Things aren’t faring well for WCW against WWE in the 1998 pay-per-view quality battle. Let’s see if WWE drops the ball with Breakdown: In Your House. This show takes place September 27, 1998, in Hamilton, Ontario, and features Stone Cold Steve Austin defending the WWE Championship in a three-way cage match against Kane and The Undertaker.
The Best
Our opener features two future Canadian legends in Owen Hart and Edge in a rock-solid contest. Mind you, this was undermotivated, last Hart left Owen but his unmotivated work still gets the job done for a competent, well-paced about. Meanwhile, Edge didn’t look bad at all.
While Edge had experience by this time, he was still a bit rough around the edges—pun not intended—and the fans were starting to come around to him. The mysterious…I don’t even remember what Edge was supposed to be, folks. I know he was presented as mysterious, let’s just say the “mysterious goth” character wasn’t hitting as hard as Gangrel’s more theatric goth/vampire gimmick but he had cool music.
It wasn’t as cool as Gangrel and the Brood’s but it was cool. This match also saw the debut of Christian and the rest is history.
A match that I scored similarly but was actually more enjoyable was Al Snow and Scorpio taking on the Too Much team of “Too Sexy” Brian Christopher and “Too Hot” Scott Taylor. Most fans will remember Too Much as Too Cool which dropped a lot of its in-ring approach in favor of a more entertaining, gimmick-oriented style.
Although Too Much was a pretty generic “cocky youngster” tandem, they had a concrete early 90s indy high flyer style that worked very well against Snow and Scorpio. It wasn’t too flashy, was “high risk” in the 80s sense, and resulted in far fewer botches.
This match was given the perfect amount of time and had a good pace to it. I would’ve bumped to the opener, honestly. On an episode of HeAT or Shotgun, it would’ve been one of those rarities that you would’ve only heard about if you didn’t follow the B-shows.
A match that would’ve been a total waste on the B-shows was the three-way cage match a number-one contendership at the WWE Championship. Honestly, this was The Rock and Mankind show but Ken Shamrock didn’t bring things down at all. The match would’ve been just as good without Shamrock but his addition made this truly unpredictable.
You had two superstars who had shown that they were tough as nails in Mankind and Shamrock and a young superstar that saw himself as the next big thing—and was able to back his claim up. The action in this bout was heated, and exciting. Plus–this is important–they actually had the right amount of time.
It wasn’t short to where I wanted more but it didn’t drag on because it ran too long. WWE often had issues with some matches running too long—especially when the undercard was pretty mediocre—but they got it right in this contest. Check it out!
Finally, we have the main event WWE Championship match. There was a stipulation where The Undertaker and Kane couldn’t pin each other. Also, if anyone helped Austin, he would lose the title. While this three-way cage match was good, it was more of a transitional chapter in Stone Cold’s story and in the greater Attitude Era saga.
It was a match that was somewhat important but it was meant to advance the against-all-odds theme of Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon. You could tell that by The Rock winning his title shot but the title being vacated after Kane and Taker both pin Austin.
The Rest
Honestly, everything in “The Rest” is pretty solid and watchable. Marc Mero taking a very green Droz was a perfectly acceptable bout. Mero was very capable in the midcard and Droz was a capable enough rookie that he didn’t drop the ball. With that said, this match was something that fit in with the pay-per-view or would’ve made for an enjoyable television bout.
Vader finally got a decent pay-per-view match and it was against a young JBL. At this point, Vader just wasn’t putting on this best performance as Bradshaw was still a bit inexperienced and was nothing special. However, he had a fire to him and like Vader, he could brawl.
What took this match beyond being a lemon was the stiffness and the Falls Count Anywhere stipulation. Other than that, I wouldn’t say that this was a match for PPV. Perhaps Vader should’ve been booked in more stipulation matches.
Another match that was definitely Heat or Shotgun Saturday Night was D’Lo Brown vs. Gangrel. It smacks of a match no one was excited about but these two did put on a perfectly acceptable match with decent enough action. It didn’t set the world on fire but it wasn’t a black mark on the show either.
There was an odd stopover in Dustin Rhodes’ career where he ditched the Goldust gimmick and became a born-again Christian. The gimmick saw him as somewhat of a heel as he railed against the edgy product of WWE’s Attitude Era while parading around with a sign that read “He’s Coming Back” and so on.
We’ll find out why this gimmick was pointless in October 1998.
Anyway, this was another match that wasn’t bad, nothing special, and could’ve been on Sunday Night HeAT or Shotgun Saturday Night. The action was decent, Val Venis was competent and had buzz around him as did Terri. Dustin’s always been a good hand and could pull the best out of wet toilet paper if necessary.
The six-man tag match pitted D-Generation X members X-Pac and The New Age Outlaws against Jeff Jarrett and his Southern Justice tandem. I always felt that Southern Justice was a cool nickname was a really good tag team. Maybe if you paired Bobby Eaton with Ricky Morton as heels or Hardcore Holly and Jeff Jarrett.
Instead, it was just the Godwinns. That means not only is Jarrett working at a disadvantage against a cooler trio, he was going to get spanked in a mediocre match.
I tend not to like when the Godwinns’ matches go past ten minutes but whatever. The vast majority of “The Rest” would’ve been enjoyable on B-shows or in the Raw is War hour of Monday Night RAW.
WWE Breakdown: In Your House Verdict: Bronze Medal (2.69/5)
Lots of rock-solid matches on this card. Even the matches that didn’t hit exactly hit perfectly or were major bouts to watch were fun and did their part to entertain. There were no Aluminum Medal matches here, so I’d say Breakdown: In Your House took September 1998 easily. What kept this from reaching a Silver Medal was that the best matches on this card weren’t as strong as the best of SummerSlam 1998.
Our runner-up goes to the main event triple threat cage match while the number one contender’s cage match with Mankind, The Rock, and Ken Shamrock was the match of the show.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmbZccDKFHg
