Throwback Thursday: Looking back at WWE In Your House 10: Mind Games

Each and every Thursday, I will look back at a different event pay-per-view event wrestling history via the WWE Network. Want to see a certain event covered here? Send your suggestions to @VaughnMJohnson on Twitter.

Last week, I looked back at WCW Fall Brawl 1994.

WWE In Your House 10: Mind Games

Date: September 22, 1996

Venue: CoreStates Center (Wells Fargo Center), Philadelphia, Pa.

Match Results:

Caribbean Strap Match - Savio Vega def. Justin Bradshaw

Jose Lothario def. Jim Cornette

WWE Tag Team Championship – Owen Hart & The British Bulldog def. The Smoking Gunns (Bart & Billy Gunn)

Mark Henry def. Jerry Lawler

Final Curtain Match – The Undertaker def. Goldust

WWE Championship – Shawn Michaels def. Mankind via disqualification

Observations:

- Mind Games was the first wrestling event ever to take place in the CoreStates Center here in Philadelphia, which now of course is known as the Wells Fargo Center. The event took place merely weeks after the building officially opened.

- Because the show was in Philadelphia in the year 1996, there were some very loud ECW chants throughout the night. It wasn't just because Philadelphians were so attached to Extreme Championship Wrestling. It was also because The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer were among ECW wrestlers that were sitting in the front row during the show. When The Sandman spit a drink into Savio Vega's face, it was clearly an angle. The angle, of course, was the mini-invasion ECW did on WWE television to promote Barely Legal, the promotion's first-ever foray into pay-per-view.

- Speaking of Vega, he and Bradshaw beat the holy hell out of each other during their Caribbean strap match. Stiff work between the two was to be expected as for one, it's a Caribbean strap match, but also because Vega and Bradshaw are both strong, tough guys. They worked like that pretty much every night — minus the strap, of course.

- The opposite of tough would be Jim Cornette and he showed why during Mind Games. Firstly, Cornette came to the ring in some horrible and very unflattering wrestling gear that made him look every bit of 350 pounds. Cornette was never known as skinny back then, but it almost looked like he was wearing some sort of fat suit, but in this case the fat suit was his own body. Secondly, Jose Lothario beat him in maybe two minutes. Quite frankly, that's the way the match should have gone. There's no way Cornette should get an ounce offense in against Lothario, who had built his name and legend wrestling people much tougher than Cornette.

- Do not be alarmed. That was not really Diesel and Razor Ramon that beat up Vega in the locker room area. By that point, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were firmly in place with World Championship Wrestling. But no one really knew that, as they were pretending to be WWE guys invading WCW. WWE's response: get Rick Bognar and Glenn Jacobs to play pretend versions of the characters. Bognar was better known as Rick Titan, but never went on to have any major success. Jacobs recovered quite nicely from the fake Diesel debacle, as he became Kane. Between Dr. Isaac Yankem, DDS and fake Diesel, Jacobs' career in WWE could have been over before it even started, but fortunately for him he managed to survive those terrible gimmicks. The next night, however, Jim Ross showed the world the fake Ramon and the fake Diesel.

- There was a segment on the pay-per-view where they showed Farooq and Marc Mero arguing with each other on one of the old WWE hot lines. That wasn't really anything special. The real noticeable thing was that Farooq was still wearing that awful Centurion helmet. Who thought that was a good idea? To have a former WCW World Champion whose black wear a blue Centurion helmet. Farooq is another lucky man to survive a horrible gimmick, as he enjoyed great success as the leader of the Nation of Domination and as the APA with Bradshaw. But the image of him in that damn helmet will never escape my mind.

- There was a Steve Austin promo in the middle of the show during the infancy stages of the "Stone Cold" character. Austin didn't even have his classic music with the glass shattering yet and he was only a couple of months removed from his historic win at the King of the Ring. He along with Brian Pillman took the microphone and took time to bash the city of Philadelphia and then called out Bret Hart for being scared to show up at the show. Hart was in the middle of a vacation of sorts, but Austin's poking and prodding in storyline eventually led to a match between the two the Survivor Series a couple of months later. Hart was supposed to move on from Austin and face Michaels at WrestleMania 13, but Michaels suffered a bad knee injury and couldn't compete. So, plans changed and Hart was paired with Austin for a second time. That second time turned out to be that fantastic submission match that essentially made Austin's career.

- While Austin's career was beginning to crank into high gear, Mark Henry's was just beginning as he made his WWE in-ring debut on this show. Henry easily defeated Jerry "The King" Lawler, who had been talking about how much he was going to school Henry because he had leaps and bounds more experience than he did. Henry shut up Lawler (for a little while at least), but did so in probably the most horrible singlet I have ever seen. Henry was an Olympian, so that meant he was going to have to don stars and stripes in some way. The only problem is that Henry is a rather large man and stars and stripes probably don't suit him well, even in 1996. Kurt Angle, a much smaller man, pulled it off. Henry did not. However, the singlet he wears today looks much better. Please don't hurt me, Mr. Henry.

- In a classic Owen Hart rib, he and the British Bulldog managed to gain access to one of Sunny's posters before their match with the Smoking Gunns and defamed it. Hart is widely known as a big jokester in the locker room, so this angle was very fitting for him. Hart and Bulldog made Sunny even madder when they defeated the Smoking Gunns for the WWE Tag Team Championships, which made Sunny dump the Gunns after the loss. Billy Gunn looked so pitiful chasing Sunny down afterward.

- Although I did not understand the stipulation, the match between The Undertaker and Goldust was very good. It's amazing to think that as good as Goldust was back then, he's gotten even better during his most recent run in WWE. Again, it wasn't that Goldust wasn't good back in 1996 because he was. He was very good in the ring and his match with The Undertaker was a prime example of that, but it goes to show how far he's come over the years.

- The Undertaker-Goldust match was only topped by the main event between Shawn Michaels and Mankind for the WWE Championship. This match was great for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was simply a great fight between two excellent workers. Secondly, it accomplished something that was very important. It gave Michaels a mean streak. Until that point, Michaels as the pretty boy that possessed amazing athletic ability. But when he went up against the demented Mankind, he had to show a darker side to him and he did. I thought it was masterfully done and both men came away from the match looking better because of it.

- The only thing I didn't like about the match was that it ended in a disqualification because of interference from Vader. I understand that the WWE didn't want to pin either man, as Michaels was the top guy as champion and Mankind was already booked for a Buried Alive match with The Undertaker at the next In Your House, but this match was so good I felt it deserved a definitive ending. We didn't get that and it was kind of a letdown.

- What wasn't a letdown was the hilarious reaction Paul Bearer had to The Undertaker popping up in the casket he and Mankind brought to the ring. Bearer jumped and down and literally yelped at the sight of The Undertaker. The fans in Philadelphia went crazy when he jumped out of the casket, which I guess made up for the jumbled finish to the title match.