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WWF Fully Loaded
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| WWF Fully Loaded | |
|---|---|
 WWF Fully Loaded logo | |
| Promotion | World Wrestling Federation |
| Other names | Fully Loaded: In Your House (1998) |
| First event | 1998 |
| Last event | 2000 |
WWF Fully Loaded was an annual July pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. First held in 1998, the first edition of Fully Loaded was an In Your House pay-per-view. The 1999 edition was simply named Fully Loaded as WWF dropped the In Your House branding after February 1999. Fully Loaded was held for one more year in 2000, as in 2001, the event was replaced by Invasion, which was then replaced by Vengeance in 2002.
History
[edit]Fully Loaded was first held as an In Your House pay-per-view (PPV) event. In Your House was a series of monthly PPVs first produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in May 1995. They aired when the promotion was not holding one of its major PPVs and were sold at a lower cost. Fully Loaded: In Your House was the 23rd In Your House event and took place on July 26, 1998, at the Selland Arena in Fresno, California.[1]
After the In Your House branding was retired following February 1999's St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House,[2] Fully Loaded branched off as its own PPV that July.[3] A third event was held in July 2000 which was the final event using the Fully Loaded name.[4] In 2001, the event was replaced by InVasion, which was held as part of The Invasion storyline between the WWF and The Alliance (consisting of former World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling talent).[5] After the Invasion storyline ended, instead of bringing back Fully Loaded in 2002, the July slot was instead given to Vengeance, thus definitively discontinuing Fully Loaded.[6]
Events
[edit]| # | Event | Date | City | Venue | Main event | Ref. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fully Loaded: In Your House | July 26, 1998 | Fresno, California | Selland Arena | Kane and Mankind (c) vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker for the WWF Tag Team Championship | [1] | |||
| 2 | Fully Loaded (1999) | July 25, 1999 | Buffalo, New York | Marine Midland Arena | Stone Cold Steve Austin (c) vs. The Undertaker in a First Blood match for the WWF Championship | [3] | |||
| 3 | Fully Loaded (2000) | July 23, 2000 | Dallas, Texas | Reunion Arena | The Rock (c) vs. Chris Benoit for the WWF Championship | [4] | |||
(c) – refers to the champion(s) heading into the match
| |||||||||
References
[edit]- ^ a b John Powell (July 26, 1998). "Austin and Taker win tag team gold". Canadian Online Explorer. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved 2010-12-28.
- ^ Cawthon, Graham (2013). The History of Professional Wrestling. Vol. 2: WWF 1990–1999. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ASIN B00RWUNSRS.
- ^ a b John Powell (July 26, 1999). "Fully Loaded recycles Raw material". Canadian Online Explorer. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012. Retrieved 2010-12-28.
- ^ a b John Powell (July 24, 2000). "WWF stars bleed for the company". Canadian Online Explorer.
- ^ "411's WWF InVasion Report 7.22.01". 411mania. 2001-07-22. Retrieved 2008-04-28.
- ^ "Vengeance (2002) Venue". World Wrestling Entertainment. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
External links
[edit]WWF Fully Loaded
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Overview
Concept and Branding
The Fully Loaded pay-per-view series represented a key component of the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF) Attitude Era PPV lineup, debuting in July 1998 as In Your House 23: Fully Loaded to deliver a card brimming with intense, high-stakes wrestling matches that aligned with the era's focus on edgier storytelling and athletic spectacle.[7] The name "Fully Loaded" metaphorically conveyed an event "packed" with premium content, including title defenses and grudge-settling bouts, positioning it as a mid-summer bridge between the tournament-style King of the Ring and the blockbuster SummerSlam, thereby sustaining fan engagement through escalating rivalries.[8][2] Branding for the series evolved with the WWF's creative direction: the 1998 iteration incorporated the "Fully Loaded" tagline into the established In Your House logo, while the 1999 and 2000 standalone events featured updated graphics and promotional posters depicting key wrestlers with the "Fully Loaded" text beneath the WWF logo.[9] Custom theme music, composed by longtime WWF composer Jim Johnston, further reinforced the branding; for instance, the 1999 edition's opening track "Loaded" was used in event promos to build anticipation for the action-packed lineup, consistent with the Attitude Era's use of original scores to amplify thematic intensity.[10]Production and Broadcasting
The production of WWF Fully Loaded events involved a dedicated team of executives and creative personnel responsible for event planning and execution. Technical production was handled by specialized crews utilizing advanced equipment, including Sony Digital Betacam cameras, GVG Kalypso switchers for video mixing, and Chyron iNFiNiT! for graphics insertion, ensuring seamless live coverage of matches and segments.[11] Logistics required rigging the venue with 6,000 to 7,000 feet of cabling per event to connect cameras, microphones, and monitors across the ring, stage, and lighting truss, often adapting to arenas not originally designed for broadcast demands.[11] Broadcasting for Fully Loaded centered on pay-per-view distribution through networks like Viewer's Choice, which handled ordering and transmission for U.S. audiences, with events typically running 2 to 3 hours to align with standard PPV slots.[12] Select highlights were recapped on the USA Network, WWF's primary cable partner, via shows like Heat to build viewer interest without overlapping the full live feed.[13] Production emphasized multi-camera setups, including jib and handheld units positioned around the ring for dynamic angles, integrated with pyrotechnics and lighting systems that synchronized audio-visual cues for high-impact entrances and stipulations like handcuff or strap matches.[11] Venue selection prioritized mid-sized U.S. arenas capable of hosting 10,000 to 20,000 attendees, such as the Selland Arena or Reunion Arena, to balance production costs with fan accessibility while providing sufficient space for elaborate setups including elevated lighting rigs and pyrotechnic safe zones.[14] These facilities allowed for standardized ring configurations reinforced for "loaded" match elements, with crews pre-testing equipment to accommodate variable arena layouts.[11] International distribution remained limited, primarily through VHS home video releases syndicated overseas via WWF Home Video, which compiled event footage for tape markets in Europe and Asia by late 2000, predating widespread digital streaming options.History
Inception and In Your House Era
The In Your House series was introduced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the mid-1990s as a lineup of monthly pay-per-view (PPV) events designed to supplement the promotion's "Big Four" major shows—WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series—by providing additional content in the intervening months and capitalizing on growing competition from World Championship Wrestling (WCW).[15] This approach aimed to increase fan investment in WWF's weekly television programming, such as Raw, by ensuring a PPV spectacle at the end of nearly every month, featuring prominent wrestlers like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and The Undertaker while experimenting with unique themes to differentiate each event.[15] Fully Loaded debuted on July 26, 1998, as In Your House 23, filling the summer slot between King of the Ring and SummerSlam and marking a continuation of the series' expansion into themed spectacles amid WWF's transition to the Attitude Era.[15] Under the leadership of Vince McMahon and the WWF creative team, the event's "loaded" branding emphasized high-stakes, action-packed matches to align with the promotion's shift from family-friendly programming to edgier, more mature content, as announced by McMahon in December 1997 to counter WCW's edgier Nitro broadcasts and appeal to a broader adult audience.[16] This rationale reflected broader PPV trends in WWF, where themed events helped sustain monthly revenue growth during the Monday Night Wars.[15] The pre-event buildup integrated Fully Loaded into ongoing 1998 storylines, particularly a heated tag team feud stemming from Kane's October 1997 debut, where he attacked his storyline brother The Undertaker, leading Mankind to align with Kane as WWF Tag Team Champions after winning the titles on July 13.[17] Tensions escalated on the June 15 episode of Raw, when WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin teamed with The Undertaker against Kane and Mankind in a Hell in a Cell match that ended in a no-contest draw, positioning the duo as unlikely allies challenging for the tag titles to settle personal vendettas and advance Austin's dominance.[17] As the 23rd installment in the In Your House lineage, Fully Loaded exemplified the series' maturation by 1998, with events now expanded to three-hour runtimes matching the Big Four and incorporating standalone themes that foreshadowed the eventual phasing out of the In Your House subtitle in favor of independent PPVs later that year.[15]Transition to Standalone PPV
In 1999, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) underwent a significant strategic shift by dropping the "In Your House" subtitle from several pay-per-view (PPV) events, including Fully Loaded, to rebrand them as distinct, annual standalone productions. This change was intended to eliminate the perceived hierarchy between "big four" events like WrestleMania and secondary shows, thereby elevating the overall prestige of the PPV calendar, modernizing the promotion's image ahead of the new millennium, and supporting incremental pricing increases for subscribers.[18] The decision to promote Fully Loaded independently was catalyzed by the solid performance of its 1998 incarnation as In Your House 23: Fully Loaded, which achieved a buy rate of 0.90 and approximately 329,000 purchases despite being positioned as a mid-tier event.[19] From a business perspective, the transition aimed to capitalize on the surging popularity of the Attitude Era by targeting elevated buy rates during the summer months following WrestleMania, a period traditionally seen as a recovery phase after the year's marquee event. The 1999 Fully Loaded delivered on this goal, generating 360,000 buys and solidifying its role as a pivotal showcase for the promotion's edgier, character-driven narratives amid the Monday Night Wars.[19] Creatively, the standalone format allowed for greater emphasis on high-stakes singles championship bouts and innovative stipulations designed to evoke the "fully loaded" concept of unpredictable, high-chaos confrontations, moving away from the tag team-centric main events of prior iterations. Internal challenges during this period included ongoing roster flux from the 1997 Montreal Screwjob fallout, such as Bret Hart's acrimonious exit to World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the subsequent heel turn of Vince McMahon, which reshaped booking dynamics and propelled anti-authority storylines central to the 1999 card.[20]Discontinuation
Following the 2000 edition, WWF Fully Loaded was discontinued as part of broader changes to the company's pay-per-view lineup. In March 2001, WWF acquired its competitor World Championship Wrestling (WCW) for approximately $2.5 million plus additional assets, which shifted programming focus toward an "Invasion" storyline integrating WCW and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) talent. This led to the July 2001 PPV slot being occupied by the one-off Invasion event, effectively replacing Fully Loaded.[21] The acquisition also contributed to PPV consolidation under the newly rebranded World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002, as the company streamlined its calendar amid financial integration of acquired properties. Fully Loaded's slot was taken by Vengeance in July 2002, which debuted as a Raw brand-exclusive event featuring the Undisputed WWE Championship triple threat match between The Rock, Kurt Angle, and The Undertaker.[22] Other events like Unforgiven (September) absorbed elements of the former neutral PPVs, reflecting WWE's strategy to optimize revenue from a saturated monthly schedule of 12 events per year.[23] A key factor in the discontinuation was the implementation of the brand extension in March 2002, which divided the roster into separate Raw and SmackDown brands to manage an expanded talent pool post-acquisition. This structure diminished the role of non-brand-specific events like Fully Loaded, as WWE shifted to brand-exclusive PPVs to increase overall output—expanding from 12 to up to 16 annual events—while allowing each brand to build independent storylines and reduce cross-brand dilution. The move toward brand-specific scheduling, starting with Backlash in April 2002, prioritized targeted audiences over neutral mid-summer spectacles.[22] Buy rates for Fully Loaded reflected the era's PPV oversaturation, with the 2000 event generating 420,000 buys—up from 360,000 in 1999 but significantly below peaks like SummerSlam 2000's 570,000—amid fan fatigue from frequent monthly offerings.[19] No revivals of Fully Loaded have occurred since 2000, though its events are preserved and occasionally highlighted in WWE's streaming service compilations as emblematic of the Attitude Era.[24]Events
In Your House 23: Fully Loaded (1998)
In Your House 23: Fully Loaded was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) on July 26, 1998, held at the Selland Arena in Fresno, California, drawing an attendance of 9,855.[25][26] The event served as the 23rd installment in the In Your House series, featuring a card headlined by a WWF Tag Team Championship match between champions Kane and Mankind defending against Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker.[25] Commentary was provided by Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler throughout the broadcast.[25] The event advanced key storylines in the WWF's Attitude Era, particularly WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin's ongoing anti-corporate feud with WWF owner Vince McMahon, who sought to undermine Austin by forcing him into an uneasy alliance with The Undertaker ahead of their SummerSlam title match.[27] This tag team bout with Kane and Mankind highlighted tensions between Austin and Undertaker, stemming from Undertaker's recent return and suspicions of his involvement in attacks on Austin orchestrated by McMahon and Kane.[28] The undercard integrated mid-card rivalries, such as D'Lo Brown's defense of the WWF European Championship against X-Pac amid Nation of Domination tensions, and The Rock's Intercontinental Championship bout with Triple H, escalating their personal animosity fueled by DX's interference in prior encounters.[29][30] The full match card consisted of eight bouts, with results summarized below:| Match Type | Participants | Result | Duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singles | Val Venis vs. Jeff Jarrett (w/ Southern Justice) | Val Venis defeated Jarrett by pinfall | 7:50 | Jarrett attacked post-entrance, but Venis countered with the Money Shot.[30][29] |
| WWF European Championship | D'Lo Brown (c) vs. X-Pac | Brown retained by pinfall | 8:26 | Standard rules; Brown used the Sky High to secure the win after X-Pac's Bronco Buster.[26][29] |
| Tag Team | Faarooq & Scorpio vs. Bradshaw & Terry Funk | Faarooq & Scorpio won by pinfall | 6:51 | Faarooq pinned Funk following a spinebuster.[30][31] |
| Singles | Mark Henry vs. Kyle Duff | Henry defeated Duff by pinfall | 0:30 | Henry squashed Duff with a powerslam.[26][29] |
| Tag Team | The Headbangers (Mosh & Thrasher) vs. The Oddities (Golga & Kurrgan w/ Giant Silva & Luna) | The Oddities won by pinfall | 4:47 | Kurrgan pinned Thrasher after a chokeslam.[30][31] |
| WWF Intercontinental Championship (2-out-of-3 Falls) | The Rock (c) w/ Mark Henry vs. Triple H w/ Chyna | Rock retained (2-1) | 29:10 | Falls: Triple H (pedigree, 10:52); Rock (Rock Bottom, 21:05); Rock (People's Elbow, 29:10). Stipulation emphasized endurance in their DX-Nation rivalry.[26][29] |
| Bikini Contest | Jacqueline vs. Sable | Sable declared winner by crowd vote | N/A | Sable revealed past abuse by Marc Mero; Jacqueline attacked post-contest, leading to Sable's retaliation.[32][26] |
| WWF Tag Team Championship | Kane & Mankind (c) w/ Paul Bearer vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin & The Undertaker | Austin & Undertaker won titles by pinfall | 17:28 | No disqualifications implied in brawl; Undertaker pinned Kane after a tombstone piledriver, marking a title change and advancing Austin-Undertaker tensions.[25][30] |
Fully Loaded 1999
Fully Loaded 1999 marked the second annual installment of the event and the first as a standalone pay-per-view, following its origins as an In Your House show the previous year. Held on July 25, 1999, at the Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo, New York, the event drew an attendance of 16,605 spectators.[34] The card featured nine matches, including four title defenses and several high-stakes stipulations reflective of the WWF's Attitude Era intensity, with a buyrate of 0.94.[35] The main event pitted WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin against The Undertaker in a first blood match, where the stipulation dictated that an Undertaker victory would ban Austin from future title contention, while an Austin win would force WWF Chairman Vince McMahon to refrain from appearing on WWF television.[36] The buildup to Fully Loaded stemmed directly from the controversial conclusion of King of the Ring 1999 on June 27, where Austin captured the WWF Championship from The Undertaker via a steel chair shot assisted by Mankind, fueling The Undertaker's demand for revenge and escalating the feud into a no-holds-barred rematch.[37] This event advanced Austin's storyline as the defiant anti-authority champion amid ongoing tensions with the McMahon family, positioning it as a pivotal defense in his title reign. Promotional segments on Raw emphasized the personal stakes, with McMahon aligning temporarily with The Undertaker to undermine Austin's pursuit of dominance.[38] The undercard opened with title action, as Jeff Jarrett defeated Edge to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship in 13:22, aided by interference from Gangrel and Debra's distraction.[34] Next, The Acolytes (Faarooq and Bradshaw) reclaimed the WWF Tag Team Championship in a no-disqualification handicap match against champions The Hardy Boyz and Michael Hayes, pinning Hayes after a double powerbomb in 9:32.[35] D'Lo Brown captured the WWF European Championship from Mideon with his Lo Down finisher in 7:11, while The Big Boss Man won the WWF Hardcore Championship from Al Snow in a hardcore match lasting 10:11, utilizing weapons like a nightstick for the decisive blow.[34] Additional bouts included The Big Show defeating Kane in 8:13 under special guest referee Hardcore Holly, who controversially fast-counted the pinfall; Ken Shamrock submitting Steve Blackman in an Iron Circle match (a falls count anywhere strap match) in 4:19; and Road Dogg and X-Pac defeating Chyna and Mr. Ass (Billy Gunn) in 11:44 to retain the rights to the D-Generation X name, solidifying their faction's identity amid internal corporate intrigue tied to the McMahon-Helmsley alliance.[37] A standout semi-main event saw Triple H defeat The Rock in a strap match to earn a WWF Championship contendership in 19:21, with both competitors touching all four corners amid brutal exchanges that highlighted their emerging rivalry.[35] In the main event, Austin retained the WWF Championship against The Undertaker in 15:31 by busting him open with a television camera shot after interference from Vince McMahon backfired, drawing first blood and enforcing McMahon's temporary on-screen absence.[34] This outcome propelled Austin's storyline forward, setting up future defenses while sidelining McMahon and allowing The Undertaker's Ministry of Darkness arc to evolve.| Match | Stipulation | Winner | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Jarrett vs. Edge (c) | WWF Intercontinental Championship | Jeff Jarrett (new champion) | 13:22 |
| The Acolytes vs. The Hardy Boyz (c) & Michael Hayes | No DQ Handicap Match for WWF Tag Team Championship | The Acolytes (new champions) | 9:32 |
| D'Lo Brown vs. Mideon (c) | WWF European Championship | D'Lo Brown (new champion) | 7:11 |
| The Big Boss Man vs. Al Snow (c) | Hardcore Match for WWF Hardcore Championship | The Big Boss Man (new champion) | 10:11 |
| The Big Show vs. Kane (special referee: Hardcore Holly) | Singles Match | The Big Show | 8:13 |
| Ken Shamrock vs. Steve Blackman | Iron Circle Match | Ken Shamrock | 4:19 |
| Road Dogg & X-Pac vs. Chyna & Mr. Ass | Tag Team Match for DX Name Rights | Road Dogg & X-Pac | 11:44 |
| Triple H vs. The Rock | Strap Match (#1 Contender for WWF Championship) | Triple H | 19:21 |
| Stone Cold Steve Austin (c) vs. The Undertaker | First Blood Match for WWF Championship | Stone Cold Steve Austin (retained) | 15:31 |