No Mercy was first held by the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) as a United Kingdom-exclusive pay-per-view (PPV) in May 1999. A second No Mercy was then held later that same year on October 17, but in the United States. This second event established No Mercy as the annual October PPV for the promotion that was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002. The 2008 event was the 11th event under the No Mercy chronology and was held on October 5 at the Rose Garden, now known as Moda Center, in Portland, Oregon. It featured wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands. In 2009, No Mercy was replaced by Hell in a Cell as the annual October PPV; however, after eight years, No Mercy was reinstated in 2016 as a SmackDown-exclusive PPV and it and that year's Hell in a Cell, which was Raw-exclusive, were both held in October that year.