No Mercy (1999) - Writing and Production

Writing and Production

Vince Russo and his writing partner, Ed Ferrara, watched The Jerry Springer Show for ideas to develop into WWF storylines. Some of the wrestlers also were involved with writing their own storylines. For example, the four competitors in the tag team ladder match made the decision for their rivalry to involve a "best-of" series. The plan was to originally do a "best-of-seven" series, but it was later changed to five. They had the whole match planned, including all of the stunts. In addition, Pat Patterson was the booker for the event.

Before the event, Jeff Jarrett was on his way out of the company, as management felt he had been a bad investment for the company. Vince McMahon, the WWF Chairman, came up with the idea for Jarrett and Chyna to become involved in a storyline together. Vince Russo was asked to write the storyline leading up to the match, including when Jarrett would taunt Chyna and hit her with random household objects. The fans responded positively to the battle-of-the-sexes match-ups. They were originally supposed to have their match-up at Rebellion, but the WWF extended the storyline for another month due to its popularity. In the midst of the feud, Russo left the WWF for rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW). In her autobiography If They Only Knew, Chyna implies that Russo was the person who convinced McMahon to delay their pay-per-view match for a month, because he knew Jarrett was also going to sign with WCW. Because of the delay, Jarrett's contract expired the day before the match, so he was not contractually required to wrestle at the event. Hours before the event began, Jarrett demanded (and received) somewhere between $300,000–500,000 to wrestle Chyna for the night.