St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House was a 1999 professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was the 27th In Your House and took place on February 14, 1999, at the Memphis Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee. The title of the event alluded to the Saint Valentine's Day massacre in the year 1929, which saw seven people murdered as a part of the gang war between Al Capone and Bugs Moran. This was the final In Your House event until June 2020, as at the time, the WWF moved to install permanent names for their monthly PPVs, which began with Backlash in April.
Eight professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card. The first main event was for the WWF Championship. As The Rock and Mankind had fought many times previously with ambiguous match endings, it was decided theit title match would be a Last Man Standing match, a match where a wrestler loses if they cannot stand up before the referee counts to 10. The second main event was a steel cage match between "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and the owner of the company, Vince McMahon, to decide whether Austin would go on to headline WrestleMania XV the following month. The event saw the WWF debut of Paul Wight, formerly known as The Giant in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), who would later be renamed The Big Show.
Production Background
In Your House was a series of monthly professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) events first produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in May 1995. They aired when the promotion was not holding one of its then-five major PPVs (WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Royal Rumble) and were sold at a lower cost. St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House was the 27th In Your House event and took place on February 14, 1999, at the Memphis Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee. The title of the event alluded 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.
Storylines 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 makeup style. In a match on the edition of January 25 of Raw is War, The Blue Meanie made his WWF 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 Bob 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 WWF 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 about 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 WWF 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 danced with 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 interviewing 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 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 H demanded an "I Quit" match with The Rock, questioning the dubious circumstances that the one had ended the previous night. During the match, Triple H 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 H. The following week Triple H 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 WWF 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 McMahon 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 into WrestleMania XV, a 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 McMahon won the Royal Rumble he earned a match against the WWF Champion at WrestleMania XV, but at the time, it seemed as if that champion was fellow Corporate member The Rock. Not a full-time wrestler, McMahon announced on the January 25 episode of Raw Is War that he was vacating his place at WrestleMania and that he was appointing a new #1 contender for the WWF championship match at WrestleMania XV presumably to keep the title within The Corporation as stable member The Rock then held the title. However he was informed by Commissioner Shawn Michaels that if the winner was incapable of wrestling in the WrestleMania main event, then the runner-up would take their place. Being that the runner-up was McMahon's rival "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, this enraged McMahon and Austin used this to goad McMahon into a match for McMahon to regain his #1 contendership. Explaining that even more than a WWF Championship match, he wanted another chance to fight McMahon 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 Mcmahon would agree to the match and promised that The Corporation would be banned from ringside or from interfering for the match. The night before on Raw Saturday Night (actually filmed the preceding Monday), McMahon made Austin run the gauntlet against all The Corporation members ending with McMahon pinning a weakened Austin.
Event + Other on-screen personnelRole:Name:English commentatorsMichael ColeJerry LawlerSpanish commentatorsCarlos CabreraHugo SavinovichInterviewerKevin KellyRing announcerHoward Finkel RefereesMike ChiodaEarl Hebner Jim KorderasTheodore Long Tim White
Before the pay-per-view went to air, two matches were contested on Sunday Night Heat. Corporate member Test was disqualified in a match against Ministry of Darkness member Viscera. Tiger Ali Singh's match against Billy Gunn would go to a no contest.
The opening match began with Goldust delivering a spinebuster to Bluedust. Bluedust's attempt to back-body drop his opponent to reverse affairs was met with a punch in the face, causing him to flee until Goldust brought him back into the ring, and tried to deliver Shattered Dreams, but Bluedust escaped the position and kicked a running Goldust to the ground. His attempt at a Meaniesault miscued and when he rose to his feet, Goldust used the Curtain Call to pin him then successfully delivering Shattered Dreams after the pinfall.
The hardcore match between the two J.O.B. Squad members began with Al Snow throwing Bob Holly out of the ring and hitting him with a chair before throwing him into the crowd. By the first tier of fans, Holly managed to reverse things, finding a chair to strike Snow with before blinding him with a fire extinguisher and breaking a glass jar over Snow's head. Snow returned with a blast from the fire extinguisher going through to the backstage area where he was thrown into technical boxes. Holly then found floor tiles to break over Snow's head as well as a beer cooler. Snow managed to escape into the car park, using mop handles to break over Holly's back. The two found their way past the car park onto the banks of the Mississippi River. Snow kicked Holly to the floor and choked him before throwing him into the river, Snow was dragged into the river soon after. Snow escaped the river but Holly chased him, tripping him over to wrap Snow in a chain fence, making it virtually impossible to kick out of the pinfall.
The third match began with Big Boss Man gaining an advantage by delivering a low blow to Mideon. He then chased him out of the ring with a chair but hit it against the ring post after which Mideon countered by biting Boss Man's fingers. Inside the ring Boss Man dominated Mideon, throwing him around and jumping on him, using the ropes to choke him and jump on him. Although Mideon offered some attempts at fighting back, he ran into a Big Boss Slam and was pinned. As the match ended, the ring was surrounded by the Ministry of Darkness and the lights then went off as The Undertaker made his way to the ring. When the lights came back on Boss Man was being held down in the ring while Viscera delivered three big splashes to him before being carried away by the Ministry.