10 Best WWE In Your House Matches EVER
The choice of a New Generation and the saviours of future ones.
NXT's decision to bring back the In Your House branding for their upcoming TakeOver special might have been motivated by more than just a bit of celebratory nostalgia, but the giddy thrill of those hovering just below their key demographic - your writer included - highlighted how effective it was at providing just that.
Contrary to similar requests for the return of Halloween Havoc, the original King Of The Ring or WarGames (before NXT actually managed that one) the vaunted title wasn't devised around a very specific theme or stipulation other than the fact that - like every other pay-per-view - it would be in the viewer's house. At a push, the identity was the stage. A giant cartoonish house for a set was emblematic of the company's overall ethos at the time, as was the brightly coloured lettering and divisive blue-and-yellow "WWF" logo that atop it.
These are likely the only significant touches fans will expect from NXT's version, not least because the black-and-gold brand can't reanimate the best and brightest from the New Generation to go at the level they did in the mid-1990s. Not enough people were investing at the time and more's the pity - the work on these shows was closer to a standard TakeOver in style and form than anything that had come before...
10. Bret Hart Vs Jean-Pierre Lafitte (In Your House 3)
Triple H tells the story his "Curtain Call" punishment coming with a line from Vince McMahon about eating platefuls of sh*t and learning to like the taste of it. What then, had Bret Hart done to practically drown in the stuff a year earlier?
'The Hitman' had failed to draw as Champion in 1994, but retained the deeper affection of those that did stick with the company post-Hulk Hogan. Alongside Shawn Michaels and select others, he dragged the product kicking and screaming into a new generation before the company branded it as such. For that, he was cast as a racist to fight a ninja, made to feud with a dentist and here, take on a real life pirate that had stolen one of his many ring jackets.
Of course, the pirate was working big man Jean-Pierre Lafitte and Bret Hart was The Best There Ever Will Be, so their lone pay-per-view singles match was a total triumph for the art-form in the face of a totally artless build. Hart took heavy blows in a battle of power over finesse, reducing his own established stature before evading Lafitte's riskier assaults to claim back his f*cking jacket it mattered half as much as the match had just made it seem.