The Top 5 WWE In Your House PPVs Ranked
In May of 1995, the WWF (now WWE) forever changed the landscape of professional wrestling. Until then, WWE had only held a maximum of 5 pay-per-view (or PPV) and closed-circuit TV events in a year. The roster of major events had Wrestlemania on top, with other major shows like the Royal Rumble, Summer Slam, and Survivor Series on the list. These were known as The Big Four. WWE had mixed in King of the Ring in 1993 and 1994 to hit a total of 5 events.
At this time, WWE's biggest competitor was WCW, a company that would beat WWE for 83 straight weeks in the ratings during the Monday Night Wars in the late 1990s. While WWE was running a max of 5 pay-per-view events, WCW had already expanded to 10 events by 1995. WCW wasn't slowing down either, with plans to expand to monthly events.
The owner of the WWE, Vince McMahon, saw opportunity in that business model. Some wrestling journalists say that WWE was losing money in a slowing at-home VHS market, while others simply blamed the "state of the business", but WWE needed to find new revenue.
Pro Wrestling has its peaks and valleys with fans. Sometimes there's a large response for casual fans, like during the Attitude Era of the late 90s, but other periods its just die-hard wrestling fans. The die-hard fan base is smaller, but will spend money, and lots of it. So the WWE came up with a plan to offer more shows, but smaller shows, on pay-per-view. As a way to get more fans to buy into events, and try them out. While at the same time replacing revenue.
This is where the idea of In You House was born. WWE's In Your House pay-per-views weren't like the major shows (Mania, Rumble, Summer Slam) which ran 3+ hours long. These new In Your House shows were going to run about 2 hours, and would cost less because of that. The big pay-per-views were listed at $29.95 at the time, with the new In Your House shows only charging $14.95 each. Again, in hopes that casual fans would be willing to try a pay-per-view for half the cost.
Eventually, the price was bumped up to $19.95 a show, and by mid-1999, the In Your House brand was dropped from the name of the pay-per-view events. This move was followed by monthly pay-per-views gaining their own branding that could be used every year, or at least multiple times over the course of the next couple of decades. Some of the In Your House brands that survived include Backlash, Over The Edge, Fully Loaded, and No Way Out. All of these were used after the In Your House concept was dropped.
But in 2020, WWE's third brand, NXT, will be reviving the In Your House name for one of their WWE Network events. These events operate like a pay-per-view, but they're offered through the WWE's online network as live events. This is being done in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the In Your House brand. The new NXT version will be called NXT TakeOver: In Your House.
So as we get ready to see a new In Your House incarnation, and celebrate the anniversary of the original, let's reflect on what we saw during the original run of In Your House.