What the World Was Watching: In Your House 8: Beware of Dog (Night Two)

Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect are in charge of commentating this follow up to Sunday’s In Your House: Beware of Dog, live from North Charleston, South Carolina. The site doubled as a taping for WWF Superstars, drawing, according to thehistoryofwwe.com, a crowd of 4,500 fans. The show drew a 0.45 domestic buyrate, generating a reported 117,000 buys. However, it is unclear in the data from wrestlenomics.com if 116,000 of those buys were a double counting of customers who had their initial access cut off by the Sunday storm.

Due to the show taking place at a WWF Superstars taping, the entrance is what fans would see on that show and there is just In Your House branding in the banners and around the ring.

Opening Caribbean Strap Contest: Savio Vega (4-3-3) defeats Steve Austin (w/Ted DiBiase) (13-1-1) at 21:24:

The winner of the match is the person who touches all four corners before their opponent. This is the first strap match to air on WWF pay-per-view. Additional stipulations are Savio becoming a chauffeur for DiBiase if he loses and DiBiase leaving the WWF if Savio wins. There is a nice spot early to show that Austin cannot keep bailing to get a breather since he is connected to the strap. When he tries to compose himself on the floor, Savio pulls him into the apron several times. There are some stiff shots with the strap too by each man throughout, getting a reaction from the crowd. Some brawling on the floor also puts over how much each man hates the other in their long running feud. After a superduperplex, Savio almost wins but when he charges to get the fourth corner, Austin guards it and plants him with a spinebuster. Just when the match seems to run out of gas, Savio and Austin keep reversing tombstone piledriver attempts and Savio ends up on the floor. Austin scales the top rope but Savio uses the strap to pull him off, causing Austin to fly off and crash into the ringside guardrail. Back in, Austin applies the Million Dollar Dream but Savio touches a few turnbuckles with Austin on his back before pushing off the buckles and breaking it. Desperate, Austin does his old WCW stun gun finish by dropping Savio across the top turnbuckle. After wrapping the strap around Savio’s neck, Austin starts touching corners but he ignores Savio touching corners behind him. DiBiase ignores this until it is too late. That leads to a tug of war as Austin nears the fourth corner and he unknowingly pulls Savio into the corner, giving the Caribbean star the victory. This was a good, physical struggle that found ways to keep a match that disallowed near-falls interesting. It also provided a surprising outcome because DiBiase had been such a staple of WWF programming many fans never expected him to leave. Rating: ***¾

DiBiase is irate at Austin’s loss and yells at him but Austin storms off, done with DiBiase and leaving the Million Dollar Championship Belt behind as he will never wear it again. Savio tells the audio team to stop playing his music, leading the crowd in a version of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” With that, DiBiase’s nine-year run in the WWF comes to an end. He would head to WCW and would never come back as a regular act.

WWF Champion Shawn Michaels is shown chatting on America Online. Well, that is what Ross says but all the footage shows is Michaels staring at the screen because he cannot type.

Vader (w/Jim Cornette) (9-0) pins Yokozuna (2-2) after the Vader Bomb at 8:53:

This is Yokozuna’s first televised match since Vader injured him on the April 8 edition of Monday Night RAW. The two big men waste no time coming to blows but then back off to stall for a football-like collision. When they finally do the spot, Yokozuna knocks Vader down and sends him over the top rope with a clothesline. He soon gives Vader a taste of his own medicine by elbow dropping his adversary’s left leg. That later prevents Vader from doing a body slam, allowing Ross to take a dig at Lex Luger by saying Ahmed Johnson is the only man that he has seen slam the former WWF champion. Yokozuna does a uranage and Samoan drop but when he goes for the Banzai Drop, Cornette tries to intercede. Yokozuna tosses his former manager into the ring but Cornette begging off gives Vader time to recover. Cornette is laid out by a headbutt and Yokozuna tries to Banzai Drop him but Vader pulls his manager out of the way and Yokozuna hits canvas. Vader follows up by elbow dropping and splashing Yokozuna’s left leg and the Vader Bomb ends the feud in his favor. For a big man match this was quite good as it had some callbacks to elements of the program between the two, even if the ending made Yokozuna look like an idiot. Rating: **

An advertisement for The King of the Ring sees Jerry Lawler die after choking on a piece of chicken and thinking he has made it to heaven. Instead, he is beaten up by former kings in the ring, including Elvis Presley, revealing that Lawler has actually ended up in hell.

Perfect announces that Lawler will face the Ultimate Warrior at The King of the Ring. Ross gives an official breakdown of the 16-man King of the Ring bracket, making it official that only the semi-finals and finals will happen on pay-per-view. The remaining bracket for the tournament is as follows:

-Vader (now in the semi-finals)
-Henry Godwinn vs. Justin Bradshaw
-Jake Roberts vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley
-Bob Holly vs. Steve Austin
-Savio Vega vs. Marty Jannetty
-Yokozuna vs. Owen Hart
-Skip vs. Marc Mero

Casket Match for the Intercontinental Championship: Goldust (Champion w/Marlena) (8-4-2) defeats the Undertaker (6-0-1) after Mankind interferes at 12:35:

The Undertaker fakes Goldust out during his entrance, appearing in the ring behind the champion as Bearer comes down the aisle. It takes more than four minutes for Goldust to mount offense, using the Undertaker’s finisher against him. That is not enough to keep the challenger in the casket, though. A sleeper hold has the same outcome, leading to a fun spot where Goldust body surfs the casket to put his weight on it to close and the Undertaker is able to open the lid and send Goldust flying off. Unfortunately, that has the effect of breaking the lid too. In an unorthodox move, the Undertaker grabs a chair to use against the champion but Goldust blocks it and delivers a clothesline and powerslam. A desperate Goldust covers after a flying clothesline but there are no pins so he tries the Undertaker’s ropewalk but just gets thrown off. That leads to a Tombstone beside the casket but when the Undertaker opens it, Mankind is inside and he puts the Undertaker in the Mandible Claw. That incapacitates the Deadman and Mankind awkwardly positions the broken lid on top of his rival and the referees call for the bell. Considering Goldust’s list of clunkers on pay-per-view, this was a pleasant surprise. Rating: **½

Mankind locks the casket – or gives the illusion of it because it is broken – and then sits atop it and pulls his hair. White smoke comes out of the casket but there is no Undertaker resurrection or video like the Royal Rumble two years ago. After the heels leave and the casket is opened, the Undertaker is not inside. Some fans laugh and then the lights go out and the pay-per-view ends.

The Last Word: If these matches were coupled with the Sunday edition of the show, this In Your House would have been one of the better renditions of the concept. Ted DiBiase’s exits with more of a whimper than a bang as his Million Dollar Corporation had become a shell of itself, especially once Sid quit the promotion before the Royal Rumble. Steve Austin will now have to navigate the WWF on his own but Austin never needed a manager to talk for him anyway so this opens new possibilities.

Up Next: WWF Superstars for June 1!

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