Written By: Mike Johns on 11/02/06
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re watching a car crash on TV? Perhaps that’s what most of us were thinking watching last week’s episode of TNA Impact and the “Fight For The Right” tournament-battle-royal-sort-of-whatever. Somewhere between the ass-backwards rules, the nonsensical collection of would-be contenders, and the near-obvious notion that Abyss was going to ultimately win, something about the whole segment just seems to crash into a wall and burst into flames. As bad as it was, though, I couldn’t look away. I had to see just how bad this whole thing was going to turn out, because, in the end, how many times are you going to see a burning pile of wreckage in your lifetime?
I’d hate to spoilt it for you, faithful TNA fan, but it appears, to me, at least, like Abyss is taking the whole thing. I could be wrong here, but after having earned some 6000 NWA World Title shots and getting approximately 3 of them in the past two years, it appears that Abyss may finally get his chance to cash in some of those old title shots. Too bad Sting has been a lazy bastard lately…
Oh, did I just write that down? Yeah. Sorry Steve. I’m not meaning to question your heart and dedication here, but forgetting gear is a rookie mistake. A mistake that can actually cost a newbie his spot in a company. Yeah, it’s extreme, but think of it this way – you’re the promoter, the show is on in less than an hour, and one of your guys who wears face paint with his gimmick forgets it. If he’s a midcarder, forget it! He either goes and gets some, or he goes on without the paint. And, if he’s lucky, he’ll get asked back. But if it’s Sting, then hold everything! Let’s scour the stores and beg the fans to let us borrow their ICP face paint! Please note the sarcasm here. I know this is text, and tone of voice is impossible to determine, but, seriously, I’m being sarcastic here when I say that Sting should be given special treatment when he forgets his gear. Would you leave the house without putting on clothes? Hell no! In the same sense, a wrestler who forgets their gear is like a guy who leaves the house naked. Some guys actually get fired for that kind of crap, while Sting gets a funny write up in the Observer about it. Nice to see Sting earn his paycheck, isn’t it?
Sting, a guy whose been in wrestling almost as long as I’ve been alive, is forgetting gear and failing to get in proper shape for big match-ups, despite having months off at a time to train and prepare (a luxury rarely afforded to professional wrestlers). And, to make matters worse, this man is your NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Given, it’s better than seeing Jeff Jarrett hold the belt as if his life and livelihood depended on it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for business or for TNA fans. Wrestling fans, despite what any promoter will tell you, aren’t stupid. They know when someone is “phoning it in”, and Sting has been “phoning it in” for some time now. Sure, we’d all like to believe that Abyss vs. Sting would be a marquee match-up, but it probably won’t be. Abyss might be, hands down, the best big man in wrestling today, but matches are two-way streets. If your opponent doesn’t put in the effort, your best efforts won’t mean a damn thing in the end. Sting, as the veteran, is in the position where he should be helping to bring out the best in Abyss. Will he? I sincerely doubt it.
Pretty weird how I’m all down on Sting, huh? Well, it’s not like I was all that excited about Sting to begin with. When he was first signed in January, fans weren’t necessarily jumping out of their seats to see the guy, either, despite anything TNA would like to tell you. Sure, Mike Tenay and Don West went nuts over it, and half the TNA locker room gave televised interviews putting Sting over as an icon and whatnot, which he deserves to an extent. But, from anything I ever gathered from fans, in the Impact Zone and on the ‘Net, they weren’t that excited. In fact, they were worried that Sting was going to hog the spotlight and contribute nothing positive to TNA. So far, in his run, Sting has been involved in a major feud with Jeff Jarrett that has dominated TNA over the past year. Jeff Jarrett, the single most over-pushed and over-utilized wrestler in the company’s entire history, hardly needed the rub Sting could give him. Meanwhile, PPV buys remain stagnant, ratings are in a holding pattern, and TNA’s exposure to the media at large remains minimal. In short, Sting has been a major focus of TNA and has contributed nothing positive to the product, other than being the man who beat Jarrett, a man NO ONE wanted to see as champion, for the NWA Title. Where have I seen this before? Could it be…?
Yes, it is. WCW. Oh, come on! Don’t act like you didn’t see the TNA/WCW comparison coming! It’s actually included in the “How To Be An Internet Wrestling Columnist” Handbook they pass out to all of us now.
Anyway, back to the column at hand – Starrcade 1997. You remember that night, right? Sting, the silent hero of WCW, who hadn’t wrestled a match in about a year and a half, would face off against Hollywood Hogan, the ego-driven leader of the New World Order, for the WCW World Title. Hogan was, at the time, the biggest heel wrestling had ever known. No one wanted to see him hold the WCW Title, but, unlike Jarrett, Hogan was a champion who drew the right kind of heat. People were willing to pay big money to see someone, anyone, kick his ass and take the title away. Jarrett, on the other hand, drove viewers away as champion. That’s the difference. The same thing happened with Triple H circa 2003, and with JBL in 2004. Feel free to look up the numbers yourself sometime. The ratings and buy rates don’t lie.
Anyway, Hogan, King of Heels, faced Sting, the last bastion of hope WCW had to defeat the NWO. Sting shows up to the match out of shape and unprepared. Holy déjà vu, Batman! Anyway, for what some may consider blasphemy, but trust me when I say this because I’ve seen this match almost as many times as I’ve watched Undertaker/Kane from WrestleMania XIV and Hogan/Macho Man at WrestleMania V – Hogan carried Sting to what might be Sting’s single-worst main event match of his entire career. Yeah. It was bad. Not quite as bad as the whole series of Sting vs. Vampiro matches, but it was pretty bad nonetheless. Not only was the match bad, but the finish was worse. Hogan won, clean, and then Bret Hart went nuts, attacked the ref, threw Hogan back in the ring, and restarted the match. Yeah, Sting won, but only after getting punked out by Hogan. Some say it was politics that caused this, and chances are, it was. I mean, come on. This is Hulk Hogan we’re talking about here!
But, even if politics came into play here, which they more than likely did, why would Hulk blow a moment like this? Seriously, look at the situation. The NWO had dominated WCW for over a year and a half, beating everyone in their path except for one lone hero that could finally bring them down – Sting. When the time came and Hogan dropped the belt to Lex Luger in August, it was a monumental moment in WCW History. It showed fans that there was hope. Hogan could be beaten. Sure, the victory didn’t last. It wasn’t meant to. Luger wasn’t the one who could kill the NWO. He could win a battle here and there, but he couldn’t kill them. Sting could, though. That was the point. So, really, why would Hogan use his creative control to kill off Sting? Hogan would have still been a huge star and one of WCW’s top guys. Hell, Hogan’s path of revenge might have even made for some great TV had Sting been made to look like the superman he was being pushed as at the time! There was no reason at all to kill the Hogan/Sting program after one match, so there’s really no good reason to kill the contender out of fear of losing your spot. Hogan’s spot was secure.
So, what was the reason? Hogan was disappointed with Sting because he wasn’t in shape and prepared to wrestle a main-event level match. Now, you can say all you want about Hogan’s work, especially at the time, but when Hulk Hogan is upset because you’re not in shape and prepared for the big match, you have problems. This was almost a decade ago.
And sadly, it seems that nothing changes. Steve Borden may have found Christ, but he may have also lost his passion for wrestling. Okay. That’s cool. He should do what makes him happy, but, if he’s going to wrestle, he should dedicate himself to wrestling. That means training, keeping himself in ring shape, and remembering to bring all of his gear. It means bringing out the best in the guys he works with and teaching them what he knows. It means doing what Ric Flair did for him at Clash Of The Champions in 1988. If Flair would have decided to just “phone it in” that night, there wouldn’t be a Sting here and now to stink up a TNA ring. As the Icon, Sting has a duty to pay his knowledge of wrestling forward, and lead by example. Otherwise, he’s an icon in name only, and wrestling has enough egomaniacs trying to sell themselves as icons without some dumbass in face paint doing it too. I mean, at least Warrior had the good sense to take off the make-up first…
