WWE In Your House Mind Games

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Wells Fargo Center

September 22, 1996

Mankind was such an unnerving character for 1996 WWE.

This was a time when occupation gimmicks were still being introduced. With garbage men, race care drivers, dentists, hockey goons running amuck, nothing would have told you the Attitude Era was approaching. One could argue Mick Foley was like an atomic bomb dropped on the New Generation, or whatever this bridge between eras was called. Foley debuted on TV with these disturbing vignettes that made me instantly uncomfortable. He portrayed an abused, child prodigy piano player, neglected by his parents whom only found solace with his pet rat, George. On its surface, that premise alone should have made this too goofy from the onset. Especially when you factor in that the vignettes were clearly filmed in Stamford inside a lair that was not-entirely too dissimilar to the one Jake Roberts betrayed the Ultimate Warrior at. Nevermind, shit got real the moment Mick spoke as Mankind. The tremorous tenor of his voice, the high-pitched squealing, the bald spot shaved into his head in some sort of debased humiliation. It was a lot to ask of an audience still catering towards children. I would want to look away; Mankind reminded me of kids in my school district that were clearly suffering from abuse and neglect themselves. But I couldn’t stop watching, mesmerized like a car crash, as the intent of his overall presentation.

Contrast Mick with Shawn Michaels at this time. The edge of his character from 1995 was given a nice corporate sheen, Vince not learning anything from Diesel’s demise the year prior, as Shawn would pander toward “the Kliq,” a recycled plea to Hulkamaniacs and Little Warriors and the like. He came out of WrestleMania strong against Diesel in a No Holds Barred classic, and if that was his character you could argue he would have done better, but Vince kept him saddled with Jose Lothario for God knows why. Vince also sent out a mixed message to his audience by continuously proclaiming Shawn to be, “The Most Flamboyant WWE Champion of All Time,” all the while having Goldust lean into homophobia with his gay overtures as the motivation for the character of Goldust to be beaten up as an antagonist. Shawn needed an edge, and Mick Foley would give it to him at In Your House: Mind Games 1996.

The match needed something, anything to make it memorable. In Your House PPVs had already been established as the lesser-tier product of the WWE shows, where title switches didn’t happen and a weeks of storylines could just be recapped as effectively with narration under stills opening up the next night’s Raw. They went into this PPV very cold, with the only thing really going on was Jim Cornette and Jose Lothario having something of a rivalry that absolutely nobody gave too shits about.

Mick Foley would later describe going into this match in the best shape of his life so he could hang with Shawn from a conditioning standpoint. Mick was determined to steal the show, and make something from nothing by giving Shawn his edge.

The match started off hot with a cactus clothesline to the outside, and when Mankind went to expose the concrete by pulling off the blue mats surrounding the ring, Michales dropkicked the mats themselves and stomped Mankind underneath them. It was such an effective small spot. Who knows if it hurt or not, but it looked like there was no way for Mick to really protect himself. It told the story that Shawn was able to bring out a rage inside him, his character in kayfabe knew he’d have to bring it to Mankind as his only means for survival. Every punch Shawn threw at Mick looked stiff, again, not sure if Mick allowed Shawn to outright throw un-pulled hands at him like Mick had allowed with previous opponents before, but it played into Shawn’s reputation of being a dick backstage, too.

Speaking of Shawn’s prickly nature, they did a great, cute spot where Mankind intentionally wasn’t where he was supposed to be as a reference to Shawn’s meltdown towards Vader at SummerSlam just prior. They ended up brawling and Shawn laid in what looked like more and more convincingly real potatoes. It suited both of their characters; Mankind as a monster who can just absorb punishment with an unknown depth to how much pain he secretly covets, and Shawn is an asshole in real life that has to be an in-ring asshole to have a fighting chance against Mankind, all the while Shawn is still playing in Mankind’s hands who believes there’s no degradation or torture he hasn’t already felt.

Shawn attacked Mankind’s knee with trips into the steps, and chop blocks and a dragon screw whip. He put on a figure four, and then a single leg crab. Mankind got the advantage back by reversing a hurricanrana attempt by Shawn into a stun gun to the ropes. With a breather, Mankind got the feelings back in his legs as only Mankind can by stabbing his knee repeatedly with a pen loaned by Paul Bearer. Mick was so creative with his offense and what he’d do to make himself and spots different. The commentary echoed this by stating, “He doesn’t care about self-mutilation, look at his body—it’s ravaged.” Followed by Vince McMahon on commentary pondering, “What about his mind?”

Later, Shawn tossed Mankind into the ropes with the hangman spot, Mick’s head trapped in the ropes like a vice. Certainly Turner lawyers were not amused. While trapped, Mankind got the mandible claw on Shawn in a great visual.

Once released, Shawn tossed Mick into the barricade outside the ring. Mick crumpled and collapsed convincingly like he was concussed. Shawn grabbed a chair, Mick punched it accidentally with the mandible claw hand, and Shawn took the chair and hit Mick’s knees with a golf club swing. Opening found, Shawn attacked Mick’s fingers and hands, repeatedly kicking Mankind under the announcer’s reinforcing that Shawn is doing it to avoid the claw. Mick sold it brilliantly by making a point to dangle his hands over the camera lens trying to separate this fingers to heighten their disfigurement.

Earlier in the evening, Mankind cut a promo that was clearly anti-Philly, just to ensure he wouldn’t be cheered by one of the smarter crowds in wrestling. Mankind dipped into a few of Cactus Jack’s greatest hits, backdropping Shawn over the top rope and then hitting the running elbow off the apron. Mankind went deeper in his catalogue, and did the running baseball slide into a swinging neck-breaker. Double-arm DDT as well. The fans were so lost into this they weren’t chanting for Cactus.

Mankind could only get a two count after a piledriver, so he had a meltdown, pulling his hair out in clumps, before throwing chairs inside. Mankind tried to psych out Shawn by shoving him into the casket he rode to ringside in (and creating the “magical” misdirection surprise of Undertaker suddenly appearing in it later). The casket spot pissed Shawn off and he regained control with punches and then a flying forearm.

Mankind broke up Shawn’s offense by crouching him on the top rope. Mankind attempted a back body drop to the outside and Shawn reverses it mid-air to a crossbody through the serendipitously angled Spanish announce table.

In a great spot that blurred the 4th wall, Vince McMahon got off his headset and crouched down next to referee Earl Hebner, making a point to talk with his hands to indicate a list of possible amendments. Vince addressed Shawn with a “Stop it,” and Michaels said no and waved him off. I, like many fans at the time, thought Vince was calling an audible in the moment and directing the finish on the fly to be a DQ. Instead of it being too cute and overthought, it works within the context of the match as they go right to the finish, with Mankind eating a top rope superkick off a chair into a chair he was holding in a Van Daminator of sorts. That should have been the finish, and had it been, this match would have possibly been remembered more fondly. It wouldn’t have hurt Mick to eat a pin and kick out right after three. But instead, Vader ran in for the DQ. Sad attacked Vader. Mankind rose back up and went for the mandible claw, only to have Taker come out of the casket to end the show. It’s still a spectacular finish even if it’s not the conclusive one we wanted.

I know in principal, some feel a DQ finish and a 5 star match are non-compatible. Clearly, I think otherwise. As Mick Foley would talk about this match later, if you erase the last 15 or so seconds of this match, it’s a sure-fire, undeniable 5 star classic. And it’s not like the finish was so stupid or was grossly insulting.

It’s puzzling that they never had another marque match again. No PPV rematch, and only a tag and singles match on Raw the next year. Which is baffling, especially when you consider that Mick seemingly had no problem putting Shawn over when Michaels was a headcase, and Shawn actually seemed like he was having fun with Mick, which he didn’t always demonstrate during the great matches he would have in 96 and 97. The denial of another go around made it more of a forbidden fruit.

In 1999 Mick published his seminal memoir, Have a Nice Day, and the match itself is mentioned in such scant details. Maybe a page gets devoted to this match, even though Mick wrote that it was a forgotten classic and that he considered it one of the three best things he’s done in his career. It’s crazy because Mick devoted so many words to the Hell in a Cell match and the batshit deathmatches from Japan but this just sort of slipped by, too, almost adding to its diminished status. And let’s not forget, the industry had changed so much in just a few years, 1996 and 1999 were almost entirely different companies for WWE. By that time, Shawn, while not forgotten, had been retired and was thought of then as a casualty to hard living and too many bumps. Steve Austin and The Rock had risen to become the biggest stars in the industry, and they sucked the oxygen out of every room they were in, it’s almost like they gobbled up the past and made it a bygone era. But Mick was still there and he was never as big of a star as he was during that time, so what changed?

The match, like movies or albums that get forgotten by time, crept up in its legendary status. The advent of WWE DVDs made this match circulate. Desperate for content to fill up a three disc set of eight hours of wrestling, some match had to go on there, and this was one of those matches that seemingly always got anthologized. I’d argue that when you put this match compared to the bigger matches both men had in 1996, say, Mankind vs Undertaker or Shawn vs Bret, this match was undeniably a better viewing experience and one would watch on repeat viewing like it was Goodfellas.

I’ll chose to remember this match for what it was during the duration of it, and for it never being repeated, then what it wasn’t for just a few moments at the end.

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