With the recent rumors that Sting has signed with WWE, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on something that “The Man Called Sting” was known for. Sadly, I’m not talking about the face of WCW, the multiple times he won World titles, or his face-paint and stinger scream. I’m talking about all the time someone turned on the Stinger.
Not counting a couple awful attempts to turn the beloved hero “heel” once in WCW and a time or two in TNA, Sting spent most his time as a babyface (good guy) and that left the door open for someone to betray Sting. Now ever good guy that makes it to the top of his federation can count on being turned on once or twice, but the amount of times poor Sting was stabbed in the back is a bit baffling. It is nearly impossible to hate Sting, but I’ll be damn if the booking of this great man didn’t end up making him look rather dumb in the overall bigger picture. Hell, the man has had this happen to him in NWA/WCW and TNA. One could think if he has signed with WWE that it is only a matter of time before he is once again betrayed there too.
Getting a historic account of just how many times Sting has been on the bad end of a turn might be nearly impossible to determine and state, but with research from Google and a lot of help from The Official Fan Forum, I’m going to try my best to list the most of them.
1988: What might be the very first instance of Sting being betrayed since turning face and leaving Eddie Gilbert’s group in the UWF, Sting ran to the aid of the then 6-man tag champions The Road Warriors since their partner Dusty Rhodes was unable to make it for a match against The Varsity Club. What would happen is they wouldn’t tag Sting in, apparently not wanting his help. So when Sting did tag himself in the LOD left the poor man there in a world of hurt. This is apparently the first Sting betrayal on record.
1990: Sting joined the former heel group The 4 Horsemen in 1989 and let’s be honest, he should have probably known better. In most cases the other three horsemen had the job doing one thing, making sure NWA World Champion Ric Flair kept the title. When Sting became the number one contender for the title, trouble was on the way. Sting sealed his fate by challenging The Nature Boy and being beat out of the group. This would kayfabe be the reason Sting hurt his knee which put him on the shelf for a while.
1991: Sting kept getting “mystery boxes” and the boxes never had a good thing pop out of them. Actually, the boxes had such things as Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher in them. So, when Sting got yet another box you would think he’d know that is couldn’t possible mean anything good would come out if it. When Sting got the box at the November Clash of the Champions, he found inside none other than Medusa dressed as a genie. Sting proved two things here, 1) He’s a sucker for a blonde with big boobs and 2) He’s still a sucker in general as this lead to him having his knee clipped by now (again) former best friend Lex Luger.
1992: Even Comic Book Sting wasn’t immune to the turn as in the Marvel Comic version of WCW, WCW as a whole turned on him mistakenly thinking he was The Black Scorpion. Can we blame the writers? With Sting being a sucker, you’d think that they just HAD to find a way to work it in.
1994: Sting who is the WCW World Champion is set to do battle with Ric Flair who is the WCW International World Champion in a unification match. During the match, Sensational Sherri, comes down to the ring and just who she’s there for is a mystery. As you could guess she would turn on Sting allowing Ric Flair to become the unified WCW World Champion.
1995: How dumb can Sting be? Well, he actually goes against his better judgment to team with Ric Flair in a match against Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman. This happens after Flair keeps trying to talk Sting into trusting him and helping him. As you could probably figure, Flair turns on Sting and forms a new Horsemen group with Arn and Pillman..Doh!
1996: With the nWo invading WCW, the company saw many of their guys turning on them and joining the rebel group. When a fake sting started showing up WCW immediately took the nWo’s word for it and turned on Sting quick. Sting kept insisting it wasn’t him, but WCW would have none of it. This would lead to Stings emo phase, which also lead to him pretty much ripping off The Crow. It seems WCW just never could tell when it was a real or fake Sting, even mistaking a 7 foot tall Kevin Nash dressed as Sting for the beloved Stinger.
1997: While being the newly “Crow” Sting, the Stinger found someone to be moody in the rafters with in “Macho Man” Randy Savage. While the two kept watching and watching causing everyone to try to guess just what the hell was going on, Savage would make the first move joining the nWo and helping Hulk Hogan beat Roddy Piper. This of course leave Sting along again and also causing WCW to once again question Sting.
1998: After countless times of WCW saying Sting was with the nWo regardless of what he did, Sting finally did join the nWo, but it was the face Wolfpac version of the nWo. Soon after Sting would become friends with Bret Hart. Even sooner after that Hulk Hogan challenged either Hart or Sting to a match on Nitro. Thinking Bret’s knee was hurt, Sting ran down to help his friend the “Hitman”. After a very dramatic scene, Bret, would return to the ring where Sting was doing battle with Hogan. Can you guess what happened next? Bret turned on Sting and along with Hogan beat down Sting.
1998: Sting though he had found a friend in The Giant, but right before their title match Giant joined the Hollywood version of the nWo. Sting’s trust was betrayed this time, but he was still forced in a match with Giant for the WCW World Tag Team Titles, which they won. They’d have a match later for control of the titles.
1999: Heading into Starrcade 1999, Sting, once again found himself at odds with off and on friend, Lex Luger. Lex (then wanting to just be called The Total Package) was apparently getting very rough and mean with his manager, the lovely Miss Elizabeth. She ran to Sting for help because everyone knows you run to Sting if you need a goof sucker and thus the match was signed for the biggest WCW event of the year in 1999. At the night of the show Sting handed Liz a bottle of some sort of spray and told her to use it on Lex if things go out of hand..um..yeah..She ended up using it on poor Sting.
If you are keeping up with the stats here, in the decade of the 90s, 1992 was the only year Sting wasn’t turned on literally (not counting the comic book). I guess the fact he got turned on twice in 1998 evens that out.
WCW would be bought by WWE and Sting never did make the jump there. After TNA wrestling formed Sting would make appearances there and then later he would join the roster full-time. He also was betrayed there a few times as well, but with the odd booking of the company some of the turns were more complex.
2008-2009: Sting was a heel in 2008, but this was a terrible deal all together because Sting was turning heel basically because the younger guys were showing no respect to him (sort of another turn if you want to technical about it) and Sting would form the Main Event Mafia with many long time main eventers. As things always do in wrestling, things got sour and soon the Mafia was looking to boot Sting out of the group. Sting saw it coming, but was still turned on and beat down by the rest of the Mafia.
2013: Sting who is ever so trusting in people gave all his support to Bully Ray and put his good name on the line for Hulk Hogan to trust Bully. Sting’s trust was again betrayed at Lockdown when Bully won the TNA World Title and was shown to be the secret leader of the evil group Aces and Eights. Bully was champion and married to Hulk’s daughter all because Sting trusted him and put his neck on the line for him…Silly Sting, will you ever learn?
Did I miss some? Probably, there is just soo many. I think the real question here is IF Sting is now with WWE, just how many more betrayals does he have left to go?
