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| The opener and best match from this show Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Hi gang! First off, I feel I should introduce myself. My name is Trey Irby and I have mainly been known around these wrestling fan parts for my Twitter account @ACrimsonMask (follow it plz, I'll love you forever). When I heard TH wanted more folks to join the site, I felt like I should join if at the very least to engage on two subjects I want to use on here: old pro wrestling and cultural criticism. The phrase is taken for the most part from Shakespeare's The Tempest, but also because it was easy to find upon Google searching the phrase "the past is." Upon reading its use defined, I felt that this is what "The Past is Prologue" is all about. Truthfully I wanted to call it "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" after the Of Montreal song, but felt that it was too damn long.
Anyway, the first entry of this series is simple, playing with the premiere motif but also with the mass confusion of the 1990s. We travel back to May 14, 1995 for In Your House 1: Premiere.
You'd kill yourself for recognition, kill yourself to never ever stop -- Radiohead, "High and Dry"
Attached to their 1995 album release The Bends, Radiohead's "High and Dry" represented a surprise evolution in the band's cultural currency for the most morose alternative rock band to come around during the era of grunge. Every bit of "High and Dry" is in stark contrast to the grunge of its time period or even the previous album the band put out, Pablo Honey. The song is sparse, apparently because it was taken from the original demo track after Thom Yorke hated the full version above all else by comparing it to a Rod Stewart song. Naturally, it was Yorke's biggest success outside of "Creep" and The Bends sparked a disaffected youth that was divided after grunge and Kurt Cobain's suicide.
In Your House has none of these traits. In Your House was a corporate calculation to save the struggling World Wrestling Federation from day one. The logic for McMahon's company was to emulate WCW's rising interest in monthly pay-per-views with their own series of events marketed at a cheaper price for a mere two hours of content. In that matter, In Your House allowed for a more theoretical product where the major matches were the draw and where filler more or less didn't need to exist. The top people, in theory, would benefit the most from In Your House as purely focused on them. Bret Hart, the WWF's workhorse, would show this off twice on In Your House 1.
Naturally, Hart's match with Hakushi is the shining moment of this telecast, which in WWF fashion opens with an almost WCW-like mindset of putting the best match to open and leaving Diesel and Sid to clog up the main event. Hart and Hakushi did more or less kill themselves for recognition here. Their match is on the best of In Your House DVD set for a reason. It is a slow-build to something a bit more spectacular. Kind of like the career of Radiohead at this point, oddly enough. Hakushi was taken seriously to a point, but Hart pulled out a damn fine match out of him to stretch him ideally to a next level (that Hakushi would never reach).
Of course, this is In Your House's cultural currency and what became the actuality of the format. Truth is, the WWF's top stars weren't the workhorses to benefit from a truncated pay-per-view model. Diesel and Sid didn't benefit from this pay-per-view's format, as hilarious as it was to see a random Sid laugh and a mediocre main event. If anything, it made Hart into more of a folk hero, a former champion with credibility able to give anyone else the same credibility. Kind of like Brian Eno in a way with the formation of U2, even if the benefits to the wrestlers Hart faced were not nearly those of the artists championed by Eno.
Also, Todd Pettengil's on this show and so is Dok Hendrix and so is commentator Vince McMahon. Cultural currency can only lead you so far with that triumvirate of terror calling your product.
Anyway, the first entry of this series is simple, playing with the premiere motif but also with the mass confusion of the 1990s. We travel back to May 14, 1995 for In Your House 1: Premiere.
You'd kill yourself for recognition, kill yourself to never ever stop -- Radiohead, "High and Dry"
Attached to their 1995 album release The Bends, Radiohead's "High and Dry" represented a surprise evolution in the band's cultural currency for the most morose alternative rock band to come around during the era of grunge. Every bit of "High and Dry" is in stark contrast to the grunge of its time period or even the previous album the band put out, Pablo Honey. The song is sparse, apparently because it was taken from the original demo track after Thom Yorke hated the full version above all else by comparing it to a Rod Stewart song. Naturally, it was Yorke's biggest success outside of "Creep" and The Bends sparked a disaffected youth that was divided after grunge and Kurt Cobain's suicide.
In Your House has none of these traits. In Your House was a corporate calculation to save the struggling World Wrestling Federation from day one. The logic for McMahon's company was to emulate WCW's rising interest in monthly pay-per-views with their own series of events marketed at a cheaper price for a mere two hours of content. In that matter, In Your House allowed for a more theoretical product where the major matches were the draw and where filler more or less didn't need to exist. The top people, in theory, would benefit the most from In Your House as purely focused on them. Bret Hart, the WWF's workhorse, would show this off twice on In Your House 1.
Naturally, Hart's match with Hakushi is the shining moment of this telecast, which in WWF fashion opens with an almost WCW-like mindset of putting the best match to open and leaving Diesel and Sid to clog up the main event. Hart and Hakushi did more or less kill themselves for recognition here. Their match is on the best of In Your House DVD set for a reason. It is a slow-build to something a bit more spectacular. Kind of like the career of Radiohead at this point, oddly enough. Hakushi was taken seriously to a point, but Hart pulled out a damn fine match out of him to stretch him ideally to a next level (that Hakushi would never reach).
Of course, this is In Your House's cultural currency and what became the actuality of the format. Truth is, the WWF's top stars weren't the workhorses to benefit from a truncated pay-per-view model. Diesel and Sid didn't benefit from this pay-per-view's format, as hilarious as it was to see a random Sid laugh and a mediocre main event. If anything, it made Hart into more of a folk hero, a former champion with credibility able to give anyone else the same credibility. Kind of like Brian Eno in a way with the formation of U2, even if the benefits to the wrestlers Hart faced were not nearly those of the artists championed by Eno.
Also, Todd Pettengil's on this show and so is Dok Hendrix and so is commentator Vince McMahon. Cultural currency can only lead you so far with that triumvirate of terror calling your product.