In Your House 3
Well, here was the billed main event…
…but unfortunately WWF decided to go full WCW on this one. The idea for the match was that if someone pinned or forced Diesel or HBK to submit, they would win that wrestler's title. Obviously if Diesel and HBK won, they would win the tag titles. It came up during the show that Owen Hart was missing and hadn't come to the building yet. Jim Cornette was wringing his hands about what he's going to do. Gorilla Monsoon, acting president or commish or whatever at the time, tells Cornette that he can pick a new partner for Yokozuna that night and that wrestler will be a tag team champion for the one night.
Fast forward to later, and the recently-turned British Bulldog is announced to be the partner in Owen's place. The match goes forward as Diesel/HBK vs. Bulldog/Yoko. Late in the match, Owen makes a run-in and gets pinned for the tag titles, despite not being an actual participant in the match. Diesel and HBK are crowned new tag champions in a confusing ending. They were then de-strapped the next night as the referee's decision was invalidated.
Now that CAN'T POSSIBLY have been their initial booking plan for this as the main event of a PPV. I always wondered if the original plan was to move the belt off of Diesel and onto Yoko or Owen to transition it to Bret in November, and then plans changed. Since they obviously didn't want to actually have Diesel and HBK as tag champs, and since de-strapping HBK at this point would be clinically insane given how over he was, my theory seems possible? But it's not supported by anything but my own conjecture.
Anyway, very stupid.
Raw - WWF Tag Titles: Owen Hart & Yokozuna (c) vs. The Smoking Gunns
Date: September 25, 1995
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy00lzQ_ADo
Background: Owen Hart & Yokozuna had lost the belts the previous night under shaky circumstances, were given them back during this show in an extended Dusty finish, but were forced to put them back up against The Smoking Gunns.
The Match: Owen/Yoko vs. Smoking Gunns in 1995 isn't exactly going to go down as the Flair/Steamboat trilogy, but once again I find that I enjoy their work together, and that especially Owen and Billy Gunn had good chemistry together. I see that they had a singles match in '98 after Billy was in DX; I'm curious to watch it later.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth action, Billy Gunn attains a pretty believable false finish when he rolls through a top rope cross-body by Owen and ends up on top with his leg locking up Owen's. Still Owen gets out at 2, then tags out so that Yoko can come into the ring and rest in a nerve hold instead of resting on the apron. Sigh. His morbid obesity really did get further and further out of hand over time.
Fast forwarding to the final sequence, all four men are in the ring at the same time. The Gunns whip Owen into Yoko, who takes a spill and is briefly incapacitated. The Gunns set Owen up for their finisher, the Sidewinder, and execute it. The official is distracted while Bart attempts a pin, and when Yokozuna attempts to break it up by splashing onto Bart he ends up splashing onto Owen instead as Bart gets out of the way. Billy dropkicks Yoko out of the ring, Bart pins Owen, and we have new tag team champions.
Result: The Smoking Gunns via pinfall, new champions (11:17)
Rating: This was probably as good as the Mania match, so I'll kick it 3 stars out of 5 as well.
In Your House 4 - N/A
Again not on the card. Owen & Yoko did tag together here and won a dark match against the completely random team of Savio Vega & Bam Bam Bigelow, but didn't make it to air.
Owen Heads Back to Singles
After losing the tag titles, Owen and Yoko never really went back after them. Owen maintained the services of Jim Cornette, and while he remained allies with Yoko for a while they weren't really part of the tag division anymore.