WWF In Your House: Mind Games, Philadelphia, PA
A request! It wasn’t the same requester, but this goes nicely with the recent look at Mankind’s arrival in the WWF in the spring of ’96. Honestly, I doubt Vince thought he’d have Mankind headlining a PPV — even an In Your House — five months later, but that’s just what happened.
Shawn is defending his WWF title here, a month after SummerSlam, where he narrowly escaped a challenge from Vader, which I would get into again but it’s ancient history at this point. The wheels kept on turning. Not for Vader, really, though, that whole thing and Shawn’s pissfit pretty much killed Vader as a top WWF challenger. He’d get more chances but not in a way where he was a real threat to actually do much.
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Also at SummerSlam, Mankind had beaten Undertaker in a Boiler Room Brawl, where Paul Bearer turned on Undertaker and sided with Mankind.
“Behold the face of fear, the mind of madness! Behold the horror that may soon be champion! Pray that this man can stop the insanity. Pray for him … if he doesn’t.”
Hell yeah. Before the match, Shawn speaks with Kevin Kelly backstage.
“Not since I won the World Wrestling Federation title have I gone out and defended this belt and been really, really nervous. The reason for that is I feel like I can out-wrestle anybody in the World Wrestling Federation. But let’s face it, I am wrestling the wackiest cat that the World Wrestling Federation has ever, ever seen.
“If I could go out there and wrestle him, I’d have all the confidence in the world. But you never know where this guy’s coming from. So I’m a little bit jittery, I’m a little bit nervous, but one way or another, the Heartbreak Kid’s gonna do what he always does, and that’s find a way to get the job done.”
Shawn says he’s too stupid to have them play mind games with him. Shawn does a really good job here seeming nervous, and, like, real-nervous, not wrestling overacting nervous.
Mankind out first, and Paul Bearer has some druids usher a casket down to ringside ahead of their arrival. In the casket, it’s Mankind himself! Why I’ll be. Mankind rocks back-and-forth in the ring, embracing Uncle Paul’s urn.
“He would certainly be a challenging image as the WWF champion to market, I assume,” Jim Ross says. “The whole course of the WWF could change right there, just moments from now.”
Shawn has Jose Lothario in his corner because he’s still pretending he has any respect for anyone. Vince puts on his exceptionally fake voice where he does the faux strain to pretend he’s trying very hard to scream over fans who are simply TOO LOUD. The fans aren’t that loud.
Bell sounds, and they circle around a little. Shawn does have a look of worry about what he’s gotten into with this guy. It really is one thing to wrestle a big beast like Vader or Sid or Diesel, but Mankind’s style is far more unpredictable and more dangerous in some ways. He won’t overpower you like those guys might, but everything is reckless, wild, and something you can’t prepare for, really.
Mr. Perfect likes Mankind’s style as he’s dominating Michaels early, staying on a fast pace. Mankind clotheslines Michaels over to the floor, then kicks him away into the guardrail, which McMahon has decided is a “retaining barrier,” because that’s how he talks.
Mankind pulls up a bit of the ringside padding, and Michaels dropkicks him from the blind side, then stomps on him with Mankind under the pad. Michaels up to the top and dives back with a crossbody to the floor! Shawn has decided alright, fuck it, I gotta go wild with this guy. Fight fire with fire. Michaels jumps off the steps and just drives Mankind’s head down onto the exposed floor.
“He probably enjoyed it!” Jim Ross says. That type talk would come back to haunt him later in a sitdown interview.
In the ring, Michaels hits a flying double axhandle. Mankind reverses a whip, but Shawn keeps the advantage, ducking a clothesline and landing some jabs and a running clothesline. Scoop slam! Back up top and his flying elbow hits!
Shawn sets for the Sweet Chin Music in the corner, but Mankind scurries away, having just enough awareness when he turns around to get out of dodge. Mankind dives out through the ropes and rocks on the floor, holding the urn and getting some comfort from Uncle Paul.
Michaels leaps to the second rope for his turnaround crossbody again, but Mankind isn’t there, appears to be fixing his mask and backing away, so Shawn runs across the ring shouting, “Come on!” Similar to one of the Vader spots the month before, and Foley has said it was done on purpose that way, to play off of that Vader match. Things turn into a straight up brawl. Mankind takes Michaels down from behind and scissors the body, trying for the Mandible Claw. Michaels blocking and sits it back up as they sort of reset the quick breakdown. Michaels throwing hard back elbows, now throwing rights and lefts to Mankind’s head. Michaels with a boot to the head, then Mankind gets up and just CRUSHES Michaels, squealing out, “Son of a bitch!”
Everything here is really aggressive; apparently Foley told Michaels to go ahead and lay the shots in, make sure he hits the leather on the mask and all that, and he’d be fine. As a result, if you were “smart” and knew the Michaels-Vader issue, you can look at it from that perspective, like, “Are they SHOOTING? Is this GOING AWRY?” Keep in mind it’s Philly, a city at that for many years had a far higher than average “smart” fan base. And if you don’t know anything about that, if you aren’t thinking of it that way, then this suddenly is a match that feels angry and like both are operating on survival instinct. So it works on multiple levels for different people in the audience.
Fight goes outside, and Michaels suplays Mankind, with Mankind’s leg smashing against the steel ring steps. Shawn stays on the knee, stomping down on it as they head back into the ring. Perfect has “never seen this side of Shawn Michaels before,” and that is the basic point of the match, we’re seeing Shawn Michaels get nastier, more aggressive, and meaner than ever, because he has to to face this guy.
Shawn shoves doofus Earl Hebner away, and that gives Mankind an opening to try a comeback, but Michaels hits a dragon screw. Jim Ross, who knows better, calls it “a leg drag with a twist” to be careful with Vince. Shawn with the figure four! Out of that, Shawn dropkicks the knee hard and really stays on top of it. Half-crab now from Shawn. Mankind makes the ropes, Bearer screeching for Hebner to “get him off!”
Michaels goes for a standing sunset flip deal and gets two, but then jumps, is caught, and gets stun-gunned from a power bomb position, Mankind falling backwards. Mankind, trying to get the feeling back into his leg, starts stabbing himself in the knee with something Bearer gives him, and now he’s lost all control of himself, just choking Michaels and then smacking his face off the casket.
That gives Mankind time to recover a little, he waits for Shawn to come back to the apron before getting back on the attack. Right hand to the skull! Mankind charges into the corner and drives the knee into the jaw. That hurts Mankind, too, but that’s life when you’re Mankind.
Mankind biting and grounding Michaels. Face slammed down into the mat. Perfect totally loses his train of thought trying to say something. A few chants for Michaels at ringside, Shawn hits a suplay and they’re both down. Mankind walks into a right hand when they get up, then another, Mankind to the breadbasket with a boot.
Michaels picks up the speed again for a moment and turns the tide. Shawn with right hands, whip to the corner reversed, and there’s the Flair flip. Michaels tiiiiiies himself to the TREEAWOE in one motion, and Mankind flies in with a couple of shots to the prone champion.
Earlier, Mankind had dragged the Spanish commentary table out from its usual position, but it wasn’t used. He follows Michaels to the floor and steps around it, so that we notice that it’s there again. Mankind misses a charge and knees the steps, then Shawn hits a drop toe hold that whacks Mankind’s face into the steel again.
At this stage, both guys are so covered in Goldust glitter that Vince has to point out what it is. Mankind misses another charge, this one on the apron, and clangs his head off the ring post this time. Back elbow from Shawn, POWERSLAM from Shawn that Mankind walks into and gets a two count.
Jim Ross is putting this over big. Mr. Perfect doesn’t have that job, but you can tell in his little comments here and there that he’s loving this, too. Mankind gets his throat caught in the ropes, but when Shawn approaches, he locks on the Mandible Claw! That breaks up, Mankind falling to the floor and Shawn down in the ring.
Michaels goes outside, Mankind gets the Mandible Claw again, and Shawn runs them both into poor Hugo Savinovich! Michaels grabs a chair, gets it up in time and Mankind punches that instead of Michaels’ face. Shot to the legs, shot to the hand on Mankind! That little whack to the legs is the sort of match this is, guys are just swinging, fighting in there.
Into the ring, Mankind goes for the Claw again, but Michaels bites the hand and now is just slamming that hand into the mat, stomping on it. He’s trying to take the Mandible Claw out of the match.
Ross: “Michaels is trying to break Mankind’s right hand to pieces!”
McMahon, a fucking wimp: “Well he certainly is trying to incapacitate it, let’s put it that way!”
The clear thing here is Michaels is trying to break Mankind’s key fingers, the two he never smashed with a hammer when his mom didn’t care about his piano music. So Ross just keeps saying he’s trying to to break hands and fingers.
Reeling, Mankind gets a break when Shawn charges and Mankind is able to backdrop him out to the floor. Cactus Elbow down to the floor! Mankind breaks the count, then slides back out with a swinging neckbreaker on the floor. And here comes Earl Hebner to threaten Mankind with disqualification, getting out on the floor so everyone notices him.
Legdrop from Mankind when Michaels tries to get back into the ring. Double-arm DDT! Vince and Perfect both liked that one. But the arm drape cover only gets two. Foley-Style Piledriver! Two count again. He tries the pin again, also two. Mankind goes to an amateur pin attempt and gets two, and gets wildly frustrated by that, so he goes out to the floor and starts throwing chairs into the ring. Earl helpfully gets the padded red one out. And the blue one is also gone.
Now they’ve opened up the casket and are rolling Shawn into it. It is, of course, not a casket match. Michaels fights back from there. Tito Forearm! Kip-up! Flying crossbody from Shawn gets two! Shawn gets crotched up top, though, and Mankind isn’t done just yet.
Mankind out to the apron where he climbs up with Shawn, and he goes for a back superplex to the floor, but Michaels turns his weight and they both crash through that table at ringside. It’s a hard, nasty fall, a violent crash through the table, monitors and glass and shit all over.
Paul Bearer distracts the ref and Mankind has a chair as they go back into the ring, but Shawn gets a jogging start off that red padded chair and kicks THAT chair into Mankind’s face. Ross stretches badly to call that “Sweet Chin Music.”
Michaels covers, but only two before Vader hits the ring! And there’s the DQ. Michaels knocks Vader the fuck out of the ring in short order with a Tito Forearm. Bearer conks Michaels on the back of the head with the urn, and here comes Sid to attack Vader!
In the ring, Mankind and Michaels are both out, but the bell has been ringing over and over, the match is for sure over. Mankind getting some feeling back into his fingers and gets the Mandible Claw on Michaels! He releases pretty quickly and wants the casket opened again. Bearer gets it up, and UNDERTAKER IS IN THERE NOW! He chucks Mankind out of the ring and gives chase!
Michaels on the match in a 2021 interview:
“The things he wanted to do put my character in a place where he just hadn’t been. I don’t think any of us really knew at the time that it was so vital for us to have at that time. It couldn’t have been more perfect. It was two guys adapting and adjusting to one another. This job can be easy at its core, but you usually only have that with your best friend because there’s always another emotion getting in the way. Mick is one of those people who I never hung around and didn’t know, but when you get together, there’s a chemistry there. It’s an odd pairing in a fantastic way. … It’ll always be special because there’s no storyline or follow-up. … It was a perfect thing that just sits there and had you done more with it, it might have messed it up. People have come to appreciate it for what it was.”
My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox (via Fightful)
Foley said later, I think in his first book, that it became his favorite match in his entire career, replacing the Sting match at Beach Blast ’92. (The Orton match at Backlash ’04 would later replace this, I believe.)
It’s another match that shows the greatness of Mick Foley, and that’s not to discount Shawn here, either, because this is one of the best and most unique matches he ever had. This really does bring out a different, nastier side of Shawn, and he does it as a babyface, as he would have to, really. Michaels couldn’t have played a vicious heel, but he can play a hero who’s willing to go the extra mile and get violent when there is no other option. From the pre-match interview until the final bell, Michaels really is outstanding in this one, one of his best performances ever.
These two would only wrestle one more time on TV and a few more times in total, the TV match a Raw bout in Aug. ’97, which is also pretty goddamn good but obviously doesn’t get the room to take off into true greatness that this one had. This won the prestigious Slammy Award for 1996 Match of the Year and deserved it. These two guys were nothing alike in any way, real or character, other than they both had a drive to be great pro wrestlers, and that gives them the chemistry they need to create something special. It’s not quite my all-time favorite Foley match, but it really might be my all-time favorite Michaels match.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 