IWF Judgment Day: In Your House

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Judgment Day: In Your House was the twenty-fifth In Your House professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by International Wrestling Federation (IWF), which took place on October 18, 1998, at the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois. It was the first pay-per-view titled Judgment Day as IWF were giving all pay-per-views under the In Your House banner unique names. When this pattern stopped in 2000, Judgment Day was one of the In Your House titles picked to be used on an annual basis.

Nine professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card. The main event saw The Undertaker and (wrestler)|Kane fighting each other, despite their alliance at the time, for the IWF Championship which was vacant at the time after company owner Vince Matteson stripped former champion Stone Cold Steve Austin to further the storyline. Austin was made special guest referee for the match, a role he was not keen to accept. The card included four other championship matches. All IWF championships except the IWF Women's Championship, which had been reinstated only a month before,

Background

Breakdown: In Your House finished with both The Undertaker and Kane simultaneously pinning the IWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin. Vince Matteson retrieved the belt and the following evening on Raw is War, called Undertaker and Kane to the ring to crown a new champion, intending to award the title to both men. However, Austin stormed the building on an ice resurfacer, assaulting Matteson before being arrested and taken away. Matteson then reneged on awarding the brothers the title, saying that Kane and Undertaker did not live up to their obligation to protect him from Austin. Instead, he ordered both of them to face each other for the vacant championship and named Austin the special guest referee for the match in order to see him "suffer the indignity" of having to count the fall and award the title to one of the men who caused him to lose it. Matteson then insulted the two men, calling Kane and Undertaker "handicapped" physically and mentally, and made an obscene gesture toward the pair; they responded by breaking his leg with the ring stairs.

Austin, meanwhile, declared he would not cooperate with Matteson and in a promo on Raw on October 12 he said that the only hand he would raise in victory would be his. Matteson responded by threatening to publicly fire Austin at the pay-per-view if he did not perform his duties properly and raise the arm of the winner.

Dustin Runnels began preaching evangelistic-style condemnation against the controversies of the Attitude Era, specifically the sexual content. On Sunday Night Heat, on September 13, Runnels was walking through the crowd carrying a sign expressing his views when he decided to jump the barrier and assault Val Venis, whose gimmick was that of an pornographic film star, from behind with the sign. The next night on Raw, Venis responded by showing Runnels one of his films, The Preacher's Wife, which showed Venis with Runnels' wife, Terri Runnels. The two met at the Breakdown: In Your House pay-per-view with Venis coming out on top due to interference from Terri. The following night on Raw, Runnels revealed the nature of his evangelist message "He is coming" when the arena turned gold and a video played, presaging the return of his erstwhile persona, Goldust. During Heat on the night of Judgment Day: In Your House, Goldust further mocked Venis by sending him a present as he was guest commentating. It was a gold-coated protective cup.

Irate at being hospitalized by Kane and The Undertaker, Vince Matteson returned to work and instantly stripped Triple K of his Intercontinental Title mid-week on October 9 due to a knee injury. A quick tournament was held the following week on Raw is War, which saw Ken Shamrock crowned with his first IWF championship after assaulting X-Pac (Sean McCurry) to aid him in the final.

After losing the European Championship to X-Pac on the September 21 episode of Raw is War, D'Lo Brown got a rematch and won the title back when X-Pac was caught on the outside of the ring by Nation member Mark Henry, who ran X-Pac into the ring post and then back into the ring, setting him up for a Lo Down from Brown.

Event

Sunday Night Heat

Before the broadcast began Steve Blackman pinned Bradshaw after a pump kick. Also The Oddities (Giant Silva, Kurrgan, & Golga) defeated Los Boricuas (Jose Estrada, Miguel Perez, Jr., & Jesús Castillo) by pinfall after Golga struck Castillo with the Avalanche Splash. The final two non-pay-per-view matches were The Godfather using a thrust kick on Faarooq before pinning him and Jeff Jarrett lost to Scorpio with a roll-up pin.

Preliminary matches

The actual pay-per-view started with Al Snow facing Marc Mero. Before the match, Jeff Jarrett came to the ring, trying to goad Snow into a fight. While Snow was distracted with Jarrett, Mero hit him from behind but it did little to help his plight, Snow slamming Mero from an Irish whip and landing him on the ground several times. Mero tried taunting Snow by attacking Head but Snow stopped him before he could manage it and later in the match, Snow moonsaulted onto Mero but rather than attempt a pin he was distracted by Jacqueline on the apron, allowing Mero to lowblow him. Mero then replied with his own moonsault crossbody but could not secure a three count. Snow then gained momentum after his trademark series of headbutts, followed by an enziguiri. When he tried another moonsault, though, Jacqueline pulled Mero out of the way reversing the match briefly until Snow rolled out of a Wild Thing, only stopping a pin count with his foot on the bottom rope. In the ensuing struggle Mero set up the TKO but as he swung Snow round, the wrestler found his way back onto his feet and pinned Mero after a Snow Plow.

The six-man tag team match began with Animal being whipped around the ring by Skull but after clearing him from the ring, Hawk was tagged in and despite some reversal attempts on Skull, continued to dominate until he tagged in Droz who, after being distracted by 8-Ball on the ring apron, suffered at the hands of Disciples of Apocalypse who illegally choked him in the corner. Eventually Paul Ellering made a brief appearance, kicking Droz before tagging back out. With a flukey DDT, Droz managed to pause the match, eventually making a tag to Hawk and as all of the six man fought, Droz took Ellering and 8-Ball out of the ring. Skull, meanwhile, was set up for the Doomsday Device after which Droz ran back in the ring and took the pin, despite not being the legal man, much to the chagrin of Hawk.

The first of five championship matches, for the IWF Light Heavyweight Championship, started with the champion Taka Michinoku kicking Christian out of the ring and flooring him with a suicide top rope crossbody. When Christian tried to reenter the ring, kicks to his midsection left him hanging on the rope and Taka flew a knee drop onto him. Christian managed to gain some momentum after kicking out of the turnbuckle, slowing Taka's dynamism with a falling reverse DDT and afterward delivering a succession of two suplexes and a facebuster. With Taka thrown out of the ring, Christian mimicked the champion with a suicidal crossbody dive. The match was reset even after a big splash from Christian left him floored. Christian then became the recipient of a dropkick to the outside, then a baseball slide finished by an Asai Moonsault. His gesturing to the crowd allowed Christian some rest time though, and Taka could not pin Christian inside the ring, especially after he escaped a Michinoku Driver II. A second attempt at the driver was reversed into a cradle pin, allowing Christian to win the championship on his debut appearance, with Edge watching on from the back of the crowd.

Main event

Aftermath

Results

References

External links