In Your House

[LaGoosh]

I loved that match at the time. If they did it now it'd have a drone, a POV shot of the head going through the ceiling and an orchestral soundtrack playing throughout. 

[air_raid]

On 3/8/2026 at 6:45 PM, Supremo said:

Fully Loaded 1998, next. Thank fuck for Netflix. Kids these days will never know the struggle of taking something like this to the counter in Woolworths. 

Man, you could have at least used a photo of the Silver Vision version for authenticity! Fun fact, over here it was released as E for exempt from classification (as “sport”) despite featuring Jackie’s uncensored bare boobs.

On 3/8/2026 at 8:20 PM, The Gaffer said:

Fully Loaded 98 is one of the worst shows I can think of, and I love me a good rubbish Attitude Era PPV. 

The undercard is shocking but I don’t think there are too many better one-two punches for the era than Austin & Taker vs Kane & Mankind following on directly from Sable’s baps. In a nutshell, all the reasons we were watching Raw every week.

[Glenryck Pilchards]

It was a fine art to flick between Sky Sports, Channel 4 for Eurotrash, and L!ve TV for Topless Darts and their other grot as a randy hormonal teenager.

[tiger_rick]

On 2/15/2026 at 9:36 PM, Supremo said:

Doesn’t feel natural using the plural, “In Your Houses.” I want to call them, “In Your Hice.”

Anyway, watching the In Your Hice sequentially really hammers home that Canadian Stampede is the last hurrah for the Hart Foundation lads and it’s all downhill from there. The best night of many of their careers, but it quickly goes south soon after.

Wild how quickly DX completely undermine them as the top heel faction and they seemingly just tread water until Bret is screwed out of the company by Survivor Series. It was as if Vince himself sat at the desk at the end of Canadian Stampede and decided, “well, it’ll never top this, time to move on to something new and fuck these boys off.”

I don't think the show gets enough credit as easily the best WWF/WWE PPV of all-time. There are plenty of other great shows and some with a couple of incredible matches but there's not another show ever that has such incredible quality. The worst match is the opener which is very good and continues throughout the show as a brilliant angle that we'd not seen the like of before (in the WWF). 

It's the best crowd they've ever had. The main event is the crown jewel in one of the best feuds they've ever created. It's a magic occassion.

The only thing that's bitterweet about it is exactly what Supes says. There's another great few weeks leading to Bret winning the title again but that's the end. Shawn & Undertaker becomes the main event focus. What Steve Austin is up to this week becomes the first priority for the writers on every show - rightly - and the champ is an afterthought. DX come along doing their terrible schtick and it further deemphasises Bret & the Harts.

Bret is the King of the World in July. He's sleeping on a park bench by September.

[SuperBacon]

10 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Bret is the King of the World in July. He's sleeping on a park bench by September.

You're absolutely right, but Bret vs The Patriot was pretty decent and the gimmick was red hot, so I don't blame them for going there for a bit.

[BomberPat]

it's one of the sad ironies about 1997, and it all culminating in the Montreal Screwjob - everyone is so focused on who's going to be the real top guy out of Shawn and Bret that they barely notice that Steve Austin is about to eclipse both of them. All of that fighting and contractual wrangling, and six months later Bret and Shawn are both gone, and Stone Cold is a bigger star than either of them ever were.

I would hold 1997 up as maybe the best solid year of wrestling - across the WWF, WCW and ECW, and then awesome stuff going on in Michinoku Pro, AAA, NJPW, everything feeling right on the cusp of something transformative happening. In the WWF, especially, you're starting to get the edge and the slightly grittier aspects of the Attitude Era, but not devolving into full-on Jerry Springer stories and dick jokes and stuff you'd be embarrassed if your Mam walked in on you watching it yet. 

What I especially love about it in the WWF is that it's maybe the only time they go with what I've heard called a "Main Event Matrix" approach rather than following the Bruno/Hogan model of having one top babyface as their centrepiece. There's no clear "top guy" for most of the year, there's Shawn and Bret, but then there's Undertaker, Sid, Austin, Mankind, and Vader all floating around as credible headliners or people who could easily be heated up to that level, and then The Rock and Triple H on the way up, as well as people that conceivably could have broken through to a bigger push like Goldust, Ahmed Johnson, or Ken Shamrock.

 

Canadian Stampede is just a masterclass, though. Nothing quite like that main event - every time someone new on the Hart team tags in you think, "fucking hell, the crowd can't get any hotter than this, can they?", and yet they keep finding another level. 

[Supremo]

Fully Loaded 1998. Twenty eight days removed from the King of the Ring Hell in a Cell match where he nearly died twice. Throwaway Tag Match in the main event, primarily booked to tease animosity between The Undertaker and Stone Cold leading into their Summerslam match.

Sounds like a night off.

Surely Mick Foley will take it easy, right?

Right?

Wrong.

I’ve no idea how much Mick made during his time in WWE, but it won’t have been enough. Maybe he does deserve everyone buying him lunch, after all.

 

[Gus Mears]

Foley just didn't bounce like others do when they bump. I mean this as a compliment, but no one has ever been better at landing like a sack of shit.

[Supremo]

On the Canadian Stampede front, a visual I always felt like I’d dreamt until today’s episode of Benno and Hamflett specifically mentioned the episode of Raw where it happened (July 14th, 1997).

Literally two weeks after Canadian Stampede, a far more star-studded gang steps up to confront the Hart Foundation. Goldust and LOD who?

Never a truer example of how chaotic WWF in 1997 was. It’s like that bit in, “Shaun of the Dead,” where they walk past their doppelgängers and the joke is there’s a whole other film happening with a different bunch of actors. A butterfly flaps its wings slightly differently in the Summer of 1997 and a completely different Canadian Stampede 10-Man Tag happens. Shawn and Bret probably end up shooting on each other in the middle of the match. Sid likely steals the show in front of a crowd even louder than Survivor Series 1996.

Edited March 23 by Supremo

[SuperBacon]

I honestly don't remember Sid still being around in that period of 97.

Look at Ken Shamrock. Looks like the absolute bollocks.

[davertfnewman]

Vince apparently got to the point that he realised he'd had the most he was going to get out of Sid without drama so wanted to rework how he was paid so he wasn't wasting money. Sid's in a shirt because he claimed he was injured and couldn't work out, then had Downtown Bruno drive him back to the hotel before he could appear in a later segment as he thought he was having a heart attack. That was the end of Sid.

[Chili]

47 minutes ago, davertfnewman said:

Vince apparently got to the point that he realised he'd had the most he was going to get out of Sid without drama so wanted to rework how he was paid so he wasn't wasting money. Sid's in a shirt because he claimed he was injured and couldn't work out, then had Downtown Bruno drive him back to the hotel before he could appear in a later segment as he thought he was having a heart attack. That was the end of Sid.

And as @air_raidpointed out, Sid did genuinely need surgery. The Sid who cried wolf as Raid terms it. 

1997 is such a fantastic trainwreck of a year, it's incredible they pulled anything off, the amount of chaos going on.

[TheScarlettChad]

Then he went to ECW and had a fucking great mini run. Sid was awesome, no doubt about it. 

[air_raid]

14 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I honestly don't remember Sid still being around in that period of 97.

 

14 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

Vince apparently got to the point that he realised he'd had the most he was going to get out of Sid without drama so wanted to rework how he was paid so he wasn't wasting money.

 

13 hours ago, Chili said:

And as @air_raidpointed out, Sid did genuinely need surgery. The Sid who cried wolf as Raid terms it.

After much returning, benching himself, umming and ahhing, Sid convinced them he was good to go to the point promotion for this match made air :

He backed out of subsequent TV saying he thought he needed neck surgery. And he did.

 

[Supremo]

“And then for the closing shot of the pay per view, you’ll flip Stone Cold the bird and drive off with his belt. Just a generic middle finger gesture please, Vince. Nice and normal. Don’t be a fucking weirdo about it.”

Vince;

I remember me and my mates thinking Vince’s middle finger was hilarious. It was how we’d do it for months afterwards, flipping each other off at every opportunity. Something to think about any time I’m annoyed at my kids shouting, “SIX SEVEN.” I guess it could be much worse.

Breakdown: In Your House is dog rough. A bad show.

- You can at least appreciate that they’re trying to bring new talent in, to freshen things up. They all look crap though. Edge looks positively lost, like a deer in the head lights. Gangrel and D-Lo Brown have an absolute stinker, on two completely separate pages, fucking up everything. And Droz looks so ridiculously green I ended up checking his Cagematch to see how few matches he’d had before being put in such a prominent position. It’s a shockingly low amount.

I’m one of the biggest critics of the Performance Center ironing out any individuality and making everyone act and wrestle the same way, but watching a show like this you understand why they do it. Clearly, a three week camp with Dory Funk and a couple of dark matches is not enough to get guys ready for International TV.

- This show marks the last pay per view appearance of Vader’s cursed WWF run, so Jim Ross isn’t even trying to be polite about it anymore. Burying Vader throughout, Jim all but calls him a fat prick who wasn’t worth the contract they gave him. All while Bradshaw stiffs the fuck out of him. See you later, Leon!

- It’s a one match show. The only thing worth watching is the super fun Triple Threat cage match between Shamrock, Mankind and The Rock. Great little knockabout, with a super hot crowd. Shamrock also takes another one of those mental chair shots right square in the face. Nutter.

Funny to see The Rock getting the huge reaction, despite being the one who lost to Triple H in the ladder match at Summerslam. I like to imagine Hunter watching this backstage, all sad, no amount of favourable booking being enough for him to avoid being completely eclipsed by The Rock. Back to the drawing board, Trips. Guess you’ll have to order another big batch of Shane Douglas tapes. We’ll see how things go, and don’t quote me on this, but watching him here, I think this Rock fella might become a big star.

Edited March 29 by Supremo