Matt D

Honestly, i tend to agree. Sting being the next in line of Hogan Friends to get Jealous and Turn on Him would have been good for a Program, but not an engine to last two years. I do think there's something to Sting being the face of WCW replaced by Hogan and teaming with the guys who basically replaced Hogan in WWF but they wouldn't have ran with it as far as they needed to because of Hogan's creative control. That, to me is the most important thing of all of this. With Hogan as the heel, he had a huge interest in the NWO working. With him as a face, his interest was in building them up a little (maybe they could beat up Bockwinkel again) and then vanquishing them.

What if Sting turns instead of Hogan?

Obviously Crow Sting was more of a northern phenomenon. And good, now do Kevin Sullivan on influence, drawing in Florida, and booking.

The only thing that I think people forget is anecdotally how big Sting was as a mainstream star at that point. I knew lots of people who were into the whole black baseball bat thing in a big way. It was huge at high school. The whole baseball team was into it. Sting in 97 felt as culturally over as Austin would be in 98 or the rock a year or two later, and more so than Goldberg was. I know we can't quantify that, but it was the experience I had personally. That year it was not just socially acceptable but actually cool to like Sting.

Obviously, he wouldn't be Crow Flair, but he might have used the Horsemen as a Guerrilla Army or something to similar effect.

Let me ask you this though. If you had put anyone else in Sting's role for the nWo would it have worked as well? First of all, it'd be a differently executed role. That said, I think Flair could have done something similar as a guy who bled WCW.

And Sting could have gone over to the WWF in the early 00s and have gotten that last run that might have put him over the top but he didn't do it for moral reasons. That wasn't him being in the wrong place at the wrong time like in the 90s. That was him making a conscious decision about his career. It's great he stood up for his values and admirable he didn't blow his cash but it doesn't help his credentials.

I still feel like it was the wrong match and the wrong build. Warrior needed something more comic book than Rude. Especially a more serious Rude.

The crowd was really behind this. Nikolai was super over with crowds in the months following. It was a little surreal.

Just wait til Kurt Angle is a manager in 9 years. There was something so legit about Race though. Not because he was a former champ but because he was the only one who could hold Vader in check.

He is special in our hearts because we were little Stingers. You wouldn't understand that with your Nintendo Logic. No, I've got nothing more than what I already said. He feels important enough to be in. He isn't. Can we dismiss Kevin Sullivan in a few posts so it stops bugging me then?

That Arn/Windham match is awesome. I was disappointed when I was the only person who seemed to give a shit about it in the WCW poll. The tag is cool as well. Just curious, what from 91 wcw did you put over it?

IT'S THUNDERCAGE 91. WHAT THE HELL Morton, Taylor, Rich vs Zenk, Rhodes, Big Josh. ... has anyone actually seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zeyz5Z6ViD8 When I found that pretty awesome Windham vs Arn match two weeks before I was surprised. When there was a pretty good Windham/Simmons vs Enforcers match the next week, I was glad. But my mind is just boggled by this. EDIT: SURREAL match. It reminds me a lot of the Luger/Windham match from GAB. The cage is teased 2-3 times with blocked cage spots. It's used a couple of times for the heels to try to escape. York tries to bribe the guard to open it as a subplot to the match. Once Taylor uses it to steady himself for a nice top rope splash. There's a really fun transition with all four guys fighting on the top rope, hanging on to the cage. Three FIPs. Morton and Taylor being dickish heels. A decent enough if relatively heatless finish. And ONE, ONE spot where a guy goes into the cage. At the very end. Very weird.

I still kind of want people to explore Kevin Sullivan. I don't know how much credit to give him for what he did in Florida with the Missing Link and imparting a more "Sports Entertainment/theatrical" overlay upon wrestling. I don't know how Sullivan vs Dusty drew. I don't know how Hogan vs Dungeon of Doom drew. I don't know how much credit to give him for NWO as a booker. I don't know how successful he was as a 70s babyface or how he did as a pre-satanic heel in Memphis. I don't know where else he booked. I know he gives himself credit for a lot of things (including convincing Hogan to go heel). But yeah.

They could honestly run Sheamus vs HHH one more time and give him a little more of that rub. Call it a rubber match.

He's big in Germany.

Is anyone (past the one guy who won't back things up) actually arguing that Sting should go in? I know I'm not. I'm just arguing that it FEELS like he should go in.

Part of me sees Ziggler vs Miz for the World title.

Certainly the first War Games was Sting Related. Since it was all about what side he'd be on.

In this case, I was mainly thinking about 97 since people were downplaying his influence there given the fact he wasn't working house shows, etc. That might be somewhat counterbalanced by merch sales. In general though, I agree with you. He did show up on a few house shows as a run in at the end but not a ton certainly.

Do we know anything about Merch? Anecdotally I knew a lot of people who had Sting shirts or what not in high school.

1.) Dusty's pretty hilarious on it since he knows no one is paying attention (save for the two weeks Bischoff is on with him which is then equally funny for his restraint). 2.) You get a bunch of fun random tags. 3.) It's surreal to listen to Solie announce this late in the game, sort of like hearing Monsoon on those int'l shows in 97-98.

I really like the 95 C shows, for what it's worth. I have a feeling you probably won' be watching Prime when you hit 95, so it doesn't really matter, but still.

That's an interesting concept. I wonder if it's true. ... Anyway, Sting was probably the #3 babyface in the US in that period. The other two happen to be in the HOF, and if one goes further down the list, you'll find a number of "top" babyfaces from that era below Sting that are also in. It is an argument that splits both ways. It's tricky, and that's why I framed it as I did, as an emotional thing. Personally, without looking at numbers, I'd be tempted to suspect Taker (92-98) as higher. Even when he didn't have the belt, he shared that #1 spot with Bret most of the time. Boy did he have some shitty guys to feud with a lot of the time though. And Savage is probably a compelling case. He was basically the biggest draw for Summerslam 91 (or at least Dave thought so at the time), then he had high profile, memorable (and I think decently drawing) feuds with Jake and Flair, basically got Razor over as a top level heel, and he was even used in Early-mid 93 as an anchor on house show cards vs Doink and Lawler. More than that, he was considered invaluable to Vince as a top announcer on Raw, Superstars and Mania 9, not to mention the very public charity work he did in 93 (which is spotlighted all over TV that year) in order to help shake some of the scandals of 92. Macho was the go to guy for that. Late in the year he had the Crush feud which rode things out til Mania X. And we've talked plenty about how he drew vs Flair in WCW in 96 before the NWO came in.

I think, in our head, Sting is the guy who is "the second biggest babyface in the US from 90-98." And that's probably not even true, but it's an emotional thing. And it's very hard to argue against that, even with all the numbers in the world.