WWE is headed for an unprecedented night of wrestling at this year’s Survivor Series. There will be big names, championship matches, and two War Games matches that will no doubt blow the roof off the arena.
Survivor Series is also a night where WWE will make its long-awaited return to Vancouver. There have been shows in Van City, but something else is needed on the level of a PLE. It has been 26 & 28 years, respectively, since WWE hosted a major show in Vancouver.
Back in a time when In Your House was the moniker held by the majority of the PLEs on WWE. They were shows with some ups and downs but had moments that will live on in WWE lore. Below is a look back at the two times that WWE PLE took place in Vancouver.
In Your House: International Incident (1996, General Motors Place, Vancouver, Canada)
International Incident was the ninth In Your House-branded show. It took place during Shawn Michael’s first run with the WWE Championship. After achieving his boyhood dream, he faced all challenges, but none were more daunting than The Man They Call Vader.
Vader had aligned himself with Camp Cornette, and together, the group had gotten the best of HBK on various occasions. Not to be outdone, HBK put together a team comprised of himself, Psycho Sid, and Ahmed Johnson.
It was a formidable team that was thrust into the main event of International Incident against the teams of Vader, Owen Hart, and The British Bulldog. (Interesting side note, it was supposed to be The Ultimate Warrior with HBK and Johnson, but he did not show a bunch of house shows and was unceremoniously let go by WWE.)
Overall, it was a fun main event. The action was great, and the crowd was into it. No new ground was broken here, with HBK placing the face in peril for most of the match. Still, they knew what they had and went with it.
The shock of Vader getting the pin on Michaels was interesting and helped to feed more fuel into their program, leading into SummerSlam.
Outside of the main event, some fun matches took place. Steve Austin and Marc Mero continued their program with a fun 10-minute sprint. Mero was the man who busted open Austin at King of the Ring, and Austin was out for revenge. It was a bookend to their rivalry and a welcome addition to In Your House.
Then there were two matches, one with The Undertaker and Goldust, the other with Mankind and Henry O. Godwinn. Both contests were run-of-the-mill, but they served a higher purpose in the future.
Godwinn and Goldust were both secondary to The Undertaker and Mankind continuing their problems. They ruined each other’s matches and engaged in a bitter brawl that carried them throughout the building and into the boiler room of General Motors Place.
Thus sparking on an iconic match that became a defining moment of both men’s careers.
Overall, the International Incident was a successful foray into Vancouver. There wasn’t a massive match to sell the show on, but the matches were solid and did their job of moving the story to SummerSlam.
In Your House: Rock Bottom (1998, General Motors Place, Vancouver, Canada)
It only took WWE two years to return to Vancouver, and when they did, the company looked very different from its last visit. By this point, the Attitude Era had been in full swing for close to a year, and this PLE was the epitome of what that era represented.
Rock Bottom was a two-match PLE. The first was a Buried Alive main event between The Undertaker and Steve Austin. It stipulated that the winner would be entered into the Royal Rumble the next month.
It wasn’t nearly as good as the Buried Alive match featuring The Undertaker and Mankind, but it was still entertaining. Austin and The Undertaker had enough chemistry to carry just about any match they were put into.
The highlight of the night was the WWE Championship match featuring The Rock and Mankind. The Rock had turned heel on Mankind a month prior, and this was Mankind’s first chance to win the championship away from the corporate champion.
It was a great match that wasn’t given a ton of time, but enough to tell a story.
The crowd was massively in the corner of Mankind and erupted when the referee called for the bell when The Rock was in the Mandible Claw.
Unfortunately, this was the Attitude Era, and Mr. McMahon changed the decision because The Rock technically didn’t submit in the hold. A screwy finish but one that sparked a feud that was one of the best of the Attitude Era.
The undercard of Rock Bottom was littered with the mid-card stars of the era. D-X took on Ken Shamrock and Big Bossman from the Corporation.
The Brood and The Oddites made their obligatory Attitude Era appearances, and of course, there was a match in which a female was deemed to strip as a result of the finish. This was a show that oozed everything about the Attitude Era.
It’s a show that gets a bad rap but produces a fun night of wrestling.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – WWE – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the WWE Network and Peacock.
