to his waist, indicating that he wanted to get his hands on the WWF Championship.

Half way through our main event (more of which we'll get to in a moment), it was announced that The Undertaker would take on the winner of Hart/Bulldog at the Royal Rumble.

Promos from champ and challenger
Before we got to that match, we had a few last minute words from both the Bulldog and the Hitman.

Up first, Jim Cornette ranted and raved about how jealous Bret had always been of his brother-in-law, after which Bret's sister and Davey's wife claimed she was 100% behind her husband tonight. For his part, Davey reminded us that he'd beaten Hart three years ago, and vowed to do so again tonight.

In response, Bret kept it nice and simple: He was proud to be champion again, and would win tonight's match.

World Wrestling Federation Championship match
WWF Champion Bret 'The Hitman' Hart vs. The British Bulldog (w/ Jim Cornette and Dianna Smith)

Undoubtedly one of both men's finest hours, this was an instant classic from the moment the bell rang.

A hard-hitting, dramatic and utterly captivating main event match, things started off slow with some back-and-forth mat action before the two combatants gradually picked up the pace, beating the living daylights out of each other inside and outside of the ring.

Around the half-way point, Bret was busted open, and despite the wide-camera angles refusing to give us a good look at a battered and bloody Hitman, the move only increased the intensity of what turned out to be one of -if not the- best WWF pay per view matches of 1995.

Following all that excitement, The Hitman rolled up The Bulldog with a cradle to retain his WWF title.
Your Winner and Still WWF Champion: Bret 'The Hitman' Hart

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To wrap things up for tonight's show, Todd Pettengill got a backstage interview with Paul Bearer and The Undertaker regarding the latter's Royal Rumble title shot against The Hitman. Before he could say much, The Phenom was interupted by an irate Big Daddy Cool, creating a showdown that would ultimately lead to Diesel's full-on heel turn, and his Wrestlemania 12 match against The Undertaker.

And so the final pay per of the year ended on a bit of a whimper. Though I've seen other reviewers give praise to the HHH/HOG Hog Pen match, I've got to say that my heart just wasn't in it, though I do have to give credit where it's due to Hunter for working his ass off. Before that, the opening match was also fairly enjoyable, and the Mabel/Taker casket match turned out to be better than it really had any right to be. Yet in all fairness, if you never saw any of those matches at all, you wouldn't be too worse off. 
For all intents and purposes, this was a one-match show. The Bulldog/Hitman WWF Championship match truly was one of the best bouts I've seen since I started this blog, and undoubtedly one of the top three WWF matches of 1995.