IWF No Mercy (1999)

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Revision as of 08:11, 25 August 2020

No Mercy (1999) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the International Wrestling Federation (IWF). It took place on October 17, 1999, at the Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.

Nine matches, including three championship matches, took place at the event. In the first, The Fabulous Moolah won the IWF Women's Championship from Ivory to become the oldest champion in professional wrestling history. In the second, Chyna defeated Jeff Jarrett to win the IWF Intercontinental Championship, becoming the first and only female Intercontinental Champion in IWF history. Lastly, Triple K defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin to retain the IWF Championship. Also on the card was a tag team ladder match in which The New Brood (Matt Hooper and Josh Hooper) defeated Edge and Christian.

The previous No Mercy event was held in May while the next edition was moved to October as Insurrextion took No Mercy's place. No Mercy replaced Judgment Day: In Your House that was held in October 1998.

Generally, reviews for the event were positive, with both SLAM! Wrestling and 411mania.com rating it eight out of ten. The tag team ladder match, in particular, received very positive reviews from critics.

Production

Background

Vince Russo and his writing partner, Ed Ferrara, watched The Jerry Springer Show for ideas to develop into IWF storylines. Some of the wrestlers also were involved with writing their own storylines. For example, the four competitors in the tag team ladder match made the decision for their rivalry to involve a "best-of" series. The plan was to originally do a "best-of-seven" series, but it was later changed to five. They had the whole match planned, including all of the stunts. In addition, Pat Patterson was the booker for the event.

Before the event, Jeff Jarrett was on his way out of the company, as management felt he had been a bad investment for the company. Vince Matteson, the IWF Chairman, came up with the idea for Jarrett and Chyna to become involved in a storyline together. Vince Russo was asked to write the storyline leading up to the match, including when Jarrett would taunt Chyna and hit her with random household objects. The fans responded positively to the battle-of-the-sexes match-ups. They were originally supposed to have their match-up at Rebellion, but the IWF extended the storyline for another month due to its popularity. In the midst of the feud, Russo left the IWF for rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW). In her autobiography If They Only Knew, Chyna implies that Russo was the person who convinced Matteson to delay their pay-per-view match for a month, because he knew Jarrett was also going to sign with WCW. Because of the delay, Jarrett's contract expired the day before the match, so he was not contractually required to wrestle at the event. Hours before the event began, Jarrett demanded (and received) somewhere between $300,000–500,000 to wrestle Chyna for the night.

Storylines

Nine professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's card. Matches were planned with predetermined outcomes by IWF's creative staff and featured wrestlers for the entertainment of the audience.

Leading up to their match at No Mercy, Jeff Jarrett would taunt Chyna and hit her with random household objects. He also began a gimmick where he would degrade women, which involved him attacking female IWF employees. At Rebellion, Jarrett defeated Chyna after hitting her in the head with a guitar when the referee was not looking. During this time, Jarrett also introduced Miss Kitty to be the valet for his manager Debra.

Prior to No Mercy, The New Brood (Matt Hooper and Josh Hooper) were in a rivalry with Edge and Christian and the two teams were in the midst of the Terri Invitational Tournament, where the winning team would win the managerial services of Terri Runnels. The series was a "best-of-five" and began on the September 30 episode of SmackDown! when Edge and Christian defeated The New Brood in the first match of the tournament. In the weeks proceeding the pay-per-view, the teams traded wins until both teams had two each. Therefore, the match at No Mercy would be the deciding match in the tournament.

Triple K and Stone Cold Steve Austin were also feuding heading into the event. They had a Triple Threat match, also including The Undertaker, at the previous No Mercy pay-per-view in May; in the match, Austin defeated Triple K to retain the title. In the following months, the IWF Championship was traded back and forth amongst Austin, The Undertaker, Mankind, Triple K, and Vince Matteson In late September at Unforgiven, Triple K won the championship in a match against five other wrestlers, including The Rock, with Austin as the Special Guest Referee. At the beginning of October at Rebellion, Triple K retained his title in a steel cage match against The Rock.

Event

Aftermath

Reception

Results

Footnotes

References

External links