One of the things that I wondered out, but ultimately didn't include in my earlier blog article about what the fight video that Jon Taffer revealed at the end of the show. It featured a fight between bar owner Matt and bartender Dave. There were some other shenanigans, but Matt slapping Dave was the big event that finally convinced Taffer to abandon O'Face Bar.
Let me tell you a bit about my background. Way back in high school, I took a video production class. I can assure you that every bit of equipment that I worked with back in 1990 is completely out-of-date, but it offered me some perspective about the process of video production. Didn't the quality of footage seem good for an amateur video? Who edited it together?
Where exactly did that video come from???
Turns out that others had the same question and the Bar Rescue Update blog did a little investigation to find the answers. Follow the link to read the whole thing, but it appears that the infamous O'Face Bar Fight Video most likely came from their Spike TV audition tape:
When Bar Rescue comes to a city, they tell multiple bars they are under consideration and that Jon will be coming to 1 of the 3 bars (see question 3 in this link). This probably encourages the bars to do things that they think will make for good TV in hopes of getting picked over the other bars. Producers probably told this to O'Face, so they decided to stage not 1, but 2 fights in hopes of getting a free makeover. This also lets Jon Taffer claim that nothing is scripted as they do not tell people what to do, but let them know they need to be interesting to be picked.
The camera quality and sound quality on the video of Matt slapping Dave is pretty good and not too shaky as you normally see on regular Youtube videos. Also, there is no reaction from the camera operator filming this fight (no narration or "Ohhhhh") and the other people besides Bryan in the video don't react either. So, I will buy that it was staged and that assume that Bar Rescue producers are the ones that filmed the fight. I don't think there was an "unnamed source" that provided Jon with the video of this. Whether Jon knew about this fight the first day or found out later could be debated I guess, but you would assume he would have known.Bar Rescue Update pulls together various comments and tweets from the O'Face Bar owners and staff asserting that the fights were fake and staged for the program.