When Vince McMahon's angelic-looking daughter began to make sporadic appearances on WWE TV in early 1999, few suspected that she would become one of the top heels in WWE's best business period ever -- still, that's exactly what happened, and it all started so innocently. Stephanie gained the attention of Test, and she reciprocated his feelings, but her overprotective brother, Shane, was against their union. Test defeated Shane to win his respect, then proposed to Stephanie, but when the wedding came, it was revealed that the villainous Triple H had kidnapped, drugged, and secretly married Stephanie already. Vince McMahon fought HHH to avenge his daughter's honor, but Stephanie showed her true colors during the match, siding with her husband and helping him score the victory. From there, HHH and Stephanie ran roughshod over WWE, making life miserable for super-popular babyfaces like The Rock, Mick Foley, and Chris Jericho. This dynamic proved to be so successful that 2000 ended up becoming WWE's most profitable year ever. Though WWE was already dominating WCW, any chance of a resurgence was loudly stymied.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
