King of the Ring (1999)

Background

King of the Ring was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event held annually in June by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1993.^[4] The PPV was named after the King of the Ring tournament, a men's single-elimination tournament that was established in 1985 and held annually until 1991, except for 1990, with the winner crowned the "King of the Ring"; these early tournaments were held as special non-televised house shows.^[5] Unlike the non-televised events, the PPV did not feature all of the tournament's matches. Instead, several of the qualifying matches preceded the event with the final few matches then taking place at the pay-per-view. Other matches took place at the event as it was a traditional three-hour pay-per-view. The King of the Ring event became considered as one of the WWF's "Big Five" PPVs, along with the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, the company's five biggest annual shows of the year.^[6] The seventh King of the Ring PPV hosted the finals of the 13th tournament, and it was held on June 27, 1999, at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex in Greensboro, North Carolina.^[1][2]

Storylines

The event featured a total of 15 professional wrestling matches, one untelevised match, four shown during Sunday Night Heat and the remaining 10 matches broadcast live on PPV.

The main feud heading into King of the Ring was between "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The McMahons (Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon) in a handicap ladder match. The storyline began at WrestleMania XV, when Austin won the WWF Championship from The Rock. The following months, Vince and Shane had been feuding with each other when Shane took control of The Corporation and later revealed that he was the mastermind behind his sister Stephanie McMahon's abduction at the hands of The Undertaker and his Ministry of Darkness. At the time, Shane and Undertaker joined forces to form the Corporate Ministry. The previous month at Over the Edge, Austin lost the WWF Championship to Undertaker after Shane, who served as a special guest referee, made a quick three count to ensure Undertaker the victory.

Three weeks later, it was revealed that the Corporate Ministry served a "greater power" whom they were taking orders from behind the scenes. After Undertaker and Austin's title match ended in a no contest, the Ministry dropped to their knees in the ring and the greater power emerged from the back and revealed himself to Austin, who was tied up in the ring ropes. The following week, the greater power was revealed as Vince McMahon, who explained that his face turn was a plot to screw Austin out of the WWF Championship. Linda and Stephanie appeared on the stage and Stephanie berated Vince and Shane for using her to get to Austin. Linda then announced that she had stepped down as the chief executive officer of the WWF and had hand-picked her successor, which was revealed to be Austin, who announced that he would be facing the McMahons in a handicap match at King of the Ring. A week later, after Austin dumped cow manure into Vince's office at the WWF headquarters, Vince announced the match would be a ladder match with 100% ownership of the WWF in a briefcase hanging high above the ring. The following week, Austin defeated Big Boss Man in a singles match to ensure there would be no interference from the Corporate Ministry.

The secondary feud heading into King of the Ring was between The Undertaker and The Rock over the WWF Championship. The feud started on the June 7th episode of Raw is War, when Rock faced Triple H in a cast match. As Rock was preparing to drop the People's Elbow on Triple H, Undertaker interfered and dropped Rock with a Tombstone Piledriver on a steel chair. The Big Show made the save chasing away Undertaker. The following week, Rock came out and challenged Undertaker to a title match at King of the Ring. Undertaker accepted the challenge but the McMahons came out and told Rock that he must defeat Undertaker in a non-title match to earn his title shot. Later that night, Shane was about to announce the stipulation for the match between Undertaker and Rock, but was attacked by Ken Shamrock. When the match got underway though, Triple H came out and announced that the stipulation was that Rock would have to take on both him and Undertaker in a Triple Threat match which Rock won after Chyna accidentally tripped Undertaker during the match. The following week, Rock defeated Edge in singles action. After the match, Undertaker came out and once again dropped Rock with a Tombstone Piledriver. Later that night, Undertaker defended his WWF Championship against Triple H. The match ended in a disqualification when Rock interfered and dropped Undertaker with a Rock Bottom. When a large Brahma Bull symbol (similar to the Undertaker symbol) descended from the rafters, Rock attempted to tie Undertaker to the symbol but Undertaker was saved by his allies in the Corporate Ministry. Paul Bearer was tied to the symbol instead.

Triple H was originally supposed to compete in the King of the Ring tournament, but he wanted to compete for the WWF Championship instead, so he gave his spot to Chyna, making her the first and only woman to ever compete in the tournament.^[7]