During the Monday Night Wars a wealth of talent jumped ship between WWF, WCW and ECW but very few actually succeeded in achieving success with a rival company. A handful of names like Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Chris Jericho come to mind,as the ones that made the move and were bigger stars than where they were before.
Before, during and after the attitude era many rumours circulated of talent jumping ship and being offered guaranteed contracts and lucrative deals were laid out, to try to capture talent. It is known that WCW tried at one time to tempt The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels to the other side, one can only imagine how the future would look now if that happened. One man who didn’t once waiver from the cause was WCW legend Sting. From his WCW debut in 1987 to his very last match on WCW’s flagship TV show Nitro in March 2001, Sting never once considered joining the enemy.
There were rumours in 2002 that Sting entered into contract talks with the WWF but it came to nothing as both sides, by the looks of it, couldn’t reach an agreement. Sting, at the time, then decided to retire and much like most pro wrestling retirements this really didn’t last long. Sting’s contract with Time Warner ended in 2002 and instead, as already stated in signing for the WWF, he went to work for World Wrestling All-Stars until 2003. He then decided it was time to get back into semi mainstream wrestling and he signed for TNA. For the first 18 months Sting made sporadic appearances for the company, where upon his arrival he was treated like the Icon he now is.
From 2003 until 2014 Sting was loyal to TNA where he achieved a good range of success and was always the star of the show. Sting only enhanced his legacy in TNA and you could argue that he helped the company get to the heights it did during his tenure. He had celebrated feuds with Jeff Jarrett, Abyss, Kurt Angle. Samoa Joe, Mr Anderson, Fortune, Aces & Eights and before leaving TNA he briefly feuded with Dixie Carter. Sting paid his dues in TNA and helped the company out tremendously and on the plus side the Carters/Jarretts allowed Sting the platform to perform to his legions of fans. On top of that TNA also let Sting be the Sting everyone loved.
The brings me to WWE’s version of Sting, the version that I feel is his weakest since his transformation into the Crow character in 1996. For decades, fans garnered at the prospect of WCW’s phenom joining the WWF/WWE and competing with Steve Austin, Rock, Triple H and most notably The Undertaker. However ,for over twenty years this never happened until November 2014 at the Survivor Series PPV. His debut and subsequent actions in confronting the Authority and costing them the match was trademark Sting, it went down a treat and it was exactly how it should have been.
Sting’s actions led to his first proper feud in WWE with Triple H! Yes, Undertaker wasn’t available! Most presumed he made the move to WWE to appease the thousands of requests for him to face the Undertaker at Wrestlemania, however that’s not what WWE were thinking come 2015. His confrontations and segments with Triple H were good TV and once the physicality started come Fastlane, the fans were hooked for their Wrestlemania 31 clash. Unless you missed the biggest wrestling event of the year then fans didn’t get the result they expected or wanted at the event. Triple H with the help of DX and the run in of the NWO defeated Sting with a pedigree and sledgehammer shot to put an end to the ‘Monday Night War’ once and for all.
The Wrestlemania result was,I personally feel, a little strange. I understood it yet it just didn’t make any sense in the long run if Sting was going to be used again. April was the last time we saw Sting make an appearance and many then questioned what WWE would do with the Icon upon his return. As Summerslam drew near, rumours spread of Sting & Taker being in the same building for Raw. After Battleground however, that came to nothing when the Deadman interfered in the evening’s previous world title match to exact his revenge on Brock Lesnar. So what else did WWE have in the pipeline for Sting? Well, as we entered Raw’s final segment where Seth Rollins statue was to be unveiled WWE then revealed their next PPV main event as Sting was the one under the cloth. A brawl broke out between Seth and Sting, chaos ensued as the WWE champion was sent flying over the ropes as the Icon lifted the WWE title above his head in celebration.
Now I’m quite intrigued at the prospect of a feud between Sting and Seth Rollins, it gives the Icon another platform to perform on and it also continues his anti-authority gimmick. For Rollins it gives him one more big PPV main event against a wrestling legend and further opportunity to cement his status as WWE champion. Sting’s return on Raw was a great way to bring him back and it really made that episode of Raw oh so special. My concern however comes with WWE’s booking of Sting, which personally has been mediocre from the beginning.
For the last twenty-five years Sting has been the good guy on almost every occasion, he’s the face that can outwit the heel, yet he keeps the bad guy aura round him and with that fans rally behind him. When he reinvented himself in 1996 ,WCW did a tremendous job of booking Sting, from hanging in the rafters to striking when the time was right the Atlanta-based company did it with ease. For decades he avoided the call of the WWF/E and fans, critics and peers have applauded him for it, Maybe Sting avoided the jump for what is happening right now, and the reason is that I don’t think WWE can affectively book WCW creation Sting to the best of his abilities. His antics since the Raw after Summerslam have been infantile, a wrestling legend with a duster in his hand? Are WWE serious?
Goldberg’s WWE run was hampered by inept booking and he was very vocal about it when he departed the company in 2004. Right now I feel the same is happening with Sting, the loss to Triple H at Wrestlemania was the first mistake. WWE should have struck while the iron was hot in April and not allow Sting to look weak. Now against Seth Rollins WWE I feel, have once more put themselves into a corner with the WWE title match at Night of Champions. If Sting wins it makes Rollins look weaker than Triple H, if Sting loses it further devalues the Icon within WWE. The WCW version of Sting was a marvel, a booking genius that made Steve Borden a mega star in the wrestling industry and his time in WCW only enhanced his reputation to a legion of fans.
The Sting we have in 2015 is a pale version of his former self, gone is the brooding, mysterious vigilante, the man who set a trend in WCW and TNA. The crazed mad man is no more and what we have is Vince McMahon’s PG version of the Icon….because no one man is bigger than WWE.
@Ciaran_1986
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