The Infamous “Hog Pen Match”

The Infamous

The Hog Pen Match took place at the fifth In Your House event on Dec. 17, 1995. In that match, Triple H battled Henry O. Godwinn, and the stipulation was the winner had to throw the loser into an actual hog pen by the entrance.

Henry O. Godwinn was WWE superstar Mark Canterbury, who competed in the company from 1994 to 1998. His gimmick, as his name suggested, was as a pig farmer from Arkansas. He dressed in overalls and carried a bucket of pig slop to the ring with him. Godwinn was initially a heel in the Million Dollar Corporation, but when Ted DiBiase insulted him, he turned face. In 1996, Godwinn would form the tag team The Godwinns with Phineas I. Godwinn. Before that, he had a feud with Triple H in 1995 that only lasted one month but resulted in the infamous Hog Pen Match.

As for Triple H at the time, he was the aristocratic blue blood, Hunter Hearst Helmsley. This gimmick was way before his rise as part of DX, and he was simply a snob from Greenwich, Massachusettes. He liked to carry a vial of perfume that he would spray at his opponents. It was shades of Rick Martel, but with a lot more flamboyance and curtseying. It gave the feud a fun dynamic.

Godwinn and Helmsley’s feud started on one of WWE’s B-shows as they butted heads on an episode of WWE Superstars. In that episode, Helmsley forced officials to remove Godwinn’s bucket of slop and then started spraying Godwinn with the perfume as everything broke down in the match. Two weeks later, on the Nov. 6 episode of Raw, Helmsley attacked Godwinn after the pig farmer beat Terry Richards. Helmsley, starting to get more aggressive in his matches, hit the Pedigree on the floor and dumped the slop on Godwinn’s head.

The feud was a minor one, and WWE didn’t promote it as much as others heading into In Your House 5. The two fought in a Slop Match on the Nov. 13 episode of Raw, but the match’s ending was weird because Godwinn dumped the bucket of slop on his own head. It was a comedy of errors, as Helmsley ran from Godwinn after that and kept slipping in the slop on the floor as he ran at ringside before finally escaping to the back. That was it for the two on Raw until the PPV a month later.

The Hog Pen Match at In Your House 5 was the third match on the card and had an actual hog pen by the entrance, with six hogs in it, eating slop. To add to the fans’ excitement of the match, WWE brought back future WWE Hall of Fame superstar Hillbilly Jim to serve as the official referee, pretty much giving Godwinn an advantage. Helmsley sold it perfectly, as he fought back vomit on his way to the ring due to the smell.

Godwinn started the match by trying to throw slop on Helmsley, but missed and hit a lot of the fans in the front row as well as a ringside attendant. It didn’t take long for Godwinn to catch Helmsley and rub it in his face and mouth early in the match. Helmelsy kept trying to fight, and Godwinn just wanted to humiliate the Greenwich snob.

The two men fought to the hog pen, and the nine-minute match ended with Godwinn charging Helmsley. However, Hunter ducked and backdropped Godwinn into the hog pen to capture the win. While the Hog Pen Match has an embarrassing reputation, Helmsley did what he could to put it over and had some significant gashes on his back after the match.

The fans even got a fun end when Helmsley hit Hillbilly Jim. The WWE legend shoved Hunter into Godwinn, who then picked him up over his head and slammed him into the pen, among the pigs, leaving him covered head to toe in slop, while the hogs ran around him in a panic.

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