As most of you know, Sting is coming back to the ring in a few days, donning his famous Crow look to face Triple H. I’m not sure how great the match will be, but I’m hoping Sting no-sells the Pedigree and wins in two minutes, so Triple H can have his WrestleMania career bookended by losing to the Blade Runners in the exact same way. But I digress.
Brandon already gave us the best matches from Sting’s pre-crisis years, which are probably much easier to find than the ones I’ve found. Because, whoo boy, late ’90s WCW. Still, I found enough stuff to give us a trip down memory lane for Sting’s best matches. For those who love bad wrestling moments, I also have his most horrible times. Thanks, Russo.
Best Matches
[protected-iframe id=”d1982ea915f94e588b322adccc492133-60970621-6373613″ info=”//www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xq1t7k” width=”650″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””]
Sting vs. Macho Man Randy Savage at Spring Stampede 1998. This match was part of the 1998 destruction of Sting. Just two months before, he was the biggest act in wrestling. Then, a Starrcade debacle and a rematch basically ruined Sting’s momentum. I haven’t seen a top guy’s momentum get killed so quickly besides maybe Daniel Bryan, and it took his neck bones falling out of his anus for that to happen. This match took place just one month after Sting won the title for good from Hogan, and then he ended up losing the title to Savage, so Savage could feud with Hogan. The pay-per-view ends with Nash and Savage in the ring facing off with Hogan and Brutus Beefcake, who are on the ramp. And Sting is dead. I want to cry.
Still, the match was a no disqualification, which was actually entertaining until they WCW’d it. So, it’s on this list. It’s sad that Sting and Savage never had a longer feud because they seemed to have good chemistry.
[protected-iframe id=”490f2538730e7383ba77c9501b1f5ab2-60970621-6373613″ info=”//www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x20i3n2″ width=”650″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””]
Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page at Monday Nitro. This is my favorite non-cruiserweight Nitro match of all-time. Sting wearing white boots in 1999 was basically the equivalent of Goku’s hair turning blonde. He put on incredible matches in the white wrestling boots. According to legend, DDP was told mid-match that they’d have to add five minutes, so he and Sting just riffed. This riffing included tombstone piledrivers and DDT reverses. Then, we got a Tupac-riding-a-unicorn rare clean finish to a title match. This was a Christmas miracle.
Sting vs. Goldberg on Monday Nitro. This was Goldberg’s second best match at WCW (vs. DDP is the best, obviously), and it wasn’t even 10 minutes long. Basically, it was Sting channeling his feud with Vader and making Goldberg look like a million bucks. It became Sting vs. Hoss guy, and there wasn’t anything better in the ’90s.
Sting vs. Booker T at Spring Stampede 2000. You can tell by the year “2000” here that we’re probably looking at a horrible pay-per-view. You’re right. Spring Stampede featured a tournament for the World, United States and Tag Team titles and had 15 matches. There was hardly a match longer than five minutes. If only Russo would have #GivenWCWWrestlersAChance. Still, there was one shining painted light at the end of the shit-filled tunnel: Sting vs. Booker T. They had a short match (go figure), but they woke up the crowd. The same crowd that had to watch back-to-back Jeff Jarrett matches. Related: “Back-to-back Jeff Jarret matches” is what Mephisto says to you as you enter one of the circles of hell.
Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair at Spring Stampede 1999. Before you disregard what I’m saying: Hulk Hogan had an injury angle and left the match five minutes in. Basically, what we got was a three-way match, and it was f*cking incredible. Of all the matches on the WWE Network, this is the most unexpectedly great thing available. It proved that if you put great wrestlers in the same ring that they actually tend to have great matches. Go figure. This is possibly Flair’s last great WCW match, and it’s worth going out of your way to see.
Worst Moments
Starrcade 1997. I’ve spoken about this enough.
Sting gets attacked by dogs. My favorite thing when WWE started adding chapter titles on the Network was to go to the end of the Sting vs. Rick Steiner, which occurred at Great American Bash 1999, and see “Match ends in DQ when Sting is attacked by dogs.” So (rubs temple), this is what happened. Sting fought Rick Steiner to the back where he was attacked by Scott Steiner’s pet dogs. It’s beautiful. First, Tank Abbott conveniently hands Sting a towel for him (or a stunt double… stung double…?) to hold off the dogs. Then, we get a close up of Sting holding the towel in front of a FAKE dog. Did Clint Eastwood direct this or something? Also, the jump cuts. So many. My heart.
Sting gets set on fire and murdered. Sting vs. Vampiro could have been much better. They had a decent story of an older guy facing his replacement. But it got Russo’d, and we end up with an inferno match where Sting is set on fire, tossed off the top of the big screen Nitro-tron thingie where he (also a stung double) plummets to his fiery death. Also, this was roughly a year to the day after Owen Hart fell to the ring and died. No biggie.
The 14 years he spent in purgatory doing nothing at all. Yeah. Nothing at all. Nada.
Bonus Great Moment: Sting kicks everyone’s ass at Uncensored 1997. I still contest that this was one of the biggest pops of the entire Attitude Era. Think about it: Sting not wrestling or speaking on WCW for six months was unheard of, and we knew he’d eventually extract revenge on the NWO, so the anticipation was at a fever pitch. So, a terrible pay-per-view ends with the coolest moment of the NWO/Sting feud. Just listen. I love this with my entire heart.
