Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
In 1999, the World Wrestling Federation was hotter than it had ever been. With superstars like ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley and Triple H…the main event scene was jam-packed. While the singles division was on fire….the tag team division was about to get even hotter. Within the tag team ranks were two young and hungry teams…Edge and Christian and the Hardy Boyz.
All four men were extremely talented and wanted to get to that next level. Michael Hayes was a big supporter of Matt and Jeff Hardy and championed them to get pushed hard by the WWF. Hayes even became the Hardys manager for a while, to help get them over as a team. Edge and Christian were, for a while, members of the Brood with Gangrel. E and C were also trying to break through as a top tag team in the division.
Vince McMahon saw potential in both teams and wanted to help them get over with the WWF’s fan base. McMahon wanted the Hardys to become hipper and cooler and having a 40 plus-year-old in Michael Hayes as their manager wasn’t going to cut it. So when Edge and Christian broke off with Gangrel, the Hardys took their place as the “new” Brood. Still, WWF creative wasn’t completely sold on that idea either.
It wasn’t until Edge and Christian approached Vince McMahon and pitched a storyline to him to help themselves get over that things started to take shape. Both Edge and Christian came up with the idea of a best of five type series of matches with each match having a different stipulation in it. Vince McMahon liked the idea and chose the Hardys as their opponents. It was Vince Russo who came up with the idea to have Terri Runnels as the prize for the winner of the series. Russo also came up with the name: the “Terri Invitational Tournament” or T.I.T. for short. (Ah that Vince Russo)
It didn’t make sense for these two teams to battle each other just for the managerial services of Terri. There needed to be something else that fueled them. The idea was added that the winners would also receive a check for $100,000. Edge and Christian won the first two matches of the series and the Hardy Boyz won the next two matches. The culmination would be the first ever tag team ladder match in WWF history at the No Mercy pay per view.
The day of the pay per view, creative was still undecided how the final match would end. According to Christian, there were three different scenarios. One would be Edge and Christian win, two would be that the Hardy Boyz would win and three had Christian turning on Edge and allowing the Hardys to win. Christian admittedly was not at all in favor of turning heel, because he knew his character wasn’t ready for a singles run.
That day, Vince McMahon walked into the arena with a big smile on his face and collected all of his writers and hashed out the ending to the Terri Invitational Tournament. The match saw the Hardy Boyz victorious and winning both the money and Terri Runnels as their new manager. It was also considered an absolute show stealer that simultaneously elevated both tag teams to a whole other level. It was exactly what everyone wanted from the beginning.
There are some who have mocked the Terri Invitational Tournament as an overall stupid idea from the WWF. As it turned out, the T.I.T. finals became the precursor to the TLC match aka Tables, Ladders and Chairs that took E and C, the Hardys and the Dudley Boyz and raised them all even farther up WWF’s food chain.