The 1999 Backlash was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and presented by Castrol GTX. It was the inaugural Backlash and took place on April 25, 1999, at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The concept of the event was based around the backlash from WWF's flagship event, WrestleMania.
In line with the event's concept, the main event was a rematch from WrestleMania XV between "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The Rock for the WWF Championship, but this time with a special guest referee, Shane McMahon. Lower down on the card, Big Show and Mankind had a Boiler Room Brawl to settle matters after their previous encounter, which decided who would referee the WrestleMania event. Triple H also wrestled X-Pac due to Triple H causing X-Pac to lose a match for the European Championship the previous month.
The event had originally been promoted as "Backlash: In Your House", but the branding was dropped as the WWF discontinued the In Your House series before Backlash was held (the In Your House series would later briefly return from 2020 to 2022 as an NXT event). As a result, Backlash was the first non-In Your House monthly PPV held by the promotion outside of their five major events at the time (WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Royal Rumble).
Production Background
From May 1995 to February 1999, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) ran a series of monthly professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) events titled In Your House, which were held between the promotion's five major PPVs at the time: Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Five". The next event was originally to be "Backlash: In Your House", but in April 1999, the WWF phased out the In Your House events to establish permanent names for the monthly pay-per-views held between the "Big Five". Backlash in turn dropped the In Your House branding and was the first monthly PPV held following the discontinuation of the In Your House shows. Early advertising had included the In Your House branding, but it was dropped in the weeks leading up to the pay-per-view. Backlash was subsequently held after WrestleMania XV, and it took place on April 25, 1999, at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The concept of the pay-per-view was based around the backlash from WWF's flagship event, WrestleMania.
Storylines The event consisted of eight professional wrestling matches with predetermined outcomes. The matches involved wrestlers portraying their characters (known as gimmicks) in planned storylines that took place before, during and after the event.
The main feud going into the event involved the WWF Championship, which "Stone Cold" Steve Austin had won from The Rock at WrestleMania XV. The following night on Raw is War, however, Austin demanded the return of his Smoking Skull belt, a personalized championship belt that he had worn the previous year during his tenure as WWF Champion, which villainous WWF owner Mr. McMahon had stolen from him at Breakdown: In Your House, after causing Austin to lose. Rather than oppose him as he usually would, McMahon acquiesced to the request as The Undertaker had threatened his family. Mr. McMahon's son, Shane, disagreed and went against his father's wishes, stealing the Smoking Skull belt and giving it to The Rock, who was part of the villainous alliance The Corporation. Shane then unceremoniously ejected his father from The Corporation while Austin and Rock continued to feud over ownership of Austin's personalized belt. This culminated with a fight between the two which ended with Rock throwing Austin, and then the belt, into a river from a bridge in Detroit which alluded to the events of December 1997 when Austin threw Rock's Intercontinental Championship into the Oyster River. The Rock held a mock funeral the following week for Austin, revealing he still had possession of the Smoking Skull belt; Austin crashed the funeral with a monster truck and crushed Rock's limousine and hearse. During the Sunday Night Heat that aired before the event, Shane declared that the match was to have a no disqualification stipulation and announced himself as the special guest referee.
The Undertaker, meanwhile, was involved in a storyline where he became the leader of a Satanic group of wrestlers called The Ministry of Darkness. During the beginning of the year he began to articulate a desire for Stephanie McMahon leading to a Hell in a Cell match at WrestleMania where Corporation member The Big Boss Man was hanged from the ceiling. Undertaker then became more aggressive in his actions, demanding Stephanie and offering 'sacrifices' when she was not given over to him. One woman he sacrificed, via crucifixion, was Ryan Shamrock who played the on-screen sister of Ken Shamrock. Fighting for family honor, Shamrock vowed to break Undertaker's leg.
Undertaker's obsession with Stephanie led to another match being made at the event. During April Undertaker successfully managed to abduct Stephanie, however Shamrock, looking for revenge, set about trying to find her and attacked various members of the Ministry for her whereabouts. Eventually Christian revealed where she was, forcing The Undertaker to reprimand him by whipping him and leading to a crucifixion. While he was in the Ministry along with Edge and Gangrel, the three also made up a smaller group named The Brood who chose Christian over the Ministry and saved him, leaving the Ministry. This led to Undertaker's minions being forced to wrestle the Brood.
Elsewhere on the card, Triple H fought X-Pac due to events that transpired at WrestleMania. During the event Chyna, who had been Triple H's valet and girlfriend but had since turned on him to ally with Kane, reunited with Triple H. The two, who were in a wrestling group called D-Generation X, came to ringside later in the match to ostensibly help fellow D-Generation X member X-Pac in his match against Shane McMahon. The two attacked X-Pac in order to ally with McMahon and The Corporation, however, and as a result, X-Pac lost the European Championship match.
Two hardcore wrestling matches were scheduled for the card. The first was a specialty match, a Boiler Room Brawl based around wrestler Mankind who was billed as being "from the boiler room". As a former member of The Corporation and challenger for The Rock's WWF Championship in December and January, Mankind found himself coming to blows with the Corporate enforcer Big Show, especially when Big Show caused Mankind to lose his belt in a ladder match, removing him from the main event of WrestleMania. Desperate to be part of WrestleMania's main event, Mankind staked a claim to be the special guest referee but Corporation leader Vince McMahon preferred Big Show officiating to ensure The Rock remained champion. The two had a match at WrestleMania to determine who would referee the main event, which Mankind won by disqualification. In the storyline, however, Mankind was hospitalized after the match, while Big Show was arrested after he punched McMahon for slapping him. With this, Big Show left The Corporation but maintained a desire to settle the score between the two in a hardcore match. Gradually the two came to respect each other, rescuing the other from Corporate assaults, but wanted to wrestle for pride.
The other hardcore match on the card was for the WWF Hardcore Championship; Bob Holly had wrestled Al Snow on the banks of the Mississippi River two months prior and despite the latter being notorious for his hardcore prowess, Holly picked up the victory. The two fought at WrestleMania but the match also included Billy Gunn and a deciding bout was needed. On Raw is War episodes leading up to Backlash, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams would regularly feud with both Snow and Holly for the WWF Hardcore Championship, where he was managed by Jim Ross. A notable match involved Williams and Holly wrestling each other in a frat house in Albany, New York on the March 22, 1999 edition of Raw is War, and a match the week after where Snow hit Williams with a frying pan behind the referee's back. On the April 5, 1999 episode, Snow and Holly had a singles match, where Williams attacked both of them with suplexes in revenge.
Williams was scheduled to fight Snow and Holly at the pay-per-view, making the hardcore match a three-way for the WWF Hardcore Championship. However, Williams was taken off of television in mid-April for needing further time to rehab his injury and for refusing to work for FMW. He was released shortly afterwards. Williams had been being built as a midcarder at the time in hopes of repairing his character after the WWF Brawl For All, feuding with Snow and Holly since March.
The final rivalry going into the evening saw Goldust try to regain his WWF Intercontinental Championship. On Raw is War Goldust was scheduled to defend against Big Boss Man but The Godfather, a wrestler whose gimmick involved being a pimp, offered Boss Man some prostitutes to take his place and won the title.
Event + Other on-screen personnelRole:Name:English commentatorsJim RossJerry LawlerSpanish commentatorsCarlos CabreraHugo SavinovichInterviewersKevin KellyMichael ColeRing announcerHoward Finkel RefereesMike ChiodaEarl Hebner Jim KorderasTheodore Long Tim White
Sunday Night Heat Before the pay-per-view event went on air, the crowd was warmed up with the cable television program Sunday Night Heat which consisted of four matches. In an intergender tag team contest, Val Venis and Nicole Bass defeated D'Lo Brown and Ivory when Nicole Bass pinned Ivory. Afterward Bass made sexual advances to Venis who quickly departed. In another tag team match, Droz and Prince Albert defeated Too Much (Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor) when Albert pinned Scott Taylor. After this Kane pinned The Big Boss Man in a singles match. The final match of the show saw Viscera pin Test after Big Boss Man hit Test with a nightstick, pretending to be aiming for Viscera.
Preliminary matches The first match on the pay-per-view was the six-man tag match between The Brood and The Ministry of Darkness. Mideon began by placing an eyeball in a jar in the middle of the ring to scare his opponent Christian. During the match the Ministry would distract the referee to ambush the various Brood members while the Brood tended to use double team moves until Edge was isolated from tagging his partners. After Edge managed to tag in Christian the teams ignored the tag team rules and all wrestled in the ring, with Edge using a kneeling Christian to run and jump into the corner to attack Mideon and Christian then doing the same with Gangrel to jump onto Bradshaw in the opposite corner. After this the teams began to brawl outside aside from Christian and Bradshaw. Christian almost won the match after a tornado DDT from the corner but Ministry member Viscera came to ringside and squashed Christian against the ring then threw him back in, allowing Bradshaw to use his Clothesline From Hell finisher and pin him.