[1992-04-18-WCW-Saturday Night] Interview: Sting

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Sting is wearing his tights with cowboy boots and a pink tank top, which is hilarious. WCW Saturday Night has been renovated by this point. Jim Ross and Dusty Rhodes conduct the interview. He talks about how he's never faced a guy like Vader and he's going to have to change his tactics. Dusty does quite a bit of his promo for him, which totally works.

[Tim Evans]

Sting confusing Jim Ross at the end was funny. So was this WCW's version of TNT?

[shoe]

I liked these segments that WCW did in 92.

[El-P]

This was nowhere as good as the one with Steamboat the previous week. It was fine though, Sting finally looks like The Man in WCW.

[Kevin Ridge]

Liked the awkwardness at the end where Sting moves his chair away and Ross just looks into the camera. Dusty just sits there smiling the whole time.

[MikeCampbell]

Sting looks horrible, his tights don't coordinate with his face paint, the cowboy boots look awful and, worst of all, he doesn't have the belt.

[WingedEagle]

Love the pink outfit. Really befitting a world champion. As is showing up without a world championship belt. Little things do matter. Already settinguip the Vader match which wouldn't headline until July. The production & lighting here feel really minor league.

[PeteF3]

Center Stage has been remade and Saturday Night (a new name at this point) has been altered into WCW's version of Prime Time Wrestling. Very good points from all about Sting's look--this never, ever would have happened in the WWF. Hype for Sting vs. Vader--that's a good way to make me forget about the production snafus plaguing this.

[garretta]

There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all mold for a World champion, guys. Sting in a Flairesque three-piece suit with slicked-back hair and understated face paint (or none at all) would look completely ridiculous and out of character. He got to where he was wearing stuff like hot pink tank tops and weightlifting belts, and that's what his fans expected to see when they see him. As for not having the belt, was he going to wrestle? Obviously not, so why bring it out? I'm sure even the densest little Stinger remembered what it looked like. (More than once, I've heard champions criticized for wearing the belt to tag matches and interviews, or anywhere else where it wasn't actually going to be defended.)

 

I'd be more concerned about Dusty doing most of the talking during the interview, almost like they were planning to involve him somehow in the Sting/Vader feud. Not that they couldn't have done that believably, especially since Harley was going to manage Vader, but since we know they didn't, that comes off as not quite trusting Sting to deliver the verbal goods, even after two title reigns and almost seven years in the business. For whatever reason, those in charge of WCW, whoever they may have been, didn't fully believe in Sting during this time period, and that's a shame. Maybe things will change during the course of this reign, but it seems to me at the moment like they put the belt on Sting only because Luger was gone and they had no one else. Since Flair started to be alluded to here and there not too long from now, I'm wondering if they were already thinking about him returning and getting the belt back before too long, especially after he dropped the WWF title at Mania VIII.

 

Why did the botched ending, with Sting apparently getting up to leave, then realizing that they were going to break and sitting back down, allowed to air? And why was JR so flummoxed that he couldn't say a word, even when Sting prompted him? He probably thought that they'd cut the cameras off, but when they didn't he should have said something simple like, "Hold on, Stinger. We'll be going to break in a second." As others have said, letting stuff like that air is what gave WCW its second-rate reputation at this time.

 

When did WCWSN start having its own matches again? This new format couldn't have lasted too long, as I see matches from late May that made the set.

[dawho5]

I honestly thought this was a set-up for some kind of attack.  Regardless, WCW's production could use some work.