Oct. 12, 2025
Classics: WWF In Your House Mind Games
This is your free preview of the latest edition of 'Top Rope Nation Classics,' our monthly deep-dive retro show for our supporters on Patreon. Ryan, Justin, and Jesse review WWF In Your House Mind Games. Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind, The Undertaker vs. Goldust, Bret Hart's ongoing contract saga, and much more!
The full podcast includes deep dives on every match on the card, all the news in the wrestling world surrounding the event, and so much more. Head to https://www.patreon.com/topropenation to hear the entire podcast. We'd be honored to have your support.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So, 70 of top rope nation classics, technically your September edition of the show here on Patreon, go and back in time with September 1996 for WWF, in your house, mine games Ryan Drossie Jesse Velaska's Justin joint, the gang is all here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's a talk about a one match show, Joe.
01:32.718 --> 01:41.881
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was I was telling Ryan off air that I don't know if my notes have ever been worse for a show than this until we get to the main event.
01:42.221 --> 01:45.202
[SPEAKER_02]: The main event is literally my notes are
01:46.488 --> 01:49.769
[SPEAKER_02]: at least twice as long as all my other notes combined.
01:51.289 --> 01:51.909
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, same.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
01:53.790 --> 01:54.030
[SPEAKER_03]: Same.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Although, you know, it's not a great period for WWF.
01:56.511 --> 01:57.411
[SPEAKER_03]: It's better than 1995.
01:58.451 --> 02:02.452
[SPEAKER_03]: And I still get nostalgic for this era because I never missed a show.
02:02.912 --> 02:09.074
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, it wasn't hard given raw was one hour long, but I mean, I watched the, I watched Superstars every Sunday morning too.
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[SPEAKER_03]: This is right around the time when, let's see.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Was it action zone then on Saturday?
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[SPEAKER_03]: No, live wire started by then.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I was watching live wire too, which was mostly recap show, but it was, you know, they were doing the live stuff with the Collins and all of that.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I always watch that on the weekends at both they Saturday and Sunday.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I was eating it up.
02:27.925 --> 02:31.968
[SPEAKER_03]: I was watching and consuming absolutely everything WW after in this era.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as poor as the undercard is of this show, I mean, it's no surprise that this is a favorite time of I assume all of ours, uh, be stone colds on the rise, you know, we were wondering what's going to happen with Brett.
02:46.279 --> 02:47.960
[SPEAKER_02]: He'd just signed his new contract.
02:48.401 --> 02:52.344
[SPEAKER_02]: The NWO is just a couple of months ahead of the time does new contract yet.
02:52.864 --> 02:53.484
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he hadn't.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I just assumed so because, uh, they showed him on the show or that the challenges.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I had to correct it because there's some drama going on behind the scenes, which I'll that's a teaser.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'll bring that up, but yeah, I mean, they're to your point, Justin, there was a, there was a ton of things going on, absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_03]: In the world of pro wrestling, people jump in, you know, perfect would be out of here within a couple of months, too, not even, not even two months, like Bradford Survivor Series.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, a lot of things happening, Jesse, how, how was your fandom at this point
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[SPEAKER_01]: WCW Strictly, I was watching very little WWF at this point, although I do remember this match and seeing it within a few days of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how I even heard about it, which is crazy too.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's because I watched Summerslam 96 with my cousin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And coming off of that, I was kind of curious about Michael's and then mankind of course a Paul Bear turning on Undertaker and where that feud was going and just wondering when the world who this man kind guy was, because I wasn't horribly familiar with much of his work back then, which we're going to be, probably highlighting him a lot on this show.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So strictly WCW and the other
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[SPEAKER_03]: I did not see this match for quite a long time.
04:18.868 --> 04:23.511
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember like the reputation of it getting out around not long after I was let's see.
04:24.587 --> 04:28.988
[SPEAKER_03]: I was in junior high, I was in seventh grade when this match happened, the show happened.
04:29.988 --> 04:36.690
[SPEAKER_03]: And I had a good group of friends at school that were wrestling fans, but most of them were like WCW bandwagon fans.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I knew who the real fans were that had been around the previous couple of years before and WO was blown up at this point in time.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And so most of the friends that I could get tapes from were getting WCW paper views.
04:49.393 --> 05:02.282
[SPEAKER_03]: And this was really before my parents started letting me or I've told the story of the show like one paper view a year that started in 97 so I had no way to see this I definitely got the whole show on a tape trade like late 90s probably.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But and then like the match was on a DVD maybe a Sean DVD early 2000 something like that and I definitely saw it on there, too But I think I got mine games as a whole on a on a tape trade.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think that would have been the first time I saw it.
05:17.863 --> 05:19.005
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you what about you Justin?
05:20.102 --> 05:39.514
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to have rented it from my local video store because I like Jesse, I think I saw it pretty quickly after it happened, so I remember almost back to Mac watching mind games and summer slam with HBK invader and, you know, at the time.
05:40.696 --> 05:58.940
[SPEAKER_02]: I was trying really hard not to like Shawn Michaels because he had beaten Brett Hart for the world title at WrestleMania, but seeing those matches and just his ringwork in general, he won me over and we're going to get into it, but whole man, mankind won me over in a big time way after this show.
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[SPEAKER_03]: hard not to.
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[SPEAKER_03]: This made a van.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, absolutely incredible match.
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[SPEAKER_03]: A match that would be in the running for match of the year 96 for sure.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Certainly in North America.
06:11.142 --> 06:12.603
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I mean, the undercard isn't great.
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[SPEAKER_03]: As we'll talk about here in a little bit.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Anything else about the status, you know, like you said with Brett, we'll talk about that and what was going on.
06:20.849 --> 06:23.230
[SPEAKER_03]: He was almost back, but not quite.
06:24.331 --> 06:30.136
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we'll save the Brett talk for when they do this the segment with Pillman We jump real quick into the pop culture.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Also, I want to say second show in a row We've done on classics here that happened in Philadelphia so shout out to you Then's here different venue But another show in Philadelphia.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We just did summer slam 1990 which was at the old spectrum
06:45.897 --> 06:51.301
[SPEAKER_03]: And this one was at the Core State Center, had just opened in August of 1996.
06:51.421 --> 06:52.462
[SPEAKER_03]: I looked it up.
06:52.502 --> 06:54.804
[SPEAKER_03]: The first event there was a Ray Charles concert.
06:55.644 --> 06:58.727
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was not long after that, the following month.
06:58.747 --> 07:00.908
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't open the venue, but pretty darn close.
07:01.789 --> 07:10.636
[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, they would end up having, like, WrestleMania 15 in this venue, which would have been just over two years later.
07:11.737 --> 07:13.859
[SPEAKER_03]: and they've multiple paper views there over the years, too.
07:13.899 --> 07:17.681
[SPEAKER_03]: This was the first big one and also like a really big house for in your house.
07:18.221 --> 07:22.284
[SPEAKER_03]: They were mostly running, if I could say that word house more times than it.
07:23.085 --> 07:24.546
[SPEAKER_03]: Really big house for in your house.
07:24.866 --> 07:28.368
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they were running mostly mid-sized arenas for these shows.
07:28.388 --> 07:30.590
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like six to eight thousand people.
07:31.626 --> 07:34.228
[SPEAKER_03]: They had done international incident back in July.
07:34.268 --> 07:35.169
[SPEAKER_03]: That was in Vancouver.
07:35.189 --> 07:40.394
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was a big number, but you know, anytime they go out of the US, they always draw a little bit better.
07:40.414 --> 07:45.659
[SPEAKER_03]: But this is, this is one of the biggest, and it was the biggest gate they had ever done for an in-your-house.
07:45.699 --> 07:46.600
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll get to that in a second.
07:47.160 --> 07:48.261
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let's talk pop culture.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We've talked about 96 this year.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So real quick, we're fresher where we were in the world at this point in time in the sports world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to full opia, Pennsylvania, the Prince, breaking brand new Horst State Center, the site of In Your House.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mine games, everyone.
08:10.996 --> 08:16.698
[SPEAKER_00]: Benz the Man here, along with Mr. Perfect, along with Jim Ross, and we'll like to see some mine games here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: live from the Core State Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
08:20.640 --> 08:22.260
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have an exact number on this.
08:22.340 --> 08:24.301
[SPEAKER_03]: It's around 15,000 in the building.
08:24.822 --> 08:27.683
[SPEAKER_03]: They papered it, you know, to fill that place up mass of arena.
08:28.703 --> 08:31.585
[SPEAKER_03]: But according to Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer newsletter,
08:32.425 --> 08:44.208
[SPEAKER_03]: the paid crowd was 11,969 for a gate of 210,290 dollars, which was the all-time record for in your house.
08:44.808 --> 08:52.870
[SPEAKER_03]: He notes that the July 96 International Incident in Vancouver drew slightly more money, but that was in Canadian dollars.
08:53.651 --> 08:58.232
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was a record when it came to the overall worth of the gate in US dollars.
08:59.292 --> 09:16.270
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that was just that shocking considering the main event was basically cold it came out of nowhere that you know, they they deviated from their original plans, which I believe was Shawn Michaels and Jose Lothario versus Vader and Cornet.
09:17.031 --> 09:29.157
[SPEAKER_02]: But obviously, Michael's did not have a very good time with Vader, and so they pivoted to this match, so I'm shocked that it did so well, I'm curious what moved people to watch this.
09:30.157 --> 09:43.303
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, it's kind of interesting because, you know, we always think of this as a down period, but when they, you know, once in a while, they would do big houses, you know, they paper them a little bit, obviously, you know, Royal Rumble 97 at the Alamo dome, a lot of paper there, but they got a bunch of people in the building.
09:44.173 --> 10:05.447
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, they're running TV and pretty small venues for the most part once in a while they'd run these bigger arenas and have a pretty large crowd, you know, so like I said international incident in Vancouver there's about 15,000 in the building that night to they're really, really close, but yeah, they end up getting about 15,000 in there big crowd as I said a little bit ago.
10:06.032 --> 10:09.359
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they're a month, a month into opening this brand new arena.
10:09.379 --> 10:11.404
[SPEAKER_03]: They mentioned several times on the broadcast.
10:11.444 --> 10:14.209
[SPEAKER_03]: It's brand new and a beautiful new building and all of that.
10:15.383 --> 10:17.764
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, and we're off to the races.
10:17.844 --> 10:19.685
[SPEAKER_03]: We get that intro video.
10:19.785 --> 10:24.768
[SPEAKER_03]: It pretty much focuses on Sean and mankind, versus a taker and gold us.
10:24.808 --> 10:28.390
[SPEAKER_03]: So, sorry, Cornette and Withario, you didn't make the intro hype video.
10:29.910 --> 10:31.591
[SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty decent hype video though.
10:31.771 --> 10:33.072
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, does it's job?
10:33.112 --> 10:37.894
[SPEAKER_03]: You get to, I believe it was Todd Pettengill, if I recall correctly, the voiceover was still on there.
10:38.014 --> 10:42.837
[SPEAKER_03]: Once in a while on these shows, they'll take Todd out, and you can tell they had Michael Cole, like redo it.
10:43.357 --> 10:54.790
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess to avoid paying royalties to pet and go I know that's the case on some of the I think WrestleMania 12 when we talked about that they'd read on the voice over not on this show pet and goes on there
10:55.532 --> 11:03.638
[SPEAKER_03]: And we get welcomed in to the show by Vince McMahon, Mr. Perfect Kurt Henning, and Jim Ross at Ringside.
11:04.478 --> 11:09.722
[SPEAKER_03]: And as they built up the show, I just thought there was some conveniently placed signs right behind them.
11:09.742 --> 11:15.186
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like a Tony guerrilla sign and a Vince as God sign or something like that.
11:15.506 --> 11:17.868
[SPEAKER_03]: I was immediately thinking, I wonder if they passed those out.
11:18.028 --> 11:22.851
[SPEAKER_03]: Those people really make those signs or they just trying to pop the guys behind the scenes.
11:22.891 --> 11:23.232
[SPEAKER_03]: Who knows?
11:25.917 --> 11:53.045
[SPEAKER_01]: any time by the way if you do watch this show any time you hear Vince McMahon say what a maneuver and the entire cast say mind games or seem to commentary team say mind games you have to take a drink drunk within the first 15 minutes speaking which are you guys drinking tonight didn't even ask you just then what you got there g and t buddy g and t and the t rn oh yeah the top of the nation uh rock
11:53.940 --> 11:56.021
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to get that classic version.
11:56.842 --> 11:58.583
[SPEAKER_03]: I have one for God's sakes.
11:58.623 --> 11:59.623
[SPEAKER_03]: What, I just blew it.
11:59.864 --> 12:01.464
[SPEAKER_03]: I have one now and it could add on the pot.
12:01.585 --> 12:02.805
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think I did last month.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Did I?
12:03.125 --> 12:05.147
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I drank out of it.
12:05.207 --> 12:05.827
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you did.
12:06.147 --> 12:06.447
[SPEAKER_03]: Did I?
12:06.587 --> 12:08.929
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't even freaking remember, but I think you did.
12:09.550 --> 12:13.671
[SPEAKER_03]: I did get it and it is very nice good quality so I'm I'm pleased with it.
12:13.711 --> 12:21.014
[SPEAKER_03]: You guys can find those in our our shop if you want to tear in classics glass both rocks glass or pint glass available right now.
12:22.074 --> 12:22.875
[SPEAKER_03]: Jesse you got anything.
12:23.495 --> 12:25.636
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately not but athletic.
12:26.736 --> 12:28.477
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's tasty.
12:28.917 --> 12:29.177
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
12:29.937 --> 12:35.099
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I got a certain I got I'm that's all Minnesota for me, Jesse because I got a certainly furious.
12:36.563 --> 12:41.025
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is poured in my electric fetus, Minneapolis, pint glass.
12:41.445 --> 12:41.745
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
12:42.125 --> 12:43.186
[SPEAKER_03]: Great record store, so.
12:43.446 --> 12:44.686
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, indeed it is.
12:44.706 --> 12:47.187
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I was subconsciously thinking of you, Jesse.
12:48.308 --> 12:49.228
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much.
12:50.029 --> 12:51.769
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to backtrack a smidgen.
12:51.889 --> 12:54.330
[SPEAKER_01]: We were talking about papering houses and things.
12:55.091 --> 13:00.933
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing I was looking at was it was not just this month, but also August and October.
13:01.593 --> 13:05.055
[SPEAKER_01]: They taped four weeks worth of raw shows at the same venue.
13:06.371 --> 13:06.831
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, really?
13:06.851 --> 13:08.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, I didn't realize.
13:08.091 --> 13:08.452
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
13:09.532 --> 13:14.313
[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy because the next night a lot of things kind of went down after mine games.
13:14.913 --> 13:25.816
[SPEAKER_01]: I just was curious what went down and then it just showed me all of the next four rods were all taped the same, the same, same sitting, same thing with August, same thing with July.
13:25.896 --> 13:30.077
[SPEAKER_01]: So the WWF was definitely taking some cost-cutting measures there too.
13:30.677 --> 13:32.377
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably because business wasn't that good.
13:33.017 --> 13:35.558
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were doing a lot of how shows at this time as well.
13:37.239 --> 13:47.569
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, even with the paper, too, I mean, the fact that they did sell almost 12,000 tickets in this era is still kind of shocking to me, but I guess you don't feel a delphia, good market for them traditionally in the Northeast.
13:48.359 --> 13:49.659
[SPEAKER_01]: freshness of the venue.
13:49.939 --> 13:56.281
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is one thing and you're right with the market, especially with a certain small promotion, which we'll be talking about a little bit later.
13:56.481 --> 14:00.442
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that a handful of their fans bought some seats for this year as well.
14:01.082 --> 14:15.425
[SPEAKER_02]: I would be willing to bed just the NWO was heating up the entire industry, not just WCW2, was playing a part of it, because this is about the time that like it was definitely the time my life were the most people
14:17.162 --> 14:20.924
[SPEAKER_02]: around me, we're actually kind of talking about wrestling or watching wrestling.
14:21.004 --> 14:22.064
[SPEAKER_02]: It was everywhere.
14:23.325 --> 14:23.765
[SPEAKER_03]: For sure.
14:25.006 --> 14:28.548
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the paper view by rate for this show was a 0.48.
14:32.200 --> 14:36.422
[SPEAKER_03]: which is about 131,000 buys according to Russell Namix.
14:37.782 --> 14:42.144
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you compare that to like international incident, the prior in your house, that did 99,000.
14:42.224 --> 14:44.705
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was up quite a bit from that.
14:45.445 --> 14:46.586
[SPEAKER_03]: Summerslam 96 did 157.
14:47.466 --> 14:50.227
[SPEAKER_03]: So just below that, King of the Ring did 158.
14:50.347 --> 14:55.189
[SPEAKER_03]: And then if you go back to like beware of dog, they're at about 117,000.
14:57.784 --> 15:00.226
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, earlier in the year, good friends better enemies at it in your house.
15:00.286 --> 15:03.968
[SPEAKER_03]: It's at 165, so, you know, higher over that.
15:04.369 --> 15:07.751
[SPEAKER_03]: Very to live the next month, which you would think that's a, you know, a cool gimmick match.
15:07.791 --> 15:09.852
[SPEAKER_03]: You've already advertising it on their show.
00:01.516 --> 00:21.411
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00:22.031 --> 00:28.777
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01:07.724 --> 01:26.596
[SPEAKER_03]: So, 70 of top rope nation classics, technically your September edition of the show here on Patreon, go and back in time with September 1996 for WWF, in your house, mine games Ryan Drossie Jesse Velaska's Justin joint, the gang is all here.
01:27.436 --> 01:30.477
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a talk about a one match show, Joe.
01:32.718 --> 01:41.881
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was I was telling Ryan off air that I don't know if my notes have ever been worse for a show than this until we get to the main event.
01:42.221 --> 01:45.202
[SPEAKER_02]: The main event is literally my notes are
01:46.488 --> 01:49.769
[SPEAKER_02]: at least twice as long as all my other notes combined.
01:51.289 --> 01:51.909
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, same.
01:52.690 --> 01:53.290
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
01:53.790 --> 01:54.030
[SPEAKER_03]: Same.
01:54.110 --> 01:56.471
[SPEAKER_03]: Although, you know, it's not a great period for WWF.
01:56.511 --> 01:57.411
[SPEAKER_03]: It's better than 1995.
01:58.451 --> 02:02.452
[SPEAKER_03]: And I still get nostalgic for this era because I never missed a show.
02:02.912 --> 02:09.074
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, it wasn't hard given raw was one hour long, but I mean, I watched the, I watched Superstars every Sunday morning too.
02:09.094 --> 02:12.615
[SPEAKER_03]: This is right around the time when, let's see.
02:13.095 --> 02:14.576
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it action zone then on Saturday?
02:14.636 --> 02:16.197
[SPEAKER_03]: No, live wire started by then.
02:16.337 --> 02:22.601
[SPEAKER_03]: I was watching live wire too, which was mostly recap show, but it was, you know, they were doing the live stuff with the Collins and all of that.
02:22.782 --> 02:26.004
[SPEAKER_03]: I always watch that on the weekends at both they Saturday and Sunday.
02:26.044 --> 02:27.745
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was eating it up.
02:27.925 --> 02:31.968
[SPEAKER_03]: I was watching and consuming absolutely everything WW after in this era.
02:32.468 --> 02:46.239
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as poor as the undercard is of this show, I mean, it's no surprise that this is a favorite time of I assume all of ours, uh, be stone colds on the rise, you know, we were wondering what's going to happen with Brett.
02:46.279 --> 02:47.960
[SPEAKER_02]: He'd just signed his new contract.
02:48.401 --> 02:52.344
[SPEAKER_02]: The NWO is just a couple of months ahead of the time does new contract yet.
02:52.864 --> 02:53.484
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he hadn't.
02:53.625 --> 02:53.765
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
02:53.785 --> 02:59.369
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I just assumed so because, uh, they showed him on the show or that the challenges.
02:59.389 --> 02:59.669
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
02:59.789 --> 03:00.050
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
03:00.070 --> 03:00.330
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
03:01.588 --> 03:05.331
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to correct it because there's some drama going on behind the scenes, which I'll that's a teaser.
03:06.092 --> 03:13.518
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll bring that up, but yeah, I mean, they're to your point, Justin, there was a, there was a ton of things going on, absolutely.
03:13.618 --> 03:21.784
[SPEAKER_03]: In the world of pro wrestling, people jump in, you know, perfect would be out of here within a couple of months, too, not even, not even two months, like Bradford Survivor Series.
03:21.844 --> 03:27.069
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, a lot of things happening, Jesse, how, how was your fandom at this point
03:29.660 --> 03:39.983
[SPEAKER_01]: WCW Strictly, I was watching very little WWF at this point, although I do remember this match and seeing it within a few days of it.
03:40.443 --> 03:43.364
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how I even heard about it, which is crazy too.
03:43.784 --> 03:46.945
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's because I watched Summerslam 96 with my cousin.
03:47.885 --> 04:07.702
[SPEAKER_01]: And coming off of that, I was kind of curious about Michael's and then mankind of course a Paul Bear turning on Undertaker and where that feud was going and just wondering when the world who this man kind guy was, because I wasn't horribly familiar with much of his work back then, which we're going to be, probably highlighting him a lot on this show.
04:08.042 --> 04:10.644
[SPEAKER_01]: So strictly WCW and the other
04:16.126 --> 04:18.347
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not see this match for quite a long time.
04:18.868 --> 04:23.511
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember like the reputation of it getting out around not long after I was let's see.
04:24.587 --> 04:28.988
[SPEAKER_03]: I was in junior high, I was in seventh grade when this match happened, the show happened.
04:29.988 --> 04:36.690
[SPEAKER_03]: And I had a good group of friends at school that were wrestling fans, but most of them were like WCW bandwagon fans.
04:36.790 --> 04:43.512
[SPEAKER_03]: I knew who the real fans were that had been around the previous couple of years before and WO was blown up at this point in time.
04:44.172 --> 04:48.493
[SPEAKER_03]: And so most of the friends that I could get tapes from were getting WCW paper views.
04:49.393 --> 05:02.282
[SPEAKER_03]: And this was really before my parents started letting me or I've told the story of the show like one paper view a year that started in 97 so I had no way to see this I definitely got the whole show on a tape trade like late 90s probably.
05:04.901 --> 05:16.360
[SPEAKER_03]: But and then like the match was on a DVD maybe a Sean DVD early 2000 something like that and I definitely saw it on there, too But I think I got mine games as a whole on a on a tape trade.
05:16.380 --> 05:17.803
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that would have been the first time I saw it.
05:17.863 --> 05:19.005
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you what about you Justin?
05:20.102 --> 05:39.514
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to have rented it from my local video store because I like Jesse, I think I saw it pretty quickly after it happened, so I remember almost back to Mac watching mind games and summer slam with HBK invader and, you know, at the time.
05:40.696 --> 05:58.940
[SPEAKER_02]: I was trying really hard not to like Shawn Michaels because he had beaten Brett Hart for the world title at WrestleMania, but seeing those matches and just his ringwork in general, he won me over and we're going to get into it, but whole man, mankind won me over in a big time way after this show.
06:00.774 --> 06:01.374
[SPEAKER_03]: hard not to.
06:01.394 --> 06:03.216
[SPEAKER_03]: This made a van.
06:03.276 --> 06:04.937
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, absolutely incredible match.
06:05.618 --> 06:08.500
[SPEAKER_03]: A match that would be in the running for match of the year 96 for sure.
06:08.920 --> 06:10.001
[SPEAKER_03]: Certainly in North America.
06:11.142 --> 06:12.603
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I mean, the undercard isn't great.
06:12.703 --> 06:14.144
[SPEAKER_03]: As we'll talk about here in a little bit.
06:15.665 --> 06:20.809
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything else about the status, you know, like you said with Brett, we'll talk about that and what was going on.
06:20.849 --> 06:23.230
[SPEAKER_03]: He was almost back, but not quite.
06:24.331 --> 06:30.136
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we'll save the Brett talk for when they do this the segment with Pillman We jump real quick into the pop culture.
06:30.256 --> 06:42.206
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, I want to say second show in a row We've done on classics here that happened in Philadelphia so shout out to you Then's here different venue But another show in Philadelphia.
06:42.226 --> 06:45.008
[SPEAKER_03]: We just did summer slam 1990 which was at the old spectrum
06:45.897 --> 06:51.301
[SPEAKER_03]: And this one was at the Core State Center, had just opened in August of 1996.
06:51.421 --> 06:52.462
[SPEAKER_03]: I looked it up.
06:52.502 --> 06:54.804
[SPEAKER_03]: The first event there was a Ray Charles concert.
06:55.644 --> 06:58.727
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was not long after that, the following month.
06:58.747 --> 07:00.908
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't open the venue, but pretty darn close.
07:01.789 --> 07:10.636
[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, they would end up having, like, WrestleMania 15 in this venue, which would have been just over two years later.
07:11.737 --> 07:13.859
[SPEAKER_03]: and they've multiple paper views there over the years, too.
07:13.899 --> 07:17.681
[SPEAKER_03]: This was the first big one and also like a really big house for in your house.
07:18.221 --> 07:22.284
[SPEAKER_03]: They were mostly running, if I could say that word house more times than it.
07:23.085 --> 07:24.546
[SPEAKER_03]: Really big house for in your house.
07:24.866 --> 07:28.368
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they were running mostly mid-sized arenas for these shows.
07:28.388 --> 07:30.590
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like six to eight thousand people.
07:31.626 --> 07:34.228
[SPEAKER_03]: They had done international incident back in July.
07:34.268 --> 07:35.169
[SPEAKER_03]: That was in Vancouver.
07:35.189 --> 07:40.394
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was a big number, but you know, anytime they go out of the US, they always draw a little bit better.
07:40.414 --> 07:45.659
[SPEAKER_03]: But this is, this is one of the biggest, and it was the biggest gate they had ever done for an in-your-house.
07:45.699 --> 07:46.600
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll get to that in a second.
07:47.160 --> 07:48.261
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let's talk pop culture.
07:48.522 --> 07:50.023
[SPEAKER_03]: We've talked about 96 this year.
07:50.103 --> 07:54.247
[SPEAKER_03]: So real quick, we're fresher where we were in the world at this point in time in the sports world.
07:59.691 --> 08:08.655
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to full opia, Pennsylvania, the Prince, breaking brand new Horst State Center, the site of In Your House.
08:09.055 --> 08:10.675
[SPEAKER_00]: Mine games, everyone.
08:10.996 --> 08:16.698
[SPEAKER_00]: Benz the Man here, along with Mr. Perfect, along with Jim Ross, and we'll like to see some mine games here.
08:16.978 --> 08:20.580
[SPEAKER_03]: live from the Core State Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
08:20.640 --> 08:22.260
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have an exact number on this.
08:22.340 --> 08:24.301
[SPEAKER_03]: It's around 15,000 in the building.
08:24.822 --> 08:27.683
[SPEAKER_03]: They papered it, you know, to fill that place up mass of arena.
08:28.703 --> 08:31.585
[SPEAKER_03]: But according to Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer newsletter,
08:32.425 --> 08:44.208
[SPEAKER_03]: the paid crowd was 11,969 for a gate of 210,290 dollars, which was the all-time record for in your house.
08:44.808 --> 08:52.870
[SPEAKER_03]: He notes that the July 96 International Incident in Vancouver drew slightly more money, but that was in Canadian dollars.
08:53.651 --> 08:58.232
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was a record when it came to the overall worth of the gate in US dollars.
08:59.292 --> 09:16.270
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that was just that shocking considering the main event was basically cold it came out of nowhere that you know, they they deviated from their original plans, which I believe was Shawn Michaels and Jose Lothario versus Vader and Cornet.
09:17.031 --> 09:29.157
[SPEAKER_02]: But obviously, Michael's did not have a very good time with Vader, and so they pivoted to this match, so I'm shocked that it did so well, I'm curious what moved people to watch this.
09:30.157 --> 09:43.303
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, it's kind of interesting because, you know, we always think of this as a down period, but when they, you know, once in a while, they would do big houses, you know, they paper them a little bit, obviously, you know, Royal Rumble 97 at the Alamo dome, a lot of paper there, but they got a bunch of people in the building.
09:44.173 --> 10:05.447
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, they're running TV and pretty small venues for the most part once in a while they'd run these bigger arenas and have a pretty large crowd, you know, so like I said international incident in Vancouver there's about 15,000 in the building that night to they're really, really close, but yeah, they end up getting about 15,000 in there big crowd as I said a little bit ago.
10:06.032 --> 10:09.359
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they're a month, a month into opening this brand new arena.
10:09.379 --> 10:11.404
[SPEAKER_03]: They mentioned several times on the broadcast.
10:11.444 --> 10:14.209
[SPEAKER_03]: It's brand new and a beautiful new building and all of that.
10:15.383 --> 10:17.764
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, and we're off to the races.
10:17.844 --> 10:19.685
[SPEAKER_03]: We get that intro video.
10:19.785 --> 10:24.768
[SPEAKER_03]: It pretty much focuses on Sean and mankind, versus a taker and gold us.
10:24.808 --> 10:28.390
[SPEAKER_03]: So, sorry, Cornette and Withario, you didn't make the intro hype video.
10:29.910 --> 10:31.591
[SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty decent hype video though.
10:31.771 --> 10:33.072
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, does it's job?
10:33.112 --> 10:37.894
[SPEAKER_03]: You get to, I believe it was Todd Pettengill, if I recall correctly, the voiceover was still on there.
10:38.014 --> 10:42.837
[SPEAKER_03]: Once in a while on these shows, they'll take Todd out, and you can tell they had Michael Cole, like redo it.
10:43.357 --> 10:54.790
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess to avoid paying royalties to pet and go I know that's the case on some of the I think WrestleMania 12 when we talked about that they'd read on the voice over not on this show pet and goes on there
10:55.532 --> 11:03.638
[SPEAKER_03]: And we get welcomed in to the show by Vince McMahon, Mr. Perfect Kurt Henning, and Jim Ross at Ringside.
11:04.478 --> 11:09.722
[SPEAKER_03]: And as they built up the show, I just thought there was some conveniently placed signs right behind them.
11:09.742 --> 11:15.186
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like a Tony guerrilla sign and a Vince as God sign or something like that.
11:15.506 --> 11:17.868
[SPEAKER_03]: I was immediately thinking, I wonder if they passed those out.
11:18.028 --> 11:22.851
[SPEAKER_03]: Those people really make those signs or they just trying to pop the guys behind the scenes.
11:22.891 --> 11:23.232
[SPEAKER_03]: Who knows?
11:25.917 --> 11:53.045
[SPEAKER_01]: any time by the way if you do watch this show any time you hear Vince McMahon say what a maneuver and the entire cast say mind games or seem to commentary team say mind games you have to take a drink drunk within the first 15 minutes speaking which are you guys drinking tonight didn't even ask you just then what you got there g and t buddy g and t and the t rn oh yeah the top of the nation uh rock
11:53.940 --> 11:56.021
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to get that classic version.
11:56.842 --> 11:58.583
[SPEAKER_03]: I have one for God's sakes.
11:58.623 --> 11:59.623
[SPEAKER_03]: What, I just blew it.
11:59.864 --> 12:01.464
[SPEAKER_03]: I have one now and it could add on the pot.
12:01.585 --> 12:02.805
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think I did last month.
12:02.845 --> 12:03.105
[SPEAKER_03]: Did I?
12:03.125 --> 12:05.147
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I drank out of it.
12:05.207 --> 12:05.827
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you did.
12:06.147 --> 12:06.447
[SPEAKER_03]: Did I?
12:06.587 --> 12:08.929
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't even freaking remember, but I think you did.
12:09.550 --> 12:13.671
[SPEAKER_03]: I did get it and it is very nice good quality so I'm I'm pleased with it.
12:13.711 --> 12:21.014
[SPEAKER_03]: You guys can find those in our our shop if you want to tear in classics glass both rocks glass or pint glass available right now.
12:22.074 --> 12:22.875
[SPEAKER_03]: Jesse you got anything.
12:23.495 --> 12:25.636
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately not but athletic.
12:26.736 --> 12:28.477
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's tasty.
12:28.917 --> 12:29.177
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
12:29.937 --> 12:35.099
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I got a certain I got I'm that's all Minnesota for me, Jesse because I got a certainly furious.
12:36.563 --> 12:41.025
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is poured in my electric fetus, Minneapolis, pint glass.
12:41.445 --> 12:41.745
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
12:42.125 --> 12:43.186
[SPEAKER_03]: Great record store, so.
12:43.446 --> 12:44.686
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, indeed it is.
12:44.706 --> 12:47.187
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I was subconsciously thinking of you, Jesse.
12:48.308 --> 12:49.228
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much.
12:50.029 --> 12:51.769
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to backtrack a smidgen.
12:51.889 --> 12:54.330
[SPEAKER_01]: We were talking about papering houses and things.
12:55.091 --> 13:00.933
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing I was looking at was it was not just this month, but also August and October.
13:01.593 --> 13:05.055
[SPEAKER_01]: They taped four weeks worth of raw shows at the same venue.
13:06.371 --> 13:06.831
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, really?
13:06.851 --> 13:08.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, I didn't realize.
13:08.091 --> 13:08.452
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
13:09.532 --> 13:14.313
[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy because the next night a lot of things kind of went down after mine games.
13:14.913 --> 13:25.816
[SPEAKER_01]: I just was curious what went down and then it just showed me all of the next four rods were all taped the same, the same, same sitting, same thing with August, same thing with July.
13:25.896 --> 13:30.077
[SPEAKER_01]: So the WWF was definitely taking some cost-cutting measures there too.
13:30.677 --> 13:32.377
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably because business wasn't that good.
13:33.017 --> 13:35.558
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were doing a lot of how shows at this time as well.
13:37.239 --> 13:47.569
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, even with the paper, too, I mean, the fact that they did sell almost 12,000 tickets in this era is still kind of shocking to me, but I guess you don't feel a delphia, good market for them traditionally in the Northeast.
13:48.359 --> 13:49.659
[SPEAKER_01]: freshness of the venue.
13:49.939 --> 13:56.281
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is one thing and you're right with the market, especially with a certain small promotion, which we'll be talking about a little bit later.
13:56.481 --> 14:00.442
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that a handful of their fans bought some seats for this year as well.
14:01.082 --> 14:15.425
[SPEAKER_02]: I would be willing to bed just the NWO was heating up the entire industry, not just WCW2, was playing a part of it, because this is about the time that like it was definitely the time my life were the most people
14:17.162 --> 14:20.924
[SPEAKER_02]: around me, we're actually kind of talking about wrestling or watching wrestling.
14:21.004 --> 14:22.064
[SPEAKER_02]: It was everywhere.
14:23.325 --> 14:23.765
[SPEAKER_03]: For sure.
14:25.006 --> 14:28.548
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the paper view by rate for this show was a 0.48.
14:32.200 --> 14:36.422
[SPEAKER_03]: which is about 131,000 buys according to Russell Namix.
14:37.782 --> 14:42.144
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you compare that to like international incident, the prior in your house, that did 99,000.
14:42.224 --> 14:44.705
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was up quite a bit from that.
14:45.445 --> 14:46.586
[SPEAKER_03]: Summerslam 96 did 157.
14:47.466 --> 14:50.227
[SPEAKER_03]: So just below that, King of the Ring did 158.
14:50.347 --> 14:55.189
[SPEAKER_03]: And then if you go back to like beware of dog, they're at about 117,000.
14:57.784 --> 15:00.226
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, earlier in the year, good friends better enemies at it in your house.
15:00.286 --> 15:03.968
[SPEAKER_03]: It's at 165, so, you know, higher over that.
15:04.369 --> 15:07.751
[SPEAKER_03]: Very to live the next month, which you would think that's a, you know, a cool gimmick match.
15:07.791 --> 15:09.852
[SPEAKER_03]: You've already advertising it on their show.