Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Paul Bearer revealed that the Undertaker murdered his family in a house fire, but that his little brother, Kane, was still alive. Six days later this is only of mid-card importance, because we’re going to Canada and a bunch of Canadians — well, two Canadians and their friends — have to punch the shit out of some weird Americans.
If you haven’t seen this show — what’s wrong with you, come on — you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the Raw you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.
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And now, the Best and Worst of the legendary WWF In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede for July 6, 1997.
Best: Triple And Mankind Go In Your House And Tear It Down
At King of the Ring ’97, Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Mankind had their first major one-on-one match in a lifelong, one-sided feud that continued into 2017 and will probably continue long after we’re all dead. A month later, they opened In Your House 16 and had their first great match, because they figured out what people liked about the first one and amped it up to 11. What was that, you ask? Why, Mick Foley beating the shit out of Triple H while he tries to escape without literally dying, of course.
That’s something we don’t talk about a lot with Mick Foley. The story became that Mankind could “take a beating” and would keep getting up and asking for more, which built the foundation for a lot of his most memorable matches. King of the Ring ’98 with him getting thrown off the Hell in a Cell, the somehow even more brutal ‘I Quit’ match at Royal Rumble ’99 and pretty much every match after he started pulling a sock out of his drawers. But the best Mick Foley matches are the ones where he’s allowed some time on offense, because he’s (somehow) an underrated brawler, and the fact that he would get up and then kill you dead with shit like flying elbows off the apron and ridiculous sunset flips from the second rope to the floor made him a threat. And if you aren’t a threat, people just think of you as a punching bag, and there’s no real drama. Mick Foley at his best was the “lunatic fringe” they keep trying to turn Dean Ambrose into. He’d take your best, get up and do some crazy stuff that hurt you five times as much. So you had to physically murder him to keep him on the ground.
The Canadian Stampede match is built around Mankind going bonkers on H right away, bouncing him around the ring and making him look like he’s in way over his head. This is helped, of course, by the absolutely irreplaceable Saddledome crowd. They’re so absurdly hot for everything all night that wrestling achieves the closest thing WWE can get to a perfect form: a televised house show that everyone’s super into, with consequences. A celebration of everything that should work about pro wrestling, with an audience trusted to pay attention and decide for themselves.
The other hallmark of a good Mick Foley match is, of course, 2-4 moments where you’re like, “oh my God, Mick, what are you doing?” For example, here he is taking a knee-first hip toss into some stairs. If you’ve ever seen footage of Mick Foley trying to walk around like a normal person in real life, this is a pretty good explanation:
Chyna’s presence/interference/inaccurate hip-tossage is the explanation for why Helmsley is able to survive, and informs the second half of the match, in which Mankind keeps getting up and trying to kill him and H temporarily staving it off by going for the leg. Foley was a master at walking the tightrope between “selling on offense” and “adrenaline explaining away everything,” believably hobbling around between everything and punching himself in the leg a la Mind Games. It honestly looks like a guy propelled forward by will in the absence of a working body or nervous system. H only survives thanks to Chyna, of course, who interferes multiple times to save Hunter from Mandible Claws and deliver hoss-ass clotheslines where she basically shoulders you in the throat.
The match ends in a double count-out, but it feels organic. There’s never a moment where you’re like, “okay, now they’re gonna do a double count-out,” they just fight so much it gets away from the ring and stays there. They battle into the crowd, and Mankind exploits Triple H’s greatest weakness: his tendency to get thrown into ringside enclosures. Hog pens, WrestleMania set pieces, and, in this case, the Calgary Flames penalty box. AND MANKIND GOES IN AFTER HIM.
Probably one of the best and most underappreciated openers in WWE pay-per-view history. Which is funny, because it’s more or less three of the first four matches on the show. They fight to the back and the pay-per-view moves on, but before the second match can start, they fight back out and brawl around in the crowd some more. And when the second match is over, we catch up to them fighting outside the building.
Spoiler alert: Canadian Stampede is the best NXT TakeOver ever.
Worst: The Texas Of Canada
Here’s a mortified Jim Ross, calling a show with Jerry Lawler (cosplaying as ‘Indian Outlaw’-era Tim McGraw) and Vince McMahon (cosplaying a grandma at a rodeo). Alberta is sometimes known as the “Texas of Canada,” so of course WWE would take that to mean “let’s pretend we’re in Texas.” And Jim Ross doesn’t even like shoot Texas.
I bring up the announce team here because aside from the low rent Canadian-ass SHeDAISY that shows up later, they’re the only bad part o the show. And it’s not the usual “bad,” because they’re honestly pretty good … they just either have no idea how to pronounce Japanese people’s names, or they went to the WCW “skewl” of knowing and not giving a shit.
Match #2 is The Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku. Sasuke, of course, becomes “degray Sah SOOkay,” in the grand tradition of Ken-SOOkay Sasacky. Somehow that’s not as bad as the treatment Taka gets. Despite his last name ending in a U (and his name being “Michinoku” at all because he respects Sasuke and wrestles in Sasuke’s “Michinoku Pro” promotion), everyone pronounces it MICHINOKO. They also have trouble putting space between his first and last name. Combine that with Vince’s hatred for pronounces, and you’ve got three southern dudes yelling TAGGAMIJJINOGO! over and over. GREAT MOVE FROM TAGGAMIJJINOGO, TAGGAMIJJINOGO IN CONTROL NOW. TELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THIS TAGGAMIJJINOGO.
Best: Michi Pro On WWE TV
Here’s something you should know about me: I love Michinoku Pro. Love it. Like, I would marry it. It’s right behind 1992 WCW on my list of favorite pro wrestling things ever. Like a lot of you, I saw them wrestle at ECW Barely Legal, was like, “what the hell is THIS,” and devoted a chunk of my tape trading — I am old — to procuring as much Great Sasuke-related material as possible. I used to have his “funeral” on VHS. I’ve flown to both Philadelphia and Los Angeles to see Dick Togo wrestle. It is my jam. It is all available flavors of my jam.
So of COURSE I love this, quite possibly the best junior heavyweight match in WWE pay-per-view history. Funny how that follows one of the best openers in WWE PPV history, on the show where the main event has probably the best crowd reaction in WWE PPV history. This show is a precious treasure.
If you aren’t familiar with what Michinoku Pro is or what made it great … okay, are you familiar with Dragon Gate? At least the Ring of Honor Dragon Gate stuff from … God, 10 years ago? Michi Pro more or less begat Toryumon, which begat Dragon Gate, which influenced independent wrestling to an absurd degree and became the better parts of any PWG show you’ve ever seen. It adds the physical ridiculousness and athleticism of lucha libre with a sort of abridged understanding of in-ring puro storytelling, with the fast forward button pressed the entire time. It’s about speed and precise timing. Here, a snapmare into a headlock from Great Sasuke feels 10 times faster than, say, Hunter Hearst Helmsley running the ropes. And that’s not a burn on Hunter, these dues are hustling.
It’s also really intensely stiff at times, and everybody just goes with it because EVERYBODY’S GOING. Here, the crowd has zero idea who Sasuke and Taka are*, so they aren’t into it. But the wrestling is so fast and so unique and so good and SO MUCH that they get into it quickly, and by the time Taka’s hitting a no-hands spaceman plancha to the outside, they’re INTO it. And when Sasuke starts laying into Taka with boots to the mouth, they’re as hot as they were in the opener. Calgary’s a great place to run a match like this, because (1) they’ve always been pretty welcoming to Asian stars, and (2) have always been open to ahead-of-the-game junior heavyweight wrestling.
*except this guy:
THIS IS WORKRATE.
Here is Taka Michinoku workrating Sasuke on his fucking head:
Degraysa SOOkay ends up winning with a Thunder Fire powerbomb and a tiger suplex. Great match that earned the crowd reactions it got, which they manage to top the next night on Raw. We’ll tackle the, “wait, why didn’t they do this all the time, why did Sasuke disappear, why did they turn Taka into a racist caricature who wants to chop the dick off a porn star,” when we get there.
Also, because UPROXX will probably not let me start reviewing Michinoku Pro shows from 1999, go watch this ridiculous six-man tag with one of the best finishes you’ll ever see.
Best: Canada Loves The Hart Foundation
In the middle of the show, we get video packages about how the Hart Foundation has spent the week in Calgary hanging out with fans, doing meet and greets and signing autographs for everyone in a mile-long line (!). It makes me think about how much value there is in letting wrestlers be from places.
There are a lot of wrestlers who come out waving in their hometown for a cheap pop, but think about the two biggest, sustained crowd reactions you can think of outside of WrestleMania nostalgia. Canadian Stampede, and CM Punk at Money in the Bank 2011, right? What do those things have in common? They both featured main events wherein heels return to their hometown and are greeted and treated like heroes. Why? Because those are the only two instances I can think of where a WWE star said they were proud to be from somewhere, but said it in other places than their hometown. It’s not hard for Naomi to say she loves being from Orlando when she’s in Orlando or about to go there at the end of the cycle or whatever, but what if she was ALWAYS vocal about it? Punk always talked up Chicago. Even when he was shitting on everyone else, he talked up Chicago. Bret would lay waste to the entirety of the American wrestling fan base but talk about how proud he was to be from Canada. When Punk went to Chicago for an important match, he had the whole city behind him. Because he carried Chicago on his back all the time. When Bret went to Canada for an important match, he had fucking Canada on his back. And they had him on theirs.
That’s great. I wish WWE would take advantage of the fact that they employ so many cool people from so many varied, unique places, and actually celebrate that on the regular and build sustainable fanbases and reactions in those places, instead of just expecting us to care a little when it happens. And we do, you know? But we could be caring a lot.
Best: The Worst
The worst match on the show (by a lot) is the Undertaker defending the WWF Championship against The Man We Wanted To Call ‘Mastodon’ But Couldn’t Because They Called Him Vader. It’s hurt by the fact that (1) the match was supposed to be the Undertaker vs. Ahmed Johnson with a big heel turn and GANG WARZ story behind it, but Ahmed hurt himself five minutes into his heel turn and they had to call an audible, and (2) Vader’s confidence is completely gone and he wrestles at about 20% his natural intensity. But you know what? It’s still a fun, engaging heavyweight match on a show without a straight-up WWF main-event style championship match, and it does its job. Vader’s sloppy and kinda looks and wrestles like Chubby from Our Gang, but the crowd stays hot and it all fits together. One a regular show, this would’ve been a good match. On Canadian Stampede, it’s the cooldown.
I think the best part of the entire thing is Paul Bearer on the outside doing God’s work as an exasperated Bobby Hill-ass accuser. He’s doing the work of three old-timey southern territory managers. Look at him when Vader kicks out of a chokeslam from the second rope:
Brilliant. Keep that hankie handy, Paw Bear, you’re about to be standing next to a fire guy.
Worst: Not The Dixie Chicks, Please Don’t Sue
Instead of singing ‘O, Canada’ at the beginning of the show like normal, WWF decides to have it performed right before the main event, to ensure maximum Canadian allegiance. The song is performed by Canadian country music act FARMER’S DAUGHTER, which is sadly not a supergroup of GLOW characters.
For anyone curious about what 1990s Canadian country music videos looked like, here’s Farmer’s Daughter performing ‘Callin’ All You Cowboys,’ featuring footage so white it could give you snow-blindness.
As a bonus, here’s three grown women doing a Kidz Bop cover of ‘Son of a Preacher Man.’ Their biggest single was the “top 5 country radio hit” ‘Cornfields or Cadillacs.’ Uh, Cadillacs, please.
Sadly the closest thing pro wrestling ever got to the Dixie Chicks was the TNA Knockouts division.
Best: Canadian Goddamn Stampede
If you’ve never seen this match, I urge you to at least watch it through the entrances. This might be, without hyperbole, the greatest sustained reaction to a wrestling match I’ve ever seen. The crowd is nuclear when the video package ends. Goldust, Ken Shamrock and the Legion of Doom get middling reactions. Stone Cold Steve Austin — STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN, in 1997 — gets treated like he’s Roman Reigns. Then Brian Pillman shows up, and the crowd reacts to him like he’s Hollywood Hogan at WrestleMania 18. Seriously, Brian Pillman gets one of the monster pops of all time. JIM THE ANVIL NEIDHART gets treated like a superstar. By the time Bret Hart’s music starts, you can’t hear it or Howard Finkel because people are screaming so hard their brains are coming out of their mouth like alien xenomorphs so they can scream twice. When everyone’s in the ring, the camera is literally shaking because the crowd reaction is shaking the actual building It’s seriously not hyperbole. It’s not “listen to this ovation,” it’s people so hype about pro wrestling they are causing a giant building to move around.
And to their credit, God bless them, the World Wrestling Federation listened to the crowd reactions, understood them and played to them instead of doing what they normally do. Normally, they’d have Bret cut a promo before the match that milked the reactions only for him to be like, “actually CANADA SUCKS” at the end to try to get everyone to boo him. Then he’d get kinda cheered and kinda booed. And then the faces would just be faces.
Here, the Hart Foundation are GOLDEN GODS. They wrestle like it. They’re absolutely, 100% the babyfaces, and the babyfaces are straight-up heels. Austin especially gets this, and goes back into his early Bret Hart feud serial killer persona. He’s cheating and flipping everyone off and having the time of his life. Owen Hart moves slightly and the crowd pops like they’ve just seen a Burning Hammer. It’s magnificent, and they play it up by having the easiest, corniest house show match to ever main-event a pay-per-view.
Seriously, watch the match on mute. It’s nothing special. What’s special about it is how deeply everyone involved understands what’s going on, and decides to do what works in pro wrestling instead of fighting it and demanding otherwise. It’s such a blatant “DO THIS” moment, surrounded by arrows made out of flashing lights. There’s no real story beyond the call and response of “oh no, the guy we don’t like is winning, OH HECK YEAH NOW THE GUY WE LIKE IS WINNING.” They do the hacky bit where it looks like Owen Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin have been injured and have to go to the back, but reemerge at the last second to save their respective teams from losing to a submission.
The end of the match would be terrible under any other circumstances, but is undeniably perfect in context. Austin brawls on the outside in front of the Hart family at ringside, and one of the pissant shittier Hart bros throws a drink on him. He thinks 175-year old Stu Hart did it, and throws hands at him. That causes the Hart family to throw hands at Austin, and soon Austin’s covered in like four punching Harts. He gets back into the ring and, in the confusion, Owen rolls him up for three. It’s heels heeling for face reasons after a heel act as faces in front of a face crowd cheering for heels … it’s such a tornado of EXPLAIN WRESTLING RIGHT NOW that all you can do is stand back, point at it, and say, “this is what you do.” You see what the crowd wants, and you do what makes them happy. One of the most thoroughly killer slam dunks in North American pro wrestling ever.
After the match, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s crazy ass decides to attack the Harts again, and gets taken away in handcuffs. Probably because they wanted to have a Hart family reunion in the middle of the ring to end the show, and knew if Austin wasn’t restrained and covered in policemen he’d be out there smashing children in the face with chairs and stunning grandmothers. Austin gives the crowd the finger in handcuffs by bending over and aiming at them ass-first, because he is the greatest.
Best: Hart Family Days Of Future Past
The post-match celebration seriously involves every person who has ever come close to being named “Hart,” including the Smiths, the Neidharts and any teenage family friends who might one day represent the Hart Foundation. That includes future Killer Elite Squad member, 2-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, 2-time GHC Tag Team Champion and 2-time tag champion in WWE Davey Boy Smith Jr.:
Davey’s future tag team partner, cat-loving Total Divas star Tyson Kidd:
And, of course, former Divas Champion (and Kidd’s future wife) Natalya Neidhart. That’s Nattie in the black:
Look at that ring. This might be the last happy moment they all got together as a family. Four months later the Montreal Screwjob would happen, and the Harts would get torn to shreds. They’re the closest thing pro wrestling will ever get to a House Stark.
And Teddy’s in there like, “I should moonsault onto everybody.”
