In Your House 13: Final Four (1997): One Great Main Event, One New Champion, and a Company Learning to Get Meaner

Mero and Cassidy open with a technically competent match that never finds a reason for the crowd to care. Cassidy attacks the leg and spends most of the middle controlling it with holds, including the figure four, while Mero sells long enough to establish a clear structure. The work is not sloppy; it is simply inert.

Sable becomes more important to the crowd than either wrestler. She helps Mero reach the ropes, slaps Cassidy on the floor and creates the opening for Mero's comeback. That dynamic tells the truth about where the act is heading even if it does little for the match itself.

Mero eventually hits the Wild Thing for the pin despite the extended leg work. The finish looks spectacular and makes the preceding damage feel largely cosmetic. Nine and a half minutes is not an outrageous runtime, but the match feels longer because nobody in the building believes the result is in doubt.

The six-man tag has one obvious advantage over the opener: it understands that six and a half minutes do not require a thesis. The wrestlers brawl immediately, Flash Funk dives onto the Nation and the match settles into a short heat segment before Bart Gunn receives the hot tag. Nobody is asked to do more than the card position needs.

Funk is the athletic highlight. His top-rope offense gives the match a different texture, while Faarooq, Crush and Savio Vega use numbers and referee distraction to maintain the Nation's heel identity. The action is crowded but rarely confusing because the finish arrives before repetition can become a problem.

Crush drops a leg on Gunn while the referee is occupied, allowing Faarooq to score the pin. It is another protected ending on a card with too many of them, but the match is brief enough to escape without serious damage. This is functional faction maintenance, nothing more.

Maivia and Helmsley are compelling here mostly because history makes it impossible not to inspect them for traces of what they become. Helmsley is already comfortable controlling pace and drawing heat, while Maivia is athletic, earnest and still visibly learning how to connect the spaces between moves. The match is a first draft of a rivalry that will eventually carry main events.

Helmsley does most of the structural work, using the floor, chinlocks and familiar knee offense to keep Maivia underneath. Rocky's comebacks are energetic but occasionally awkward, including a floatover DDT that does not land cleanly. The crowd supports the young champion without giving him anything close to the reactions his later persona will receive.

Goldust eventually appears and distracts Helmsley, allowing Maivia to hit a bridging German suplex for the win. The finish protects Helmsley and advances another feud more than it establishes Rocky. Then the important part happens after the bell, when Chyna appears at ringside and attacks Marlena.

The match itself is average. The footage surrounding it is invaluable. Maivia and Helmsley will become The Rock and Triple H, while Chyna's arrival changes Helmsley's act almost immediately. Few ordinary Intercontinental Championship matches contain this much future.

The tag-title match is the first undercard bout that feels like it could survive without historical footnotes. Furnas and LaFon are not especially charismatic in the WWF setting, but their athleticism and timing give Owen Hart and The British Bulldog opponents who can match them exchange for exchange. The champions respond by leaning harder into character and increasingly visible tension.

The final stretch is excellent. Furnas' power and LaFon's quick counters create several legitimate near falls, while Owen and Bulldog repeatedly collide or interrupt one another. The wrestling becomes more urgent precisely when the partnership begins looking less stable.

Owen eventually strikes LaFon with his Slammy statuette while Bulldog is setting for the running powerslam, producing the disqualification. The challengers win, the champions keep the titles and Bulldog is furious because he believes he had the match won. The finish is unsatisfying as competition and effective as relationship damage.

That contradiction keeps the match out of a higher grade. Everything before the bell is strong enough to deserve a cleaner conclusion, but the champions' argument and broken Slammy at least give the disqualification a consequence. It is easily the second-best match on the show.

The Final Four match understands immediately that four major wrestlers do not need to wait politely for a structure to emerge. Hart and Austin find each other, The Undertaker and Vader resume their issue, and the match spills around ringside before any pairing can become permanent. The pace feels reckless without becoming directionless.

Vader provides the unforgettable image when he is busted open around the eye and continues wrestling with blood pouring through his mask. He also works at an absurd pace for his size, trading chair shots with Hart and Austin, fighting The Undertaker around the floor and even applying the Sharpshooter to Hart. His performance gives the match a physical danger that no stipulation announcement could manufacture.

Austin is the connective character. He attacks everyone, survives Hart's attention and keeps behaving as though the company is persecuting him while exploiting every opening the company gives him. Hart finally throws Austin over the top for the first elimination, but Austin refuses to accept the end of his participation and later attacks Bret from ringside. The story becomes better because elimination does not make Austin obedient.

The Undertaker eliminates Vader after a low blow stops the Vaderbomb attempt, leaving Hart and Undertaker as the final legal pair. Austin continues interfering, The Undertaker turns toward him, and Bret clotheslines The Undertaker over the top rope to win the vacant WWF Championship. The finish is chaotic, logical and perfectly consistent with a championship picture where nobody is allowed a clean moment for long.

Hart's fourth reign will last only until Raw the next night, but that does not reduce the match. If anything, the brief reign deepens the sense that February 1997 is a company deliberately destabilizing its old hierarchy. The Final Four match is violent, fast, character-rich and one of the best In Your House main events.