BRM Reviews WWF In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks

[Big Red Machine]

WWF In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks (7/23/1995)- Nashville, TN


This month, BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series is in your house! And in your house, too! Because today we’re watching WWF In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks.


OPENING VIDEO- Why did the WWF logo enter “your house,” through the window? Shouldn’t we the viewers be inviting it in? This makes it seem like the WWF is breaking into my house.

1-2-3 KID vs. THE ROADIE- 5/10
We cut away from the live action to show us that Double J was not watching this match backstage. I get that they’re trying to show us that Double J doesn’t care about The Roadie, but you’ve got to be able to find a way to do that that doesn’t involve me not getting to see part of the match I’m paying for! Like that split-screen they used later in the match, for example.
Kid was a very good babyface here. Kid apparently had an injured neck going into the match. Road Dogg sort of worked it over, but even if he hadn’t, if you tell me someone has an injured neck and then you hit them with a f*cking AVALANCHE PILEDRIVER, I’m going to buy that as the finish.

TODD PETTENGILL INTERVIEWS THE MILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION- fine
Dibiase, Tatanka, Kama, and Sid all got to talk. They all hyped up the Lumberjack match. This was a little repetitive, but they were all fine to good.

BARRY DUDINSKY INTERVIEWS BABYFACES IN DIESEL’S LOCKER ROOM- bad
He really just plugged the merch while the babyfaces did a lot of hooting and hollering in the background. Eventually Shawn Michaels and Diesel came up to him, but instead of cutting a promo to build up a match, they just teased Barry about his hair looking like a wig.

RAZOR RAMON & SAVIO VEGA vs. MEN ON A MISSION- 5.5/10
This was Razor’s first match back since sustaining an injury last month. Mabel attacked him at King of the Ring when he was at ringside supporting Savio, making the injury worse, and this is the grudge match.
This idiot referee let Razor start the match with a toothpick in his mouth. That’s a weapon right there, and he should have been disqualified for throwing it in Sir Mo’s face. He could have damaged the dude’s eye!
They did some good babyface in peril stuff to build up the hot tag and the resulting Razor vs. Mabel confrontation. Razor got a good false finish in after tossing Mabel off the top but Mable recovered and pinned Razor clean, continuing his strong push.

TODD PETTENGILL ACTS LIKE AN EMBARRASSING DOOFUS WITH DOUBLE’S BAND ON THEIR SET- bad
Jeff Jarrett is going to be singing tonight. We f*cking get it. You said it at least fifteen times on commentary during the opener. Stop wasting my time with crap like this.

DOC HENDRIX TRIES TO STIR UP SH*T WITH SOME BABYFACE LUMBERJACKS- meh
We’ve got the Smokin’ Gunns, Man Mountain Rock, Adam Bomb, and Bam Bam Bigelow. Doc says that he’s heard that Dibiase has paid off one of Diesel’s lumberjacks. That’s a fine thing for him to bring up. Then he starts coming up with reasons for it to be each one of the babyfaces and just listing them off to the whole group. The Smokin’ Gunns showed up in new cars, Man Mountain Rock has a new tour announced and maybe Dibiase is the benefactor. I know that he’s trying to help, but he came off like such an unlikable conspiracy theorist wanna-be stooge. All of the babyface denied that they were the sell-out.

JEFF JARRETT SINGS “WITH MY BABY TONIGHT”- BORING AS F*CK
He cuts a long and boring promo, then he sings his boring song and it goes on FOREVER!

TODD PETTENGILL INTERVIEWS FANS ABOUT JEFF JARRETT’S SONG- Whoa… how did that dude get a Tampa Bay Devil Rays shirt in 1995? Was merch really on sale that early?

BAM BAM BIGELOW vs. HENRY O. GODWINN- 3/10
This was short and I was expecting Bam Bam to win in a much more dominant fashion. That being said, I do always like seeing someone get pinned after missing a high-risk move. What better way to show that these moves really are high-risk?

BOB BACKLUND INTERACTS WITH FANS IN THE CROWD- nothing interesting happened at all.

TODD PETTENGILL INTERVIEWS SHAWN MICHAELS- good babyface promo

WWF INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Jeff Jarrett(c) (w/The Roadie) vs. Shawn Michaels- 8/10
The Roadie cut a promo before the match. He’s… mostly fine, but it’s just amazing hearing him be this vanilla when you know what he’s really capable of.
This was an awesome match. It doesn’t quite hold up, but it was still awesome even here in 2020. Your opinion on that may vary, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t mind a very long shine. Personally, I like strong heels and don’t think it’s a good idea to spend the first half of the match with the babyface outsmarting and outwrestling the heels at virtually every turn and making them look like chumps, though I did still find the execution entertaining. Shawn was very funny, and Jeff certainly knows how to make himself look like a fool for the fans’ amusement.
The story of the match was Shawn having to overcome all sorts of interference from The Roadie. It came full circle when a miscue between Jeff and The Roadie allowed Shawn to hit Sweet Chin Music for the win, and the fans went nuts.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- odd
After Shawn’s long celebration, we went backstage to Doc Hendrix, who was apparently being possessed by the ghost second-grader who died because he ate 749lbs of sugar in one sitting and exploded. Doc had apparently witnessed a confrontation between Jeff and The Roadie, and spoke very quickly while not just recounting the incident to us, but also attempting to reenact it, with himself in both roles. He concluded by telling us that The Roadie had punched Jeff, and then both had locked themselves in the room right behind him.
If the idea of not showing us a key backstage incident and instead having someone recount it to us seems odd to you, your instincts are good. In this case, my understanding is that there was some sort of contract dispute that these two were having with Vince, and this was their last night in the company for quite a while. I guess the contract dispute was so bad that they weren’t willing to even film a backstage segment to explain their upcoming absences.

WWF WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Own Hart & Yokozuna(c) (w/Jim Cornette & Mr. Fuji) vs. the Allied Powers (Lex Luger & the British Bulldog)- 5.75/10
A decent tag match with a very good finish that should set up a rematch at SummerSlam but somehow didn’t. That whole finishing sequence was really great. Luger and Bulldog working together to get Yoko up for something was a great spot in general, and a pretty perfect choice for a move that the babyfaces could get a visual pinfall off of. Owen came flying in to break it with a diving elbow and then took out Bulldog, allowing Yoko to hit Luger with a leg drop and pin him.

DIESEL VS. SID VIDEO PACKAGE- great… other than Pettengill accidentally calling Sid’s finisher a “powerslam.”

TODD PETTENGILL INTERVIEWS DIESEL- GREAT promo by Diesel

LUMBERJACK MATCH FOR THE WWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Diesel(c) vs. Sid- 5.25/10
Look… it was Kevin Nash vs. Sid. It wasn’t going to be good. It was a bunch of punch-kick stuff with some spots worked in for the lumberjacks. But I will give them credit for creating what did feel like a “big-fight” atmosphere. I wasn’t a fan of the referee seeing the lumberjacks do some things with seemed to clearly go beyond their role and I thought Sid going to the outside to fight the babyface lumberjacks at the end felt completely contrived and hurt Diesel’s win, but on the whole, I thought they were a plus for this match. Mabel’s attack on Diesel during the match was some nice set-up for their match at SummerSlam, but I think a post-match angle (and Mabel taking out a bunch of the babyface lumberjacks and needing the heavy-hitters like Shawn, Razor, and Bigelow to run him off) would have worked better.



This was mostly a fun little show from the WWF. Certainly not great, but knowing that it’s going to be a 1995 WWF show without a Bret Hart match on it, this was more than acceptable for its sub-two-hour run-time. The Intercontinental Title match was obviously the highlight of the night, but everything else other than Jeff Jarrett singing was fun, and the main event was a lot more dynamic than I was expecting, with first Shawn and then Diesel’s dives onto the heel lumberjacks feeling like 2020 spots. And if you thought those dives onto piles of people at the end of a show were cool, just wait until you see the dives at the end of the show I have picked out for next month!