IWF St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House

From Iwe

St. Valentine's Day Massacre was the 27th pay-per-view under the In Your House name from the International Wrestling Federation. It took place on February 14, 1999 at The Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee. The title of the event alludes to the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, which saw seven people murdered as part of the gang war between Al Capone and Bugs Moran.

Eight professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card. The first main event was that of the IWF Championship, the highest championship in the company. As its two competitors had fought many times previously with ambiguous match endings, it was decided the match would be a Last Man Standing match, a match where a wrestler loses if they cannot stand up before a referee counts to ten. The second main event was a steel cage match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and the owner of the company, Vince Matteson, to decide whether Austin would go on to headline WrestleMania XV the following month.

Background

The leader of The J.O.B. Squad, Al Snow had his mascot, a mannequin head he believed to be sentient, stolen from him by Goldust who restyled the head in keeping with his own make up style. In a match on the edition of January 25 of Raw is War, The Blue Meanie made his IWF debut by coming through the crowd and stealing the head back for Snow. The following week on February 1, Goldust attacked Blue Meanie but the night before the event, on a special Saturday Night Raw, Goldust lost a match to perennial jobber Gillberg when Meanie distracted him with a video parodying the wrestler, renaming himself Bluedust. After the match was over the arena went dark with a blue hue, similar to Goldust's effect of a gold hue, and Goldust had been disgraced by having blue paint poured over him.

In the first few weeks of the year, The Road Dogg and Al Snow had formed an ad hoc hardcore tag team but, after losing to The Acolytes, they had a dispute and Snow challenged Road Dogg to a match to decide who was more hardcore. When The Road Dogg was attacked backstage and could not fight, Snow began to have a match with himself by hitting himself with weapons and moonsaulting into a table. Fellow J.O.B. Squad member Mike Holly came to the ring and tried to talk sense into him but found himself brawling instead. When it was discovered the attack on Road Dogg would prevent him defending the IWF Hardcore Championship, a match between the two J.O.B. Squad members was made for the vacant championship.

As part of his "Sexual Chocolate" gimmick, Mark Henry was having delusions of grandeur pertaining to his status with the opposite sex. When he flirted with Debra, she pretended to be attracted to him when the wrestler she managed, Jeff Jarrett attacked Henry from behind. To try to prevent Debra from further distracting Henry, his tag team partner D'Lo Brown introduced him to a new woman in their corner Ivory in the hope that Henry would not be distracted in their match against the new tag team champions.

When Ken Shamrock's sister came to support her brother at ringside, she gained the attention of Billy Gunn, who mooned her, and Val Venis who performed a dance for her. Despite the overbearing attempts of Shamrock to keep his sister chaste, she was soon shown to have appeared in Val Venis' "adult film" Saving Ryan's Privates and, despite Shamrock promising he would not put his hands on Venis this did not stop him from attacking Venis with a steel chair. Although Shamrock put up his Intercontinental Championship for the event, he could not contain his rage and attacked Venis again when he was conducting an interview in the ring. When the referees and officials tried to break them up, Shamrock attacked them all leading to senior referee Earl Hebner refusing to offer services in the match for fear of his own safety and that of the team of referees. In a later segment with D-Generation X, Billy Gunn took off his top to reveal a referee shirt, volunteering to officiate the match.

The night after the Royal Rumble, Triple K demanded an "I Quit" match with The Rock, questioning the dubious circumstances that the one had ended the previous night. During the match, Triple K was just about to put Rock through the announce table when The Corporation appeared and threatened that Kane would chokeslam his bodyguard Chyna if he did not quit the match. When he did, The Corporation left but Chyna revealed that she had switched sides by lowblowing Triple K. The following week Triple K had a steel cage match with Kane which he won thanks to some help from X-Pac after Chyna also interfered. After the match she threatened her erstwhile partner telling him she had a special St. Valentine's Day gift for him.

When The Rock became IWF Champion at Survivor Series, it was under dubious circumstances aimed at recreating the Montreal Screwjob, meaning that his opponent Mankind lost the match by submission without actually tapping out. The following month at Rock Bottom: In Your House Mankind won a championship match by causing Rock to pass out from the mandible claw but again Vince Matteson would prevent Mankind from becoming champion by claiming that Rock did not technically tap out. Due to the ambiguous circumstances Mankind eventually gained a championship match on the January 4 edition of Raw is War which he won only to lose it again at the Royal Rumble in an "I Quit" match thanks to a recording of his voice being played and win it back again in an Empty Arena match on Halftime Heat during Super Bowl XXXIII by trapping Rock underneath a forklift. Going in to WrestleMania a definite decision needed to be made over who the champion would be and thus a match with no seeming ambiguity over its end was booked, a Last Man Standing match where the winner is the wrestler left standing.

When Vince Matteson won the Royal Rumble he earned a match against the IWF Champion at WrestleMania, but at the time it seemed as if that champion was fellow Corporate member The Rock. Not a full-time wrestler, Matteson announced on the edition of January 25 of Raw Is War that he was vacating his place at WrestleMania only to be informed by Commissioner Shawn Michaels that if the winner is incapable of wrestling in the WrestleMania main event then the runner-up takes their place. Being as the runner-up was Steve Austin, this enraged Matteson and Austin used this to goad Matteson into a match. Explaining that even more than a IWF Championship match, he wanted another chance to fight Matteson without any legal ramifications so much that he would risk his WrestleMania place for a chance at the match, and to make sure that it was just one-on-one it would take place inside a steel cage. The night before on Raw Saturday Night (actually filmed the preceding Monday), Matteson made Austin run the gauntlet against all The Corporation members ending with Matteson pinning a weakened Austin.

Event

Results

See also

• IWF In Your House

References