St. Valentines Day Massacre (2023)

The 2023 **St. Valentine's Day Massacre** was the inaugural St. Valentine's Day Massacre professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by World Class Championship Wrestling. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Battle Zone and Intensity brand divisions. The event took place on February 11, 2023, at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois and attracted 19,276 fans.

The card comprised a total of ten matches, with eight airing on pay-per-view and two airing on *Sunday Night Sin*. In the main event, King Brandon War took on WCCW Intercontinental World Heavyweight Champion Finn Balor in a Texas Death Match.

## Production

### Background

St. Valentine's Day Massacre is a professional wrestling gimmick pay-per-view that was established by WCCW in February 2023 as a replacement for Bad Blood, which had been held annually since 2009. The pay-per-view shares its name with the 1999 WWF In Your House pay-per-view, with the rights to the trademark being quietly negotiated and acquired by Disney in September 2022. WCCW announced a second St. Valentine's Day Massacre in November 2023, establishing the PPV as an annual event.

###  Storylines

The event included matches that result from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by WCCW's writers on the Battle Zone and Intensity brands, while storylines are produced on WCCW's weekly television shows, *Tuesday Night Battle Zone* and *Friday Night Intensity.*

## Event

### Pre-Show

The event kicked off with the preshow airing on ESPN on ABC and the ESPN+ streaming service as the debut episode of *Saturday Night Sin*. The first match of the night saw a Mex-American Championship (the renamed United States Championship) rematch between Damian Santana and Santos Escobar. Escobar was accompanied by Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza but Rey Mysterio was banned from ringside following his interference back at King and Queen of the Ring. The evenly-matched bout resulted in a submission victory for Escobar.
The final match to air on *Sin* was a Triple threat ladder tag team match for the Battle Zone Tag Team Championship between defending champs The Street Profits, The Brawling Brutes and The Usos. The 25-minute war saw all three teams dominate at various points in the matchup, with Jimmy Uso nearly grabbing the belt on multiple occasions but ultimately it would be Montez Ford of the Street Profits to claim the belt and the victory.

### Preliminary matches

The first match to air on pay-per-view saw Gisele Shaw defend her Television Championship against Britt Baker D.M.D. in a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled outside of the ring on multiple occasions. Despite an early onslaught by Shaw, Baker would end up victorious after a vicious shovel shot to the back of the head allowed Baker to pin Shaw to begin her first reign as International Champion.

The next match was a First Blood North American Championship match between El Mago Jr. and defending champion Paco Escalera. The relatively quick match resulted in a victory for Escalera after busting open El Mago Jr.

The first non-title match on the card was a Number One Contender Triple threat Hell in a Cell tag team match between The Dirty Dawgs, The New Day and the team of Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn with the winners going on to face Alpha Academy for the Intensity Tag Team Championship on the February 17 edition of *Friday Night Intensity*. The 23-minute war eventually resulted in a victory for The New Day after Kofi Kingston managed to pin Robert Roode to earn the championship opportunity.

In the first of two singles matches for the women's division, rivals Beth Phoenix and Lacey Evans once again faced off in dramatic fashion. Evans would emerge victorious, earning the pinfall over Phoenix.

The next match saw Toni Storm face off against Charlotte Flair in a short one-sided affair. Storm would earn the pinfall but not satisfied with just winning, proceeded to attack Flair with a steel chair after the match was over, clearing showing their rivalry is from over.

After winning the Naughty or Nice Battle Royal at December to Dismember, Raven Ray chose to challenge Becky Lynch for her International Championship inside a steel cage. The two were evenly matched but after hitting two finishers in a row, Raven managed to escape the cage and win her first International Championship.

In the co-main event, WCCW would finally crown its inaugural Undisputed WCCW Women's Champion with a Winner Takes All Last Woman Standing match between Battle Zone Women's Champion Serenity and Intensity Women's Champion Candice LeRae. After a lengthy battle, LeRae was unable to answer the referee's ten-count giving Serenity the victory and the Undisputed Championship.

### Main events

In the main event, King Brandon War took on WCCW Intercontinental World Heavyweight Champion Finn Balor in a Texas Death Match. The match started off early when Balor attacked War during his entrance but the King managed to quickly gain the upper hand. After sending Finn through a burning table and attacking him with the steel steps, War managed to earn the pinfall to send the match into its second phase. Two straight Swanton Bombs incapacitated Finn to the point he was unable to answer the ten-count, giving War the victory and his first ever World Title run.