In Your House 8: Beware of Dog - Florence Civic Center Florence, South Carolina (Part 1) North Charleston Coliseum North Charleston, South Carolina (Part 2) - May 26th and May 28th 1996

This is an odd PPV. During the event there was a major power cut in the arena plunging everyone into darkness and killing the live PPV feed. The event is presented here in full however the opening match and main event were filmed on May 26th on either side of the power cut with the middle of the card being filled in in a different arena at a separate taping on May 28th. Awkwardly there is an episode of Monday Night Raw in between those two tapings so we’ll see what that means for the next episode of Raw in the next Preview. It’s probably going to leave this show and the start of the Preview feeling a little disjointed but there’s not much I can do about that! 

The opening video for this PPV feels like a massive leap forward, focusing on a single storyline and having some custom made graphics for the show. It’s very Attitude era

I hadn't seen the match graphics on TV in the lead up to this event but this one is funny - why does Bulldog look so startled?! He’s as shocked this PPV is basically named after him as the rest of us.

First thing’s first; I mentioned that The Godwins defended their newly won Tag Team titles on the Free for All against The Smoking Gunns. Phineas seemed to have won over Sunny and she accompanied the new champions to the ring for that match but, much like The Godwins themselves did at MSG, Billy forced a kiss on Sunny and then WON the Tag Team titles. Billy and Bart are the new WWF Tag Team Champions but what does this mean for Sunny who seems to have ditched The Bodydonnas and is willing to manage whomever the reigning Tag Team Champions are? 

Marc Mero (w/Sable) vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Vince McMahon suggests that as lovely as tonight’s young lady in HHH’s corner is, he’d MUCH rather have Sable. Jerry Lawler accidentally calls her an escort and has to correct himself. More fuel on the fire of this one as this past weekend after Bob Backlund put Mero in a Chickenwing (I thought he was gone?), Helmsley ran down and spiked him with a Pedigree too. 

Doc Hendrix interviews Mero and Sable before the match. Marc calls this the beginning of a new life. I have no idea what that means. Sable has yet to speak. She is and was a very beautiful woman and I’d hate to focus on a female performer’s appearance unfairly but it's amazing to me how different and young she looks here facially compared to how she looked in 1998. Maybe just swift aging? 

Mero kicks off quickly with punches and after a quick dip out and back into the ring, gets the first near fall with a slingshot leg drop over the ropes. He bounces HHH all around the ring in and out of the corner as Hunter bumps and sells like his life depends on it. He counters Mero into the corner and the Wildman sells like he’s torn his shoulder. He’s fine as far as I’m aware, it’s just a good sell job! Helmsley focuses the attack on his shoulder from there.

Vince McMahon mentions that some fans are still trying to get into the building as the local storms have caused travel issues for a lot of people. That’s the same storms I mentioned at the top of the article which caused this PPV to be fragmented. 

HHH keeps up the pressure and slowly works over Mero focusing on his arm and shoulder. Marc gets the occasional near fall with a roll up but it’s a long period of HHH working on his arm and shoulder.

He goes to the top rope and that starts Mero’s comeback, stopping him with a dropkick and then bringing him down with a top rope hurricanrana and then following up with a headscissors. The one armed Mero builds some momentum with a back drop and goes to the top rope himself for his big jumping sunset flip but Hunter kicks out of that. He misses a dive to the outside and hurts his leg. HHH follows up on the one armed and one legged Mero and wants the Pedigree but gets distracted, wanting to make Sable watch. He gets out of the ring to confront her and accost her, to stop her from turning away and making her watch the Pedigree. It backfires and when he goes back to the move, Mero counters with a slingshot into the corner. HHH does a good job of making it look like his head hit the ringpost and knocked him out cold. That’s enough to give Marc Mero the victory! 

Backstage, Mr. Perfect interviews Camp Cornette. Jim says he has a lot on his plate tonight with Vader vs. Yokozuna so he has gone out and gotten an official manager’s license so that Owen Hart may accompany his brother-in-law to the ring. 

There’s a big edit here and at ringside, Vince McMahon thanks us for our patience. This is the big chunk of the show missing, as I mentioned at the start. The fans in the arena watched the rest of the PPV in darkness and the PPV feed kicked back in just in time for the main event WWF title match which now, on this version of the show, takes place in the second slot on the card! 

WWF Championship

Shawn Michaels © (w/Jose Lothario) vs. The British Bulldog (w/Diana Hart and Owen Hart)

The night’s production issues are clear during the entrances as Bulldog enters first and then spends so long waiting around that his theme song loops back to the start. Dok Hendrix interviews Shawn Michaels backstage who continues to deny the Bulldog’s claims that he tried to seduce his wife. Jim Cornette has promised to “drop a bombshell” on HBK tonight but no one has any idea what that is and Michaels seems unconcerned. As he walks to the ring he bumps into Mr. Perfect backstage and there’s a little tension - non-wrestler Perfect has made it very clear that he does not like the WWF Champion more than once. 

Before the match begins, Jim Cornette’s legal counsel Clarence Mason has some words. He breaks the news that Shawn Michaels is served with a summons; the charge is the attempted "alienation of affection” whatever that means. Vince explains it for us - it’s bullshit, but this is all designed to get in Michaels’ head and distract him during this title match. He tears up the paperwork but Bulldog does at least get to jump him from behind and begin the match in the lead. There’s a lot happening at the start of this match!

Michaels quickly fights off Bulldog and in an interesting style choice, slows things down with HBK being on top. He grinds out Bulldog with a headlock and a chinlock and takes his challenger down to the mat with a short arm scissors hold. Bulldog is left as the plucky underdog fighting up from underneath. He muscles Michaels up onto his shoulders and drops him to the mat to break the hold and get back into the match. Vince and King spend the match talking about whether HBK is a womaniser or not and whether the accusations against him are true. 

Bulldog puts his focus on HBK’s lower back with holds and he hoists him like he weighs nothing into a backbreaker across his shoulder. That was impressive.

Michaels comes back and after a long and quite dull back and forth, they go off the ropes and the referee is knocked out of the ring. Owen Hart tries to interfere but runs right into the Sweet Chin Music! Bulldog goes for the powerslam but Shawn counters and hits a bridging German supelx. A second referee counts the three and bizarrely declares that Bulldog won? I think his point is that Michaels’ shoulders were also down but that’s an extremely dumb call to make. The original referee gets back into the ring and declares that MICHAELS won, which makes even less sense as he couldn’t even see the double pin from the floor. On the replay, one of HBK’s shoulders was definitely up but the commentators have to pretend not to notice.

This is a terrible finish - President Gorilla Monsoon comes out to settle the matter, snatching the WWF title belt from Diana Hart and declares the match a draw - Shawn Michaels retains the title but there will be a rematch somewhere down the line. No one looks happy and HBK wants the rematch right now but that isn’t going to happen. Man this was a really boring match but made so much worse by a terrible finish. The production errors might have saved this PPV because this would have been a terrible way to end the show.

In a fun update, Jim Ross and and Mr. Perfect are on commentary for the second portion of the show! JR does acknowledge that the match took place on the original show and lets us see just how dark the arena actually was. I’ll cover it at the start of the Preview of course but on the May 27th Raw (which took place in the middle of the show here) Ted Dibiase updated the stipulations for this match and says that if Stone Cold loses he will LEAVE the WWF. Massive spoilers but this PPV is the final appearance of the Million Dollar Man as he departed for WCW. 

Caribbean Strap match

Savio Vega vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin (w/ Ted Dibiase)

If Savio wins, Ted Dibiase must leave the WWF

If Stone Cold wins, Savio must become Dibiase’s chauffeur

Savio Vega has “never lost” a strap match, which includes the one two days ago. They start out slow, keeping their distance from each other and tugging on the strap. Mr. Perfect gives the advantage to Stone Cold who’s now had a match to scout Vega. That’s a good point. 

The two fight in and out of the ring and Stone Cold is the first to taste the leather getting whipped across the back and stomach and even in the face. He tries to get some distance but the strap limits that to about 10 feet. Austin flails around and makes this look really good. I generally am not a fan of strap matches because I find the whole “touching the four corners” rule to be silly. Savio gets three corners first but Austin stops him with a hard pull on the strap. On the outside, Stone Cold drives Savio into the ring apron and drops him across the ring apron before choking him with the strap. The match is good when it's just a physical intense brawl. 

After a long back and forth including a lot more whipping, attempts to touch all four corners and a big superplex from Savio to Austin, both men are exhausted and struggling to continue. It’s not bad, it’s just not super exciting! 

There is one good spot inbetween all the intense whipping and choking with the strap where Austin climbs to the top rope but Savio uses the strap to pull him off, all the way down to the security wall. 

Savio gets very close to a victory but Austin yanks on the strap to stop him from getting to the fourth corner. Stone Cold hits a piledriver and likely has the match won but Dibiase insists on a second piledriver which backfires and Vega counters it. Stone Cold locks in the Million Dollar Dream, jumping up onto Savio’s back as he continues to stagger around the ring and touch corners. Austin stops it again and wraps the strap around Vega’s neck, dragging him behind him as he goes around the ring touching corners. Savio touches each one behind him as he goes and when it gets down to a race to touch the final corner, Austin drags Savio in miscalculating and sending Vega crashing into the 4th corner to win the match. Stone Cold leaves in anger as Ted Dibiase is left to reckon with the fact that his WWF career is over. 

The loss of Ted Dibiase is something that made Austin’s career. Without a manager and mouth piece we’ll see him evolve as a character and embrace talking trash as his main gift as a performer. I’m really excited to see Stone Cold evolve through the rest of 1996. 

Vader (w/Jim Cornette) vs. Yokozuna

This will be the first time we’ve seen Yokozuna since Vader injured him seven weeks ago on Raw with three Vader Bombs across the leg. 

The two stand across the ring roaring at each other and banging on their chests to intimidate the other. It seems like Yokozuna wins that battle as Vader continually backs off and goes to Jim Cornette for advice. It was rare for him to be outsized by his opponent. 

When they finally run at each other and collide the 600lbs plus Yokozuna knocks Vader flat on his back and he has to bail out of the ring to compose himself again. The match has finally started though and back in the ring they trade big punches back and forth. Vader wins that battle and slowly works over Yokozuna but when he goes for a powerslam (over confident) Yoko counts with a big slam of his own. He sets up Vader for the Banzai drop so Cornette jumps up on the apron and is pulled into the ring. He floors him with a headbutt and tries to give Cornette a Banzai of his own but Vader pulls his manager out of the way. He dives right for Yoko’s leg with an elbow drop, a splash and then a Vader Bomb and that gives the Rocky Mountain Monster his biggest victory to date over a two time WWF Champion. I personally wanted to see Cornette get the Banzai drop! 

Here’s a funny commercial for next month’s King of the Ring. There’s already three big matches made for that PPV which you can read about in the next Preview as I’ve no idea which of these are announced on Raw.

Casket match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship

Goldust © (w/Marlena) vs. The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer)

I believe that this is the one and only time The Undertaker challenged for the Intercontinental title on TV but I could be wrong. Mr. Perfect says that if Goldust wins he’ll be the first man to beat Undertaker in a casket match but JR quickly corrects him - Yokozuna beat him too. 

JR and Perfect recap all the action between Goldust and Ahmed Johnson on Raw but I won’t cover that here, I’ll save it for the next episode of Raw in the Preview too. 

Undertaker’s music hits and the arena lights go out but to everyone’s shock, especially Goldust, The Undertaker appears in the ring behind him and rocks him with a big right hand. He slings the Intercontinental Champion around the ring from corner to corner and back again. Fairplay to Goldust too, he sells it like he’s wrestling a tank and bumps hard and fast. 

The referees open the casket every time either man makes a move towards it and we can see its empty aside from the big plush pillows for the loser of this match. It actually looks like a really nice cosy casket compared to the usual big wooden box.

The Undertaker absolutely dominates Goldust but Marlena doesn’t look very concerned. Perfect and JR discuss Goldust’s mindgames and whether his theatrics and, let's call it what it was, gay baiting is real or all for show. 

Goldust slams Undertaker and rocks him with punches - most of which he no-sells - before giving Undertaker a Tombstone! Never been done before. Undertaker sits up but Goldust has control now and is aggressive in following up on the advantage. He gets Undertaker into the casket twice but both times the Deadman escapes. Goldust continues to hammer Undertaker and every time he slams him JR and Perfect are amazed and impressed. Goldust is a big dude himself but after a clothesline off the top rope, pins Undertaker. Pins don’t count of course so I guess he just got confused. Undertaker fights back off the mat but is being overwhelmed by the Intercontinental Champion. He tries to hit Undertaker with another of his own trademarks walking along the ropes but the Undertaker brings him down with a big slam and follows up with the Tombstone.

 It’s over and Undertaker begins to roll Goldust to the casket but when he lifts the lid Mankind is somehow inside! He shoves the Mandible Claw into Undertaker’s mouth but how did he get there? The casket was open and empty moments ago! Mankind puts Undertaker out with the Mandible Claw again and traps him inside the casket giving Goldust the victory!

Mankind squeals and tears out his own hair sitting on top of the casket. Smoke starts to billow out of the sides of the lid and Mankind takes that as his cue to leave. Goldust, Mankind and Marlena leave together as Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect speculate how the hell Mankind even managed to get inside in the first place! Paul Bearer throws open the casket and to our shock, The Undertaker is now gone! Just like magic. That’s how the PPV ends but between the crowd not really reacting to the events it felt like a really flat finish.

Obviously its hard to judge this PPV on its own given the big break in the middle and the way it came together but in terms of match quality, I didn’t really love any of this. If anything they should have put the Free for All Tag Team title change on the main PPV just to have a little more stuff happen! Big things are happening at the King of the Ring next month so the only way is up in 1996.