Valentine’s Day is meant to be a celebration of love, but on February 14th, 1999 there was nothing to be found in the World Wrestling Federation but hatred at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Memphis. The next-to-last ppv to carry the “In Your House” subtitle was a pivotal stop on the road to WrestleMania XV, which advanced the two marquee storylines of the day, Stone Cold Steve Austin versus evil owner Vince McMahon, and the Rock against Mankind for the WWF Championship.
TODAY’S ISSUE: WWF’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
I recently wrote about the history of the Royal Rumble and watched several older Rumble matches for perspective. When I got to the 1999 edition of the show, I couldn’t help revisiting not only the 30-man battle royal but also the infamous “I Quit” match between the Rock and Mankind. It was the match that Mick Foley described in his New York Times bestseller as Dwayne Johnson going overboard and truly hurting his heart by drilling Mick with far more unprotected chair shots to the head than originally agreed upon, all while Foley was shackled in handcuffs. Not only did Johnson’s loss of focus bother Mick, but also the Rock’s seeming lack of concern for Foley’s welfare after the match really upset the future author. There was so much emotion between the two (both in kayfabe and in real life) at that time that I felt compelled to watch the next installment of their saga at the February show.
Mankind and the Rock started their feud in earnest a few months earlier at Survivor Series when Vince McMahon turned against Foley, would-be heir to the WWF throne, in favor of the Rock, who went full-fledged heel in forming an alliance was McMahon. Their new working relationship formed the basis of the evil stable known as the Corporation. McMahon practically handed the WWF title to the newly dubbed “Corporate Champion” in a tournament in which Vince seemed to be leading Mankind to the finals, when instead it was the Rock all along who had Vinnie Mac’s angel sitting on his shoulder. The feud between Rock and Mankind carried through Rock Bottom in December, where Mankind actually won the match but McMahon screwed him out of the title via a ridiculous administrative decision, and they traded the belt in their brutal I Quit match at the Rumble and the Halftime Heat empty-arena match. This led to the Last Man Standing match at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Although the bloody battles between the Great One and the Deranged One were for the richest prize in the company, the war between Vince McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin took center stage for months. Following his shady firing, re-hiring under false pretenses, and being screwed over by Shane-O Mac, Austin defeated the Undertaker to earn a slot in the Royal Rumble match, during which McMahon’s treachery (offering $100,000 to anyone who could eliminate Austin and employing a plot to lure the Rattlesnake away from the ring and incapacitate him) ensured McMahon’s victory in the Rumble, with a little help from the Corporation, the Rock, and a generous amount of time spent outside the ring during the actual match.
But McMahon erred in his attempt to hand over the #1 contendership to another member of the Corporation (ostensibly to lie down for the Rock at WM XV), as on-screen commissioner Shawn Michaels quoted the company’s rulebook to it’s owner and forced McMahon to wrestle Austin in a cage to determine just who the real #1 contender was. The cage match was the main event of the February ppv extravaganza, but there was so much more on the card.
The show opened with an emotionally charged, short opener featuring the vendetta between Goldust and the Blue Meanie, who wrestled for one night only as BlueDust in a bizarre homage/mockery of the Golden One. As a result of a feud between Goldust and Al Snow over Snow’s trusty mannequin head, Meanie showed up in the WWF to assist his old ECW buddy and wound up embroiled in a war with the American Dream’s baby boy. Goldust got a measure of revenge on the Meanie, and delivered his “Shattered Dreams” kick in the corner, popping the crowd and starting things off with a bang.
Next up was a Hardcore Title match between Al Snow and Bob Holly. Matches like this were how Holly earned his “Hardcore” moniker, to be sure, and before the concept had been beaten into the ground, these hardcore brawls were entertaining and violent. The two former J.O.B. Squad stable mates were willing to take tons of abuse and endure crazy spots in the name of entertaining fans and earning favor with management. I know the fans reacted favorably, but neither man ever got serious consideration for something bigger or better in wrestling, so that shows you just how much all that abuse was actually worth. Still, they carved out their own niche in a time of extreme (pardon the pun) violence in pro wrestling, and the Hardcore Championship division was reliable for one earth-shattering brawl per event back then.
Snow and Holly went after each other with malice, using all manner of “plunder” to pummel each other around the Pyramid Arena, to the outside, and eventually into the Mississippi River. The future Hardcore Holly survived Snow’s onslaught and overcame Snow’s high pain tolerance and the unforgiving winter elements to become the 4th Hardcore Champ in WWF history.
The rivalry between the Corporation and Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness raged on in a fight between the Big Boss Man and Mideon, which disproved my belief that any mundane match can be made more exciting when the competitors represent different factions in a stable war. Even with that advantage this was a slow, plodding big-man match that couldn’t be helped by the intensity of the conflict between factions. They lumbered and trudged around the ring while the crowd chanted, “boring!” until Boss Man (may he rest in peace) responded with a sleeper hold. That’s NOT the way to recapture the attention of a crowd you’re losing, Sir. Mercifully, the match ended shortly thereafter when Boss Man pinned Mideon, and then the circus began. The Ministry surrounded the ring while ‘Taker made his demonic entrance, and his nine-man squad pounded Boss Man into unconsciousness before carrying him to the back of the arena to an unknown, likely soul-altering fate. Uh… ok. This led to Boss Man being “hung” from the Hell in a Cell cage by the Brood after an equally dull match against the Undertaker at WrestleMania XV. I mean no disrespect to the late Ray Traylor, but from a booking perspective, suffice it to say these were not good times for the Big Boss Man, and six months later things went from bad to worse for poor Mr. Traylor as he starred in the inane “Pepper the dog” angle with Al Snow. But I digress…
Next up was a the tag team title match between defending champs Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart and the team of former Nation of Domination member D-Lo Brown and Mark Henry, which was indicative of the WWF as a whole back then. The contest itself was entertaining, with the heels working the traditional formula and all four guys working hard to put on a good show (well, maybe not “Sexual Chocolate”, but the other three), but their efforts were overshadowed by stupidity when Hart blasted Henry in the knee with Jarrett’s guitar, and referee Earl Hebner had to pretend not to notice the huge pieces of exploded balsa wood littering the ring while he made the three-count. Also, most of the drama unfortunately resulted from Ivory’s promise to disrobe Debra McMichael if she interfered (which she did) and not the outstanding work by Hart, Jarrett, and D-Lo. Ivory’s disrobing of Debra came down to slightly tearing her blazer and exposing her back, so even though they fell short in the T and A department, the crowd still cared more about Debra’s “puppies” than the damn wrestling, which is sad.
The next match was a mountain of overbooking, featuring way too many concepts for one angle. The Intercontinental Championship has been more than enough storyline reason for men to go after each other in the past, but this particular feud had some added intrigue in the form of a personal relationship formed between challenger and former porn star Val Venis and sister of the IC champ, Ryan Shamrock. Was Val simply using Alicia “Ryan Shamrock” Webb to get into her brother’s head and distract him so he could capture the strap? Or was the adult film star really corrupting and violating Ken’s innocent, little sister? Was Shamrock doing the right thing by defending the honor of his sister, or was he an overbearing control freak who wouldn’t allow his adult sibling to live her live as she chose?
Either way, the angle between these three, which rumor has it Vince Russo wanted to present as a love-triangle, making the Shamrock kinfolk into lovers (thank goodness that didn’t go down!) was more than enough and was fine on its own, so of course Russo inserted Badd Ass Billy Gunn into the mix as the special guest referee, making this emotional human drama into a farce by finding the line and then stepping way over it for no good reason. Well, accept that maybe, just maybe, Russo is a warped little man with sicko tendencies and a twisted sensibility. He is the same guy who brought the world a tag team of wrestling penises named Dick and Rod Johnson, after all.
Like the tag title match earlier, this contest was overshadowed by the multiple angles converging in one place. Venis, who I always found to be underrated and Shamrock, who was very talented and could have done more for the WWF, had great intensity and chemistry, but they kept messing around with Billy Gunn and Ryan Shamrock taking the emphasis away from the solid wrestling action. I’ll never understand why a wrestling promotion would want to do anything but accentuate in-ring performances, but that’s just not what the twin Vinces think the business is all about, I suppose. Gunn intentionally stopped counting to three when Shamrock had Venis down for at least a five-count following a vicious DDT, so the match continued. That sort of nonsense really takes a true wrestling fan out of the moment, and it’s up to the grapplers to try to bring them back.
Just when Shamrock and Venis had my attention again, they went right back to the ga-ga when Shamrock left the ring (in the middle of a title defense) to admonish his kayfabe sister, giving Webb the instructions “slap me” clear as a bell. Shamrock was four inches from the camera when he said it, so you could hear his words and see his mouth move when he told Webb what to do, and if that doesn’t destroy a fan’s ability to suspend disbelief, nothing will. Why didn’t he tell her backstage before the match, “when I leave the ring to yell at you, don’t forget to slap me”? Was she that much of a bubblehead that she wouldn’t have been able to remember her one spot in the match? Then Shamrock got into it with Gunn, who attacked the champ and sent him back in the ring and into a Val Venis cradle, and Gunn quick-counted Shamrock out of his IC title, completely ruining what could have been a very good match but keeping the sportz entertainment quotient as high as possible. Oh, and then Gunn attacked a celebrating Venis, too. Irritation, thy name is Russo.
More soap opera drama? Fantastic! D-Generation X splintered when Vince’s Corporation and money came between the former gang of miscreants as Chyna jumped ship to the Corporate team, so Triple H and X-Pac faced Kane and Chyna in a mixed tag team match. Triple H was somewhere between aristocratic party-boy and serious ass-kicker here gimmick-wise, and the confusion was striking. Chyna was also in transition between surgeries and phases of body type. She was still jacked to the gills with muscles, but now had her new, more feminine jaw line and immense fake hooters to go along with her ‘roided physique. Triple H wore a “Chyna Syndrome” t-shirt beneath his DX football jersey, and tore it Hogan-style right in her face – aww, snap! That is some serious psychological warfare, Mr. Cerebral Assassin! Shane-O Mac joined the King and Cole on commentary, [sarcasm] which wasn’t annoying whatsoever [/sarcasm].
The contest was every bit as exciting as you’d expect a match with one good worker, a lumbering big man, an overrated woman, and X-Pac to be. At least Waltman did us all the favor of taking out Shane during the match; I can never thank him enough for that short reprieve from McMahon’s incredibly grating commentary. When X-Pac hit Chyna with the Bronco Buster I had terrifying flashbacks to their “1 Night in Chyna” porn video, although I never even saw it – strange how that works. The blistering pace came to a screeching halt when Kane gingerly placed Triple H on the canvas ever so gently with something not unlike a choke-slam and dragged a woozy Chyna atop him for the pinfall. Good times.
Now this is more like it – things started getting serious when Mankind and the Rock faced off in a Last Man Standing match for the WWF title. These two have always had incredible chemistry, either when bludgeoning each other senseless or when tagging as the Rock and Sock Connection. With their previous brawls all personifying violence and intensity, they had loads of momentum heading into the next vicious chapter at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and they certainly delivered. Rock and Mankind battered each other in a variety of hateful ways, showcasing each man’s talents. Foley displayed his ability to absorb punishment and take a mighty beating while maintaining the aura of a dangerous, psychotic madman, while Johnson showed off his ability to act like a wicked heel yet still entertain the masses, as they provided one more classic clash in their epic struggle.
Even in a match where anything goes, the WWF couldn’t resist utilizing a hackneyed ref bump, and then failed to deliver a satisfying conclusion to this amazing feud. Instead, they chose to go with a double-knockout finale, leaving the title in Mankind’s possession and the live crowd chanting “bull shit”. This outcome necessitated a ladder match the following night on RAW during which the Rock regained the title with some help from the Big Show, and then he moved on to Stone Cold at ‘Mania. Since Rock’s title victory shifted the focus of the WWF Championship away from Mankind for the next several months, they should have allowed the ppv match to have a satisfying conclusion and had Rock with the strap in the Last Man Standing match instead of waiting until the following night to switch the title back to the Rock for the build-up to his match against Austin. There’s a reason fans pay for wrestling on Sunday night when the free stuff is coming Monday, and Last Man Standing matches with ref bumps and unsatisfying conclusions isn’t it.
And now onto the main event of the evening, a match that was months in the making, Stone Cold Steve Austin versus Mr. McMahon for the right to face the champion at WrestleMania XV. After endless physical and psychological attacks by both parties, the bad blood between these two threatened to boil over and drown all 19,028 fans inside the Pyramid. The video montage describing their heated rivalry was very well done, of course, and I couldn’t help but notice the cage around the ring was unusually short compared to the ones WWF normally used for cage matches at that time. Hmm…
In the very city where it came to prominence, McMahon employed the classic Memphis stall, making Austin wait and poking the Rattlesnake with a stick while keeping his distance. Before the contest began, they brawled into the crowd and all over the arena but there was no Corporate assist for McMahon like at the Rumble. Give Vince credit, he took a hell of a beating for a guy who didn’t have to get in to the ring at all, and the crazy old bastard bled for his company. The reason for the shorter cage was quickly revealed, as Vince took a decent bump from the top through a ringside announce table, which looked like it really hurt. He is one tough billionaire, no doubt about it. Austin got in every satisfying revenge spot a fan would want to see him use, and several times returned to the ring when he could have won because McMahon wouldn’t admit defeat. Vince continued to raise his middle fingers at Austin, even when he was bloodied and beaten from pillar to post, and the more defiance Vince showed, the more Austin tried to beat it out of him.
Stone Cold stomped McMahon into oblivion until the man who was then known as the Giant in competing promotion World Championship Wrestling, debuted in the WWF as the newest, biggest, baddest Corporation lackey by coming up through the ring and attacking Austin. His surprise jump to Titan was exciting, however Paul “the Big Show” White misjudged his own strength when he literally tossed Stone Cold into the side of the cage so hard that it separated at one corner and swung open like a gate, allowing Austin to simply fall to the floor and win the match, thereby cementing his slot in the main event of WrestleMania XV against the Rock.
With loads of chaos and intensity, this show had a lot of “WWF Attitude”, but it kept tripping over its own feet by including too much sportz entertainment and not letting the better wrestlers simply wrestle. The rabid fan base of the late nineties could have been conditioned to accept less dangerous spots and career-shortening bumps if they were shown more solid wrestling instead of the ever growing game of “can you top this” played by several wrestlers. The Intercontinental and tag team title matches should have been allowed to stand on their own merits instead of being booked into confusion, and with the Hardcore title in the mix, the WWF crown didn’t need to be contested in nothing but gimmick matches for months on end like it was. Even the opening contest ended with a kick to the nuts, and when you start a show there, the only place to go is more violent, less technical, more aggressive, and less sportsmanlike.
Certainly sportsmanship and technical wrestling were not the order of the day in the WWF back then, but they could have had their own niche just as ultra-violence and hardcore battles, finger gestures, women treated as objects, and anti-hero worship blazed their own trails through the jungles of adolescent pre-teens looking to shock their parents and annoy their teachers during the “Attitude Era”.
The bottom line, as Stone Cold would say, is that there was a lot of talent and some solid storytelling in the WWF in 1999, but they never seemed satisfied with that. Vince McMahon and company always seemed to want to be edgy, controversial, and dangerous. I guess it worked, because they enjoyed a boom period that allowed them to outlast all their competition and form a major league monopoly of U.S. wrestling that hasn’t really been challenged to this day, even ten years later, but the product itself didn’t stand the test of time. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre show left it’s core audience back in 1999, and I doubt anyone who enjoyed it then would ever reach for it today when dusting off their old tapes and DVDs in search of a blast from the past.
Vin Sanity is not categorized as a psychological disorder… yet.
p.s. – “Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!” – Thomas Hood
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The original version of this syndicated column, titled Alternate Reality by Vin Tastic, appears each Monday morning on Pulse Wrestling.
Elsewhere on Pulse Wrestling this week…
Speaking of WWF/E on ppv, Paul Marshall brings the live coverage of another February ppv, this one the exciting No Way Out, featuring two Elimination Chamber matches and at least one big surprise. But wait, check out the Pulse Wrestling Staff predictions in the Rasslin’ Roundtable to see just who was surprised, and by what.
Andy Wheeler visited the Land of the ROHbots for his first live Ring of Honor event.
Speaking of ROH, John Wiswell reviews the Bound by Hate show from November of 2008, one of the first of the Adam Pearce era, as does Jake Ziegler.
Dan Hevia speaks out about the recent incident involving Chris Jericho and some decidedly overzealous fans in his You’re An Idiot commentary, as does Mark Allen as he asks in This Week in ‘E, “Does Chris Jericho Have to Hit a B!tch?”
Get expert SmackDown! analysis in Norine Stice’s Real-Time Report of the blue brand.
Freshman staffer Daniel Douglas covers TNA iMPACT!.
Need some more Vin Sanity this week? I was fortunate enough to be featured on the No Payne, No Glory podcast, and I talked to Mister Payne for an hour about all sorts of pro wrestling fun including WrestleMania fantasy booking, TNA, Christian Cage, ROH and the indies, Stampede Wrestling, NECW, and much more.
Finally this week, Scott Keith reviews the last episode of WWF’s Tuesday Night Titans in his latest Smark 24/7 Rant.
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Looking for something else? Wrestling fans will love PWMania.com, RingsideScoops.com, and the red hot DivaShots.com.
