HOF nonsense thread

[JerryvonKramer]

I can see that there's no getting away from this by being flippant

 

Ok, I appreciate the demand for greater rigour.

 

To make things more complicated here, I'm going to add my explanations here in Italics

 

 

1. Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his country or his promotion?

 

No for world or country, but for his promotion, definitely.

 

When was he considered the best draw in his company? He was certainly pushed as the top face in the company for a couple of years, but the point of this question is to get to the meat of his value - in Sting's case that meat doesn't really exist, at least not on the surface. Someone else argued that shows with Sting featured prominently did better buyrates. That's the sort of thing I would want to see here to point to proof that he was actually someone who's position on the shows was getting some results.

 

The point I'm making is that he was put in that position and was WCW's undisputed number 1 draw for the entire time Flair was gone. Flair became number 1 again in late 93 with the Vader match and the Steamboat match in early 94.

 

2. Was he an international draw, national draw and/or regional draw?

 

Yes to all? I knew who Sting was when I was 12, being from the UK. Although I don't know how much stock you can put into that, since I wasn't exactly your average fan.

 

Being known is not the same thing as being a draw. This is a common misconception that we all fall into from time to time and it works both ways. The High Flyers are less well known team than The Rockers, but The High Flyers were unquestionably bigger draws. Having a degree of fame and name recognition is not irrelevant to an HoF discussion, but I don't think it's as important as drawing and the two things should not be confused.

 

Fair point this. I don't think you could have headlined a show at Wembley with Sting in the main event.

 

3. How many years did he have as a top draw?

 

Shall we say 5-6?

 

Sting had no years as a top draw. Actually let me amend that. If you count Crow Sting - and you arguably should - he may have had one year. I really can't conceive of any argument that would get his total up to five or six even if we were being REALLY generous.

 

This is a semantic point. I'm saying this is "top draw" as in "top draw of the promotion". Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels each had a couple of years as "top draws", even though they didn't do great business.

 

Also, there is an argument to say that all those 8,000-10,000 shows they did in 1991-3 would have been SMALLER if Sting hadn't been on those cards. What would shows headlined by Rude and Steamboat have done?

 

Beach Blast '92 -- from a work perspective one of the all-time GREAT PPVs in my book -- only got 5,000 with Steamboat and Rude heavily featured in the build, and on the front cover of the VHS. In no sense was Sting's match the main event or even second main event there -- even though he was champ, he was buried in the midcard against Foley, admittedly in a fantastic non-title match.

 

Even though Great American Bash '92 is famous for the meaingingless tag tournament and Watts pushing Williams and Gordy to the moon, it was SOLD on Vader vs. Sting and drew 8,000 -- 3,000 up from Beach Blast.

 

What about Ron Simmons vs. Vader?

 

No PPV matches, but they were doing 1,900 - 3,500 (average around 2,000) around the horn in August.

 

From September to October, the figures with Simmons as champ are really horrible, getting as low as 400 in some places. But averaging around 700-1000. Then from November Sting is back in the main event and they are getting 5,000 at the Omni,

 

Then they go back to being awful with Sting not on the cards ... but there's a noticeable spike in December:

WCW @ Charlotte, NC - Coliseum - December 27, 1992 (matinee) (2,100)

Sting did not appear as advertised because he had already been booked his maximum amount of dates for the year; WCW World Champion Ron Simmons and Brad Armstrong did not appear due to transportation problems; Simmons was fined $2,000 for missing the show

You can see this pattern across the year. Shows with Sting headlining (or advertised to be on the show) do over 2,000 sometimes 5,000+ and 7000-10,000 for Clashes and PPVs, shows without him do 1,000 or even fewer.

 

4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in his country or in his promotion?

 

Probably not, but he did have his fair share of great matches given the right opponent

 

Definitely not, though I agree with your second point.

5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in hisclass?

 

Ditto

 

Sting is tough because it depends on how you define "class." He was sort of branded as a musclebound face, but his frame was different than someone like Hogan's. He wasn't really a Flair type, nor was he really a Luger type. I would feel more comfortable classing him with Luger than with Flair though that may be an error of my perception. Anyhow to the extent that he is in that sort of "musclebound" babyface class I actually think you may be underselling him a hair here. He was a very good worker by the standards of guys in that class, or at least he was for a few years. It's also worth noting that his matches with Vader are among the best "musclebound but still underdog face v. monster" matches in wrestling history.

 

I've always struggled to buy Sting as a real muscle man because he's so much smaller than a Hogan or a Luger. I really see him as a smaller main event guy. More on this later.

 

...

 

10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of cards?

 

Well define "effective" ... was he effective at popping the crowd and being the most over guy in the company? Yes. Was he effective as a draw? More debatable / no.

 

I don't understand why it is hard to define effective. Seems to me that the question is pretty clearly "as an anchor/top of the card act did this guy draw money/help business/sustain business."

 

Referring to the figures above, I certainly don't think Sting was HURTING business, and he was basically the only guy in the company with ANY sort of drawing power. 5,000 would turn up for Rude vs. Steamboat on PPV. 8,000 for Sting vs. anyone. I mean that's still moderate, but he was clearly the biggest draw they had.

[JerryvonKramer]

12. Did he have an impact on a number of strong promotional runs?

 

Basically a one company guy. But he had arguably 4 distinct "strong runs" - 88-9, 91-3, 98, and TNA. Of which 91-3 is the only time he was "the ace".

 

91-3 was not a "strong run" by any sane metric. In fact it was quite the opposite of a "strong run" and this is coming from someone who loves much of the wrestling in the company from that period, attended dozens of live cards during the era, et. Having said that I think in a sense this is Sting's biggest plus as he is a guy people think of when they think of the post-Turner buyout TBS/TNT television World. I think for most long time fans he is the first guy they think of after Flair and I think that's why a lot of folks have trouble grasping just how poor his record really was as a drawing ace. He definitely had an impact for the totality of this stretch, in periods both strong and poor.

 

As I said previously in this thread, I think it's harsh to blame Sting for the poor performance in those years. WCW had expanded too fast, too soon and was very badly managed and, at times, booked to boot. I'd credit him with almost single-handedly keeping the company afloat during those lean times.

 

I reckon with Simmons vs. Vader on top and no Sting in 92, WCW files for bankruptcy in 1993.

 

Watts didn't help him or the company either with his old-school approach and INCESSANT pushing of the Miracle Violence Connection either. Williams and Gordy simply were not draws in the US in 1992 -- yet he devoted 3 of the years biggest shows to them and buried the world title in the midcard.

 

That sort of bull shit is to blame for the poor performance, not Sting.

 

13. Was he involved in a number of memorable rivalries, feuds or storylines?

 

Yes, yes, yes to the max

 

Okay so tell us what they are. The Vader feud is an all time great in ring feud that didn't really make money. I liked the Rude angle a lot - it didn't make money. The Muta stuff was fun as a kid but was extremely secondary in a loaded year. The Flair stuff is memorable, but really is weak next to stuff like Flair v. Luger. Crow Sting v. The NWO obviously had huge value and was memorable. Over all though I actually think it's shocking that a guy who was around as long as Sting in such a well placed spot has so few memorable rivalries, feuds and storylines.

 

Well, aside from those you mention, the whole Luger angle in 95-6 was pretty good. More subtlety and complexity than your average wrestling angle. Also think the stuff with Flair in late 95 is dynamite.

 

14. Was he effective working on the mic, working storylines or working angles?

 

Yes, yes, yes to the max

 

Your answer tells us less than nothing. What are some examples of this. I would point to Crow Sting. Beyond that there are some things he did that I thought worked well, but didn't really lead to any solid business returns.

 

Well I thought Sting's strengths on the mic were self-explanatory and obvious. Sting is basically a textbook babyface maineventer. Solid promo, solid at everything. I think he's a guy who was 4 out of 5 in all things. Just a terrific allrounder.

 

 

 

 

15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his career?

 

To the max

 

Honestly this isn't even really argument by assertion. I'm not sure what it is, but I really had hoped for someone to try and use this tool to really hash out Sting's strengths and positives and I think you could do better than this.

 

Great at being the underdog, great at being the trusting face tricked by the evil heel (Flair) or the trusting friend tricked by the evil partner (Luger) -- Sting is probably the stupidest wrestler of all time in kayfabe terms, ha ha. He played the surfer role perfectly and then when he had to play the darker Crow character, it was hard to believe it was the same guy. Totally believable in both roles.

 

 

16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was the importance of the reigns?

 

Well who can forget the most prestigious tournament of all time? The Iron Man tournament at Starrcade '89? And what about that coveted BATTLE BOWL RING from 1991? What about the King of Cable tournament from 92? Or the Jim Crocket Sr. Memorial Cup?

 

If tournament wins are important, Sting has a unique trophy cabinet.

 

Anyway, 7-time World Champ, 11 if you count TNA. Important runs with the US and TV titles that elevated those belts.

 

I don't see how his title reigns really elevated the belts in question. I'd be interested to see what you and others think his most substantially title reign was.

 

Both times Sting held the US title, he'd already been World Champ. And he was already a main event guy. Him going for and defending the secondary title made it seem like something worth gunning for. This wasn't a title for second tier guys, STING was wearing it with pride. In 89, Sting was probably the fastest rising star in ALL of wrestling period, and he was the TV champ, so I don't see how that's not elevating the belt. It's a damn site more impressive (for the TV title) than a career midcarder like Mike Rotunda holding it.

 

....

 

18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the wrestling media?

 

 

 

You missed this one. I would say very little mainstream exposure relative to other top stars, though he was well covered by wrestling media.

 

I think in that period of 1990-94, if you could name one wrestler from WCW, it was Sting. The main issue here is, however, that NWA/ WCW was NEVER over with the mainstream media. That was Vince's greatest trick: getting his boys over with the general public. Making Wrestlemania a household name. So, again, is this a knock on Sting or the company? I mean Hillybilly Jim probably had more mainstream exposure than anyone on the NWA roster in 1986, just by virtue of being in the Hogan cartoon.

 

19. Was he a top tag team wrestler?

 

Yes. His stuff with Luger, outside of that Steiners match, is underappreciated in general. He had a few good runs with the tag titles.

 

I think it's a real stretch to say he was a top tag team wrestler and I liked the Luger team. The Bladerunners were really bad, but even excluding that how would Sting compare to someone like Arn, Eaton or Windham who are guys that I think we all agree qualify as "top tag team wrestlers." Even taking it a step down from that do people really view Sting as a guy who's tag performances stood out?

 

I'll grant you, this is weak. But Sting could play face in peril or do a big comeback as well as any other maineventer put in a tag match. He has dozens of decentish tag matches to choose from.

 

20. Was he innovative?

 

I'd argue he was. The Stinger splash was quite distinctive.

 

Seriously? I like Sting, but citing the Stinger splash as innovative in the context of an HoF discussion seems like the ultimate in "I want to make SOME case for this guy!"

 

I'd argue that the Stinger spalsh is about as innovative as the People's Elbow, the Worm or the Spinarooni

 

21. Was he influential?

 

I think you can see the influence of Sting in guys like Edge, Christian and Jericho.

 

I have no clue what you are referring to here. I have no doubt that a lot of guys who are wrestlers now enjoyed Sting as a kid but I don't see anyway in which Sting was an influential wrestler and see no connection at all between Christian and Sting.

 

I see Sting as a smaller guy main eventing. By "smaller", I mean that he's obviously not in the same weight bracket as Hogan, Warrior or even Luger. I see Sting as the guy who made it possible for a guy like Jericho to main event shows. He's also a more "athletic" main event babyface. I see more of Sting in the guys named than Bret or Shawn.

 

22. Did he make the people and workers around him better?

 

This is probably Sting's main weakness as a worker. The answer is no. Sting is a guy who'll have a match as good as who he is working with. That's the main knock on Sting in general.

 

I'm not sure that's true. I mean he wasn't going to carry anyone, but he was not a guy who had a rep of burying people or undermining them either. I can't say he made people better, but I don't think this is a negative for him either.

 

Ok, so I can live with it being a neutral. It's more that Sting is never going to be a guy to drag a good match out of a shitty worker. I don't think Sting could have pulled off a Wrestlemania 6 with Warrior for example.

[Victator]

I think Sting was vital to the success of the nWo angle. He really was the heart of WCW and the nWo sending him away early, really mattered. Without Sting at that point there really was no home team. Guys like Savage were WWF first and foremost. Luger, The Steiners and even Flair (to a lesser extent) had left WCW for years at a time.

 

Without Sting as a true end game to take down the nWo, I don't think it would have worked. I think it would of ran out of steam long before Starrcade 97.

 

Before that, I do think Sting was a TV draw for WCW and to the Turner people that is what mattered.

[Dylan Waco]

I really have no desire to do a results review for Sting like I did with Patera and Blackwell but I am willing to if its something no one else is willing to do.

 

The snippets Jerry points to aren't irrelevant but I am much more interested in big picture themes.

[JerryvonKramer]

I have to go to bed now, but Loss, if you do a search for "Jumbo" filtered by username "Jerryvonkramer" you'll find 26 posts where I've mentioned Jumbo, including one where I'm considering him as the GOAT 80s worker.

 

Just for comparison, I've mentioned Mooney 15 times (which is probably 15 times more than anyone else, granted, ) and 14 for Rotunda, but of those only 7 refer to him as IRS or as part of Money Inc.

 

I think maybe you have a certain perception of me that is magnified by the fact that you see Sean Mooney's face every time I post.

[goodhelmet]

Sable was at one time a bigger ratings draw than Steve Austin. She was a bigger star than all of them as well. Do you think she should go in the HOF?

50/50, on one hand she did what no other female performer had managed to do in years - draw. OTOH, she's not the first thing you think of when you think of that period in wrestling, the first things you think of are Steve Austin, Vince McMahon and DX. Furthermore, she couldn't have sold a PPV alone (because she was the only over female in the company = no equal footing), whereas DX and Austin could.

 

Sorry to go back to this but the people I think about are Steve Austin, The Rock and Mick Foley.

[goodhelmet]

If one or two years as a hot act is enough to get you into the HOF, then Goldberg and Kerry Von Erich are no-brainers.

 

On a somewhat related note, what does Sting have over Batista as a HOF candidate other than longevity? The gap between the two as workers wasn't that large, and Batista blows Sting completely out of the water as a draw.

Kerry Von Erich was hot for several years. He was also a great worker to boot.

[Jingus]

Sorry to go back to this but the people I think about are Steve Austin, The Rock and Mick Foley.

Undertaker, too. Even Kane, to an extent, he was involved in a shitload of top angles at the time. Ken Shamrock was a pretty big deal back then as well.

[Victator]

Depends on when you define his prime. In Sting's case I would argue his "prime" kick starts with the Flair Clash match and ends with the last of the Vader series in 94.

88 would be his physical prime, but I don't think he got it together til 1991. I would define his prime as 91 to 96.

[NintendoLogic]

I find it striking how much of the Gordy List ends up unintentionally damning Sting with faint praise. He was the biggest draw...in early 90s WCW. He was one of the best workers...among musclebound babyfaces. I'm also dumbfounded by the claim that Sting was a bigger influence on Chris Jericho than Shawn Michaels. More generally, you'd be hard-pressed to find a current American wrestler below 220 pounds who doesn't regard Shawn as an influence. Sting's influence is pretty much limited to Shelton Benjamin doing Stinger Splashes.

[Dylan Waco]

Hey now, Ziggler takes a corner bump in almost every match on a Stinger splash attempt

 

In all seriousness I would like for Jerry to expand upon the suggestion that Sting was somehow a bigger influence on guys like Jericho, Christian, Edge, et. than Michaels and Bret were. I have never heard anyone advance this argument and have no clue what it would be based on.

[Loss]

Jerry, I apologize if I painted you in a corner too much. Maybe that wasn't fair. My post was too much about you and not enough about your argument. I see everyone piling in on you and feel a little bad about it. But at the same time, I hope the point was made that WCW was certainly a national promotion from Day One and never tried to be anything else.

[Matt D]

I would like to see someone take an argument that Cena was influenced by Sting.

[Loss]

I would like to see someone take an argument that Cena was influenced by Sting.

Yeah, I do agree with this. I think they have a very similar charisma, and also, if you look at Cena in those early UPW pics, he looks like Sting looked when starting out. I think the things that made them have appeal are similar, with the exception being that Cena is a much better talker.

 

One thing that I do think is worth pointing out is that I think Sting had superstar potential. He could have and probably should have been bigger. Part of it is that he came along at the tail end of the initial boom and in what should have been his peak years, wrestling was in a pretty sorry state. Part of it is that his injury at Clash X came at a horrible time for him and he didn't really recapture the momentum he had when he came back that July and beat Flair at the Bash.

 

Honestly, and I think the 1990 Yearbook will make this even more apparent, Sting was used pretty badly while out with the injury. Fans never had a chance to miss him because he was still on television every week, and not being programmed with Flair *after* winning the title was bad for him too. That feud had legs for a while and they ended it after one match. So the attempt to affirmatively end the Ric Flair era so decisively indirectly hurt Sting too. And of course, the Black Scorpion feud did a number on him too.

 

No one could have succeeded in the environment in WCW of 1991-1993. Near-constant leadership and direction changes made it impossible.

 

Again, I don't blame Sting for most of that. I blame the way he was portrayed. So saying Sting shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame is not something I think anyone would say means that he had no appeal or potential, that he didn't deliver in the right settings and that he didn't bring huge positives.

 

But if you look back, Sting was going to be the guy to carry things when Ric Flair left. And Ric Flair never left. So most of his run was in limbo waiting to take that top spot, which he never got. And in some ways, it was unfair to Sting, because he was never going to be able to perform at the level Flair did as champ. But because WCW/NWA fans had Flair on top so long, that's what they expected in that role.

 

You could write volumes about WCW's problems during this time. Some of them were so obvious and easily fixable that it's frustrating that no one did. Some of them qualified, smart people tried to fix and failed for various reasons. Some of them couldn't be fixed no matter what, because so much damage had been done. Some of it is WCW never fully picking a side - did they want to be a company that would take on the expenses and marketing campaigns and dirty promotional tactics needed to get competitive with the WWF? Or were they content to produce original programming on TBS that got great ratings but never really did great business? (In the latter case, by the way, Sting was severely overpaid.) If that's what Jerry was getting at in saying WCW wasn't truly a national promotion, maybe it's just a phrasing difference, but there is something there. They weren't a *good* national promotion. They were horrible at marketing their top stars and hyping their big shows. There were too many people involved who were TBS corporate rejects who didn't understand wrestling, and were outwardly hostile to the idea that wrestling was unique and what worked for every business wouldn't work for wrestling.

 

Sting got caught in the middle of all of that. Not his fault, but it's what happened, and for that reason, he's not a Hall of Famer.

[JerryvonKramer]

Jerry, I apologize if I painted you in a corner too much. Maybe that wasn't fair. My post was too much about you and not enough about your argument. I see everyone piling in on you and feel a little bad about it. But at the same time, I hope the point was made that WCW was certainly a national promotion from Day One and never tried to be anything else.

Hey no worries.

 

I accept WCW were "national" in name, but if you look at what they were doing in towns outside their hotbed you'll see ... let me put it another way, do you remember this screen from TEW08?

 

 

WCW had JUST made that jump from "cult" to national in the early 1990s and barely. They were probably around a "C" rating in most of the regions - A* in Mid Atlantic, B+ in South East, below C in Tri-State, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

 

Don't really know what their presence was in North West, New England or the Great Lakes.

 

In that game to be counted as being "National" you need at least a C popularity rating in EIGHT regions across the US. If WCW were really achieving that in the early 90s, they were just about doing it by the skin of their teeth.

 

Meanwhile, WWF at that time were at least a B across the board AND in Canada AND here in the UK. They were touring Europe in 92, especially Germany to sell out crowds of 10,000+ everywhere they went.

 

What I'm saying is that you just CAN'T measure WCW by WWF standards at that time. The gulf in the relative sizes of the operations was just too big.

 

I mean Biscoff has to be given credit for making WCW even competitive given what he was up against.

 

I spent a good few hours looking at house show figures last night. WCW were doing less than 1,000 typically in 92 with Simmons or Vader on top, more like 3,000 with Sting on the card. A PPV show would get 8,000 or 10,000 but WCW gave a lot of free comps at this time as well.

 

WWF at the same time were doing 6,000+ just for house shows, 10,000+ when it was Hogan vs. Flair on top. We're talking a 7,000 crowd for a random house show in Seattle (Savage vs. Jake), WA, 7,000 in LA (Hogan/ Piper vs. Flair/ Sid). They were even drawing crowds of 2-3,000 in WCW's backyard and in the Mid-South area with Undertaker vs. Papa Shango on top -- this when a show with the WCW champion headling was struggling to break 500 in the same towns.

 

I understand 1992 was just a HORRIBLE year for WCW box office wise, but compared to what the WWF were doing in the same time frame they really do seem like a backwater Southern operation.

 

Would you really rate their popularity at C+ in EIGHT regions across the USA at this time? Seems to me they could only successfully run shows in Mid-Atlantic, Mid-South and South East.

 

Look at their shows from 1992. They ran towns in GA ALOT -- basically the Omni every three weeks or so. They ran Chicago, then once in a while Houston, once in a while the Carolinas, once in a while Florida, once in a while towns out in old Watts country (OK, MO, MI, KA, TN, KY), seemed to do towns in Virginia and West Virginia fairly regularly, then random dates in Philly and New Jersey.

 

I mean in still looks like a regional player to me (albeit a big one) with some overtures towards being national.

 

If you look at the towns WWF ran, just in the US, let alone worldwide, there's no comparison.

[JerryvonKramer]

I would like to see someone take an argument that Cena was influenced by Sting.

No one could have succeeded in the environment in WCW of 1991-1993. Near-constant leadership and direction changes made it impossible.

 

Again, I don't blame Sting for most of that. I blame the way he was portrayed. So saying Sting shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame is not something I think anyone would say means that he had no appeal or potential, that he didn't deliver in the right settings and that he didn't bring huge positives.

 

But if you look back, Sting was going to be the guy to carry things when Ric Flair left. And Ric Flair never left. So most of his run was in limbo waiting to take that top spot, which he never got. And in some ways, it was unfair to Sting, because he was never going to be able to perform at the level Flair did as champ. But because WCW/NWA fans had Flair on top so long, that's what they expected in that role.

As a side note, how much do you think Flair coming back in 93 hurt Sting? I mean by December, Flair was headlining Starrcade vs. Vader and Sting was in a meaningless tag match with Road Warrior Hawk vs. the Nasties.

 

By Spring Stampede, it was Flair vs. Steamboat with Sting fighting over the near-meaningless WCW International Heavyweight Title.

 

By the time Hogan came in and his hair had turned brown, Sting looked properly lost until the Luger stuff and the awesome angle with Flair late on in 95.

 

There's an argument to say that Flair practically buried Sting when he had the book.

[Loss]

Flair didn't bury Sting. Flair liked working with Sting and put him over many times. I think Sting owes most of his career success to Flair.

 

A better way to put it is that Flair overshadowed Sting just by being a bigger star, doing better interviews and performing in the ring at a much higher level.

 

Also, regarding WCW being a national promotion, the point is that whether they were a good or bad national promotion, they were still a national promotion. The WWF was much stronger in most markets outside the Southeast without a doubt, but that doesn't mean WCW didn't exist at all in those markets. Had television ratings been the end-all, be-all in the early 90s like they would be a few years later, the perception may have been different, as WCW typically did better TV ratings. They were run by a television company, so you'd expect that.

[JerryvonKramer]

I always wondered about the business model of running all those shows at the WTBS studios in Atlanta in front of 500 people. Did they get money through advertising? Was that the idea?

 

I'd be interested to see the TV ratings, because you're right it's a different way of looking at it.

 

Also, I'm just wondering about Flair burying Sting in 1993/4 specifically. When he was booking. Sting was still over and came out of the Vader series looking good, by the time Hogan came in he was already in total no man's land. Flair worked Vader, then Steamboat, then Hogan. Sting was totally out of the loop. I guess this depends to an extent of how big a draw you consider Rick Rude by 1993. Sting vs. Rude, you'd assume would be a high profile and money feud. But was treated as midcard fodder.

[Matt D]

But if you look back, Sting was going to be the guy to carry things when Ric Flair left. And Ric Flair never left.

Shouldn't we look more closely at 92 then?

 

Also, as a kid really into WCW in 91, I was always bummed that they didn't come to my part of MA.

 

Graham's site has once in Boston in 90, nowhere in the rest of New England. They didn't run New England once in 1991. Once in Worcester in 92 and nowhere else in New England. Nothing in 93. Nothing in 94. Geez! Nothing in 95 in New England either! And just one Hartford show in 96, nowhere else. Is that REALLY right?

[JerryvonKramer]

For what it's worth, and this is hurting my own Sting argument, Flair vs. Steamboat drew 12,000 which is probably the biggest crowd they'd had outside of the Japan shows in years.

 

Gates look to be up in general in 94.

 

The stready progress made in 94-early 96 tends to be underplayed because the idea of the NWO transforming things is a much easier narrative to tell.

[Cox]

One thing that I do think is worth pointing out is that I think Sting had superstar potential. He could have and probably should have been bigger. Part of it is that he came along at the tail end of the initial boom and in what should have been his peak years, wrestling was in a pretty sorry state. Part of it is that his injury at Clash X came at a horrible time for him and he didn't really recapture the momentum he had when he came back that July and beat Flair at the Bash.

 

Honestly, and I think the 1990 Yearbook will make this even more apparent, Sting was used pretty badly while out with the injury. Fans never had a chance to miss him because he was still on television every week, and not being programmed with Flair *after* winning the title was bad for him too. That feud had legs for a while and they ended it after one match. So the attempt to affirmatively end the Ric Flair era so decisively indirectly hurt Sting too. And of course, the Black Scorpion feud did a number on him too.

 

No one could have succeeded in the environment in WCW of 1991-1993. Near-constant leadership and direction changes made it impossible.

I wonder how their careers would have been different if Sting wound up in the WWF and Ultimate Warrior wound up in WCW? Warrior was destined to flame out either way, and probably wouldn't have worked out well with higher workrate standards in WCW, but maybe he would have gotten better with the standard so much higher to push him. Conversely, Sting would have been in a company more likely to use him properly, and might have taken off for WWF put into the Warrior spot where Warrior had failed, but also probably would not have become as good a worker as he did working for WCW, and may have been just as likely to fade in Hogan's shadow as Warrior did.

[Loss]

But if you look back, Sting was going to be the guy to carry things when Ric Flair left. And Ric Flair never left.

Shouldn't we look more closely at 92 then?

1992 WCW was fantastic from a wrestling standpoint. Kip Frey was a placeholder for Watts, and Dusty put the title on Sting after building the issue with Luger for a few months. This should have worked better than it did. Rude was probably the hottest heel in all of wrestling during Sting's run, but it was a weird time. While Sting and Rude did have a big house show run, they didn't have a PPV match during this time with Sting defending. Sting, as Jerry mentioned, didn't really get a main event match on PPV. It didn't light the world on fire, but it wasn't going to light the world on fire.

 

WCW was so bad and did so much damage in 1991 that they created a hole that would take a few years to fully dig their way out of. I don't know that they made their situation worse in '92, like they would in '93, but they didn't really make it better either.

 

Really, in '92, Sting was only put in a position to carry the company for about three months. He beat Luger, Rude was groomed for him in the short term, with Vader being groomed for him over summer. He had Cactus as a one-shot deal. I think they could have built up some other guys to make a run at him too.

 

Frey's vision was a good one - and a breath of fresh air compared to Herd - but he didn't have enough time to see it through before Watts came in. Watts is someone who properly understood what was wrong with WCW and prescribed the wrong medicine to fix it. He came in with opinions on talent from 1987 and some of the people he pushed weren't really the best choices. Not just Doc and Gordy, but he also brought back Dick Slater! By early 1993, he was focused more on Barry Windham, Sting and Vader, was bringing Flair back, was pushing Pillman in a more prominent role and was signing some good young guys like Benoit, Scorpio and Regal. I think he was on a better path, but he had burned so many bridges in WCW's corporate structure, and it was painfully clear by that point that it wasn't going to work.

[JerryvonKramer]

Having looked at the figures, I think Simmons was probably a mistake from Watts too. I mean he gave him a really half-assed push on PPV, but I'm guessing he thought he could make another JYD. Given that all those house shows struggled to sell 1,000 tickets, Simmons has got to be seen as a massive failure as champ.

 

The first half of 92 is solid-ish if you take lowered expectations into account, but the second half of 92 practically falls off a cliff.

 

Also, this exercise has really made me question the drawing power of Rude and Vader. I mean they were the top heels right? And both of them, like Sting, over like rover. So why didn't that translate into money?

 

Did Rude draw vs. Warrior?

[Loss]

I don't think anyone could have drawn in WCW at that point because of how WCW was run. It's not something I'd blame the wrestlers on top for, unless it's a case like Simmons where there is a significant and noticeable dip. It really is a credit to feuds like Flair/Luger and Flair/Funk that they were able to do moderately well in WCW's climate at the time.

 

Even Ric Flair, who was bulletproof for a long time because of his promos, had been misused so much that while he was the company's best asset, he didn't mean nearly as much as he should have.

[JerryvonKramer]

Here's a hypothetical: do you think if Kip Frey had stayed and they hadn't brought in Watts, WCW would have been healthy by 92? The few months of Kip Frey are probably my favourite few months in wrestling period. And WCW's hottest PPV streak possibly ever.

 

If Watts hadn't have taken WCW back to the 70s with all his retro stuff, what's to say they don't start making money?

 

I guess quality doesn't translate into sales though. There is no casual fan who's going to think "Oh I heard Beach Blast '92 was great, I'm going to be sure to catch Fall Brawl". It doesn't work like that does it.

 

Even Ric Flair, who was bulletproof for a long time because of his promos, had been misused so much that while he was the company's best asset, he didn't mean nearly as much as he should have.

Yeah, Herd basically killed Flair.