WWF In Your House 8: Beware Of Dog (partially found untelevised professional wrestling matches; 1996)

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Bewareofdogposter.jpg

Poster promoting the May 26th version of Beware of Dog.

Status: Partially Found

WWF In Your House 8: Beware Of Dog was a wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). It was first broadcast on 26th May, 1996 at the Florence Civic Center in South Carolina, headlined by a WWF World Heavyweight Championship match between champion Shawn Michaels and challenger The British Bulldog. However, the event is infamous for a power cut that knocked out the pay-per-view feed and arena power, causing some matches to occur and be recorded in almost complete darkness.

Background

Aside from Shawn Michaels vs The British Bulldog, the event also featured singles matches between Marc Mero and Hunter Hearst Helmsley; a Caribbean Strap match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Savio Vega; Vader vs Yokozuna; and Goldust defending the Intercontinental Championship against The Undertaker. Jake Roberts also faced Justin Bradshaw in a match likely added to fill time before the main event considering the impending circumstances.[1]

Initially the broadcast of the event went smoothly, with Mero defeating Helmsley. However, during Vega's entrance for the Caribbean Strap match, a thunderstorm caused a power outage throughout the entire arena, as well as knocking out the pay-per-view feed. The live feed returned with a blank screen, before it cut to Vince McMahon and Jerry "The King" Lawler on commentary, with McMahon notifying viewers about the power outage and assured them that either the event was going to return online as soon as possible, or a new PPV would be aired on the following Tuesday.

The WWF was only able to successfully fully restore both the power and the feed before the main event entrances began.[2] This meant that the strap match, as well as Vader vs Yokozuna and Goldust vs The Undertaker, were not broadcast live on pay-per-view. Nonetheless, they did take place during the blackout, with the help of a low-powered generator and battery-operated cameras to record the matches.[3] However, the generator only made the matches barely visible to the audience, and by the time officials reviewed the footage post-event, it was decided that the matches were of insufficient quality to be re-broadcast.

Beware of Dog: 2

Instead, Beware of Dog: 2 was produced two days after the original event in the North Charleston Coliseum, which was free for all viewers that purchased the original pay-per-view. Filmed at the same time as a WWF Superstars taping, it featured replays of the Marc Mero-Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Shawn Michaels-The British Bulldog matches, and three rematches.[4] Because the replays were broadcast first, the intended main event instead became the second match to be shown on Beware of Dog: 2.[5]

All re-matches also had different match outcomes compared to the originals; a stipulation was added in the Strap match whereby if Austin lost, his manager Ted DiBiase would leave the WWF. Vega won the re-match, forcing DiBiase to leave the company (in reality, he left the WWF to join World Championship Wrestling). Meanwhile, although Yokozuna originally won against Vader, the outcome was changed so that Vader became victorious in the second encounter by pinfall.[6] Finally, the re-match between Goldust and The Undertaker received the planned outcome of Mankind interfering and costing Undertaker the match, unlike the original whereby Mankind was instructed to stay under the ring, and had six heels attack Undertaker to cost him the match instead.[7] The wrestling quality of all three re-matches were said to be improvements over the originals, particularly Vader vs Yokozuna.[8]

Availability

Likely because the untelevised matches were of poor quality, WWE has never released them in-full. However, a few clips of each match were shown on the following night's RAW event, which can be viewed on the WWE Network. Meanwhile footage of the incident itself was uploaded on Dailymotion. The full matches have yet to resurface.

Videos

A small fragment of the Caribbean Strap match.

Footage showcasing what happened before and during the power outage.

See Also

External Link

References