We’re in September 1999 and it’s time for WWE Unforgiven 1999. This event featured a “Six-Pack Challenge” with Triple H, Mankind, Kane, The British Bulldog, Big Show, and the Rock facing off for the vacant WWE Championship.
Serving as special guest enforcer is Stone Cold Steve Austin! One thing to notice about this show is that almost every match as a special guest referee. This was part of a side story where the WWE referees went on strike which meant backstage personnel had to step in and referee the matches.
Unforgiven 1999 would draw just under 15,800—a strong attendance considering what competitor WCW was drawing all year.
The Best
With Chyna’s star power and Jarrett knowing how to keep a match together and tell a story, the shenanigans from the outside made this an entertaining match at least. The wrestling was nothing to write home about at all and this IC title match probably could’ve benefited from less time.
It’s a PPV match on the undercard, entertainment should be the priority and these two entertained and had a lot going on around them to add to this being something of a big deal. I mean, the IC championship was involved, after all.
The New Age Outlaws defended their WWE Tag Team titles against Edge and Christian in an entertaining match. The action was decent, the Outlaws looked like they had more pep in their step being back together and facing a young, hungry tandem. One thing that I just zoned out on was the amount of interference on this show.
By the time we got to this match, I treated interference like the tag rope. You know it’s there but eh, it’s ignored. In the Tag Team title bout, the interference played into the finish but I think this could’ve been better if the Outlaws just managed to beat Edge and Christian without it.
There was just enough interference that this match could’ve been a cool down for it.
In the semi-main event, we had a singles match between X-Pac and Chris Jericho in Y2J’s WWE PPV in-ring debut. It was as I expected at the minimum: decent to pretty good but leaning heavily towards “pretty good”. I enjoyed the action, it had a brisk pace which I love, these two worked well together since their in-ring styles gelled.
The only gripe I have about the match—which would’ve been da bomb on television—was that it ended in a DQ and there was interference. Unforgiven 1999 was a night to settle debts and strike something up because this much interference was a bit much.
The main event was the Six-Pack Challenge where the vacant WWE Championship was on the line. In it, we’ve got Triple H, Kane, The Rock, Mankind, Big Show, and The British Bulldog.
Honestly, Bulldog was the oddest addition to this since he had returned to WWE after a bad WCW run, so his stock wasn’t exactly sky-high at this point.
Also, with this being a Six-Pack Challenge, you have Stone Cold out here to keep the order. That’s very important because the rules of this match are such that the superstars have to tag in and out—and there’s no elimination stip to it. This thing just looked as if it was going to break down early on—and it did.
Overall, this was a brawl with too many cooks in the kitchen. I really enjoyed it but the stipulation just seemed unnecessary. Despite that, this was the best match on the show and it wasn’t even close.
The Rest
The opener for Unforgiven 1999 saw Val Venis defeat Steve Blackman in a brief bout. Honestly, the only thing special about the match was the special guest referee the Brooklyn Brawler. Several of the undercard bouts—as well as the main event—had a special guest referee. This was a match where the special referee didn’t really add or take away from it.
We would’ve gotten the same match if Lombardi was there or not. The same can be said about the European title bout as D’Lo Brown reclaimed the belt from former partner Mark Henry. Dr. Tom Prichard was the referee for this one and it went as expected.
Even though Mark Henry hadn’t shown significant improvement by this time, at least he didn’t bring the match down. This would’ve been fine for RAW or HeAT. I can’t really complain about the time given here as it was just over nine minutes and it was a title match. If this was just Mark Henry vs. D’Lo with no stakes, that would’ve been a different story.
We have the Dudley Boyz WWE pay-per-view debut as they take on the Acolytes in…let’s call it WWE brawling match type three. That’s when we’ve not only seen a WWE brawl before, it’s far from the main event brawling match and it’s not as enjoyable to watch. It wasn’t bad at all but it wasn’t as entertaining as you’d think it would be.
This match should’ve been a physical slobberknocker but it was a 7 ½ minute RAW match. On Unforgiven 1999 or any PPV, this wouldn’t be so bad if the PPV wasn’t four matches in and mid-at-best.
The women’s matches at this time just weren’t it, folks. Ivory defended the Women’s title against Luna in a match so brief that it didn’t hurt anything by being there but at the same time, this match didn’t need to be there at all. It wasn’t decent or good to the point that it would be missed if it was booked for HeAT.
Now, on the one hand, everyone has heard about the Kennel from Hell match and that it was an ass match. It was at the negative end of a spectacle showdown.
I’ll get into it separately but just know it was a regular Hogan and Friends-type cage match inside of a Hell in the Cell. In the no man’s land area—outside of the ring—dog owners roamed about with their dogs.
These dogs were doing everything but being vicious and making this thing look truly dangerous for those involved. The action in-ring wasn’t bad.
Hardcore champion Al Snow and Big Boss Man did what they came to do and without the stipulation, this would’ve been a solid hardcore bout. However, the storyline involving Snow’s dog demanded a bigger showdown to finish the feud.
WWE Unforgiven 1999 Verdict: Bronze Medal (4.5/10)
This wasn’t a strong show at all for WWE. Two of the matches that made it to “The Best” (Chyna-Jarrett, Outlaws-Edge & Christian) were more in the middle than being truly good but with everything going on with this show with the interferences and how many of the bad-to-mediocre matches all followed each other, those two matches stood out as the best of “The Rest.”
You could say they got boosted by being more entertaining than the other matches that didn’t make it. Again, the match of the show goes to the Six-Pack Challenge.
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