How A Thunderstorm Ruined WWE In Your House 8: Beware Of Dog

Sometimes, your best laid plans can be completely ruined by things outside of your control, and that is especially the case in professional wrestling. One day in 1996, WWF (now WWE) tried to run a promising B-level pay-per-view, only for everything to go horribly wrong. One minute, the program was getting ready to transition into the evening's second match, and the next the entire broadcast plunged into darkness, with no available antidote to the sudden problem.

The Background Of WWF In Your House 8: Beware Of Dog

The month of May 1996 had already been a difficult one for Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation following the infamous Curtain Call on May 19 in which The Kliq of Shawn Michaels, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Diesel, and Razor Ramon embraced inside the ring in Madison Square Garden, despite being on-screen rivals, in a kayfabe shattering moment to bid farewell to Scott Hall and Kevin Nash as they left WWF for WCW. 

The demonstration annoyed many wrestlers behind the scenes in WWF, an organisation that was already struggling creatively and financially, but was also locked in a pro wrestling war with the same WCW that Hall and Nash were leaving for. 

Just 24 hours before Hall's intrusive debut on the May 27 edition of WCW Monday Nitro, the WWF produced their eighth-ever In Your House event, emanating from the Civic Center in Florence, South Carolina. Subtitled "Beware of Dog" due to Davey Boy Smith's participation in the main event, the planned five-match card had as promising a line-up as a middling New Generation WWF could provide at the time. 

The location was already curious for a pay-per-view. Florence was definitely not considered an A-town but most of the In Your House pay-per-views to this point had aired from smaller TV taping locales like Saginaw, Michigan and Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Florence was of that ilk. The eleventh-most populous city in South Carolina wasn't all that steeped in WWF history, though it was the location for the near-fabled Hart Brothers vs. Steiner Brothers match from 1994.

Also unusual was the fact that the pay-per-view was taking place on Memorial Day weekend, something WWE had never attempted before, nor have they since. Prior to AEW, it was a difficult weekend to run for pro wrestling pay-per-views, but the company couldn’t hold a major show the week before due to WCW Slamboree on May 19. Nonetheless, WWF drew a respectable 6000 fans to the Civic Center, close to 4800 of them paid.

In the headline match, Davey Boy Smith would challenge Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title, the crux of a recent storyline in which the British Bulldog and wife Diana accused Michaels of making unwelcome advances toward her. Soap opera aside, the two participants certainly had it in them to deliver a technically-brilliant main event.

The rest of the card was a bag of curiosities. Steve Austin was set to face off with rival Savio Vega in what was being billed as a Caribbean Strap Match. The Undertaker also bizarrely had his sights set on the Intercontinental Title, challenging Goldust in his trademark Casket Match. A couple of other recent angles reached their logical PPV destination too, as Vader was pitted against fellow giant Yokozuna, while "Wildman" Marc Mero was matched up with Hunter Hearst Helmsley.

The Curtain Call would result in a poor Sunday, May 26 for Paul Levesque, though, as Beware Of Dog was the first WWF show of any kind since the infamous incident at MSG. Wrestlers who had already grown weary of the Kliq's shenanigans were displeased by the breach of kayfabe, as were veteran agents and staffers that had dedicated a hefty part of their adult lives to protecting the business.

Helmsley and Michaels met with McMahon earlier on that Sunday before the pay-per-view, and the WWF's two remaining Kliq members were told that because many of the organisation's senior officials and others were upset by the group demonstration, Helmsley was going to be punished. HBK was spared any punishment due to being the reigning WWF Champion, while Helmsley would spend the next several months firmly as a jobber to the stars and his planned King of the Ring 1996 win was scrapped.

The beginning of Helmsley's punishment was a loss to Marc Mero, the first of many wrestlers that would pin his shoulders to the canvas over the ensuing five months. 

Beware Of Dog

In the Free For All pre-show portion of the card, fans were presented with a WWF Tag Team Title change as the now-heel Smoking Gunns defeated Henry and Phineas Godwinn. Then fans saw Thurman “Sparky” Plugg pick up a win over a soon-to-be-repackaged Isaac Yankem DDS.  

Once the pay-per-view went on the air, Hunter Hearst Helmsley put over Marc Mero in a decent enough opening contest, with Paul Levesque losing the 16-minute seesaw battle after being slingshotted into the ring post.

Beware Of Storm

Before the next match of Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega could get underway, however, everything in the arena went black. Torrential storms in the area throughout the day had WWF’s production crew concerned about the possibility of a power outage. Michael Hayes later described the storm as "wicked", calling it "one of the worst storms [he had] ever seen", while Bruce Prichard illustrated the rain as coming down not in drops, but "in sheets."

It was as Vega made his entrance that the pay-per-view feed completely died, when lightning struck one of the transformers. The Civic Center experienced a complete loss of power as a result of the storm. and fans watching at home were met with a stock on-screen message that varied depending on their provider, but each indicated some sort of technical difficulties.

Meanwhile, back in Florence, a sense of panic and confusion took hold of most of the crew on hand. An outage wasn't totally unexpected, given the near-biblical storm outside, but they were unsure about what to do. In wrestling, however, the show often goes on and that’s exactly what happened in Florence. 

The venue still had minimal visibility, thanks to emergency lights that were triggered by the outage. With cameramen patrolling ringside with battery-operated cameras, the decision was made to continue with the matches for the benefit of the attending crowd, even if the action was largely shrouded in darkness.

Savio Vega vs. Steve Austin went on as planned and the two heavyweights lashed each other with the leather strap with nothing but bare minimum lighting and maybe a merciful camera flash illuminating their brawl. Austin and Vega brutalised each other over the course of the 15 minute match, which Savio won. 

Plans Change, Brother

Yokozuna vs. Vader followed, ending with a Yoko victory after just three minutes. Then it was the Undertaker vs. Goldust Casket Match for the Intercontinental Title, which only went eight minutes when a slew of heels, including Steve Austin, Vader, Isaac Yankem, and Bradshaw, stormed the ring to help put Undertaker in the coffin. 

This was different from WWF’s original plans which called for Undertaker’s nemesis, Mankind, to interfere. After Undertaker and Goldust teased stuffing each other into the casket, the finish would see Undertaker open the lid, only for Mankind to be lying in wait. Mick Foley would then lunge forth, apply his Mandible Claw on The Undertaker to immobilise The Deadman and allow Goldust to steal the win. 

To achieve this effect, Mankind had to covertly enter into the casket through some sort of trap door late in the match. Preceding that, he would be under the ring, watching the match on a monitor, and wearing a headset from which he could receive instructions (and his cue) from those at the Gorilla position.

However, due to the power outage, Mick Foley was left with no electronic forms of communication and was left in the dark underneath the ring. To clue Foley in on what was going on, Bruce Prichard poked his head under the ring skirt at one point to give Mick the heads up. Anybody in the crowd who saw it probably saw nothing more than an unnamed staffer looking for something under the ring.

By the time The Undertaker ended up in the casket, the power remained out. Viewers at home got a brief message from announcers Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler before the casket match, which was the first time in close to half an hour that the pay-per-view broadcast aired anything besides a blank screen or a PLEASE STAND BY graphic.

McMahon urged viewers to stay tuned because the company were going to try to bring fans at home the two singles title matches, power permitting. That ultimately didn’t happen for the IC Title match.

Despite the chaos, accounts from the night noted that Vince McMahon was absurdly calm. During Bruce Prichard's sweat-inducing marches between McMahon and the backstage area while everyone tried to formulate a plan, his semi-panicked forays to Vince at ringside found the boss to be calmly sipping coffee, completely engaged in the Strap Match.

While Prichard was repeating contingency plans and seeking higher approval, Vince was apparently barely listening, instead marvelling at the beating Austin and Vega were giving each other. Lawler, meanwhile, remembered the night slightly differently, and recalled McMahon being more helpful and trying to talk people through it.

After the Casket Match, Bradshaw and Jake Roberts were sent out to stall for time. It just so happened that right as their match began, power was restored and the lights came back on, so they went to the finish after 30 seconds, with Roberts winning.

The Main Event

This left plenty of time for the main event of Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith with the Winged Eagle on the line. Instead of being a wrestling classic, however, it ended up a muddled, disjointed mess.

The participants were already in bad moods by the inability to get into a proper frame of mind before they headed to the ring, and the match reflected their compromised focus. Michaels in particular was visibly irritated by a shrieking heckler, and took time during a rest hold to yell at her to shut up.

All of the negative energy rang out louder due to the fact that the crowd was mostly distracted by the weirdness of the night, and few acted like they were watching a competitive battle for the richest prize in the sport.

The match itself wasn't all that good either. With lots of rest holds and an overall strange vibe, the title bout was made even worse by a double-pin finish that was meant to bridge into a rematch at King of the Ring the next month. 

The pay-per-view ended with scripted confusion and frustration, mirroring the genuine confusion and frustration that the performers - Michaels in particular - had shown over the prior 20 minutes.

The Florence crowd were then given two bonus matches in the form of Jerry Lawler vs. Ahmed Johnson and Owen Hart vs. The Ultimate Warrior, before bringing to a close one of the WWF's most bizarre evenings ever.

Beware Of Dog, Again

On Tuesday, May 28, the first encore presentation of In Your House would be broadcast. On the same night, the WWF were running their monthly taping of weekend program Superstars, two hours south in the city of North Charleston. The plan was for the encore airing to show the two matches that properly aired, and then WWE would redo the three hindered matches at the Superstars taping, inserting them into the replay telecast.

Slight alterations were made to those three bouts. The Casket Match ended with the intended Mankind interference, and Vader may have lost to Yokozuna in Florence, but he won the rematch. Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega had bigger stakes added too. 

Austin was managed by Ted DiBiase at the time due to still being under his Ringmaster gimmick. Following the Sunday night loss to Vega, DiBiase guaranteed that Austin would win the rematch, and vowed to personally leave the WWF if he didn't. After what was perhaps Vega's greatest WWF bout, Austin fell in defeat once more, and The Million Dollar Man was history. As it turned out, days earlier DiBiase accepted a three-year offer from WCW and would show up there in August.

Not factoring in refunds, the original Beware of Dog broadcast did a paltry 110,000 buys. Some cable providers offered a full refund, while others - like DirecTV - only offered a fraction of the cost back. The WWF offered the replay for free to those who had bought the original show to give them the five advertised matches that they had paid for, in desirable-enough form.

The Legacy Of WWE vs. A Thunderstorm 

Since then, the closest call WWE have had with anything of this type was at the 2013 Battleground pay-per-view, when the arena in Buffalo experienced a brief outage just before the main event. Otherwise, the situation at Beware of Dog is a unique one for the promotion.

On the one hand, you could label the evening a disaster, as mother nature proved uncooperative to an incredible degree, frustrating people on both sides of the guardrail. On the other, the resourcefulness of the company, and their ability to "just go with it" in a very stressful situation, made for a mostly-good story. 

Whatever your view is of In Your House 8: Beware of Dog, it is still completely unlike any other pay-per-view that WWE fans have ever seen, for better and for worse.