[1990-12-07-NWA-Power Hour] Sting and Black Scorpion

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

More Black Scorpion audio coming from nowhere in particular. He calls Sting to the ring and Sting does so, and wanders around the ring like an idiot trying to find him. This time, someone comes out of the crowd and tries to attack him. The audio is low for this.

[El-P]

Shitty angle, shitty production. Ole is a genius.

[shoe]

Ever since Ole took over the book. His heels have less heat , and the people aren't behind his top faces. Wow and I thought Kevin Nash was bad.

[soup23]

I just can't believe this played out for MONTHS. You would think surely after the Clash or Havoc at the latest it would just be dropped. An embarrassment for everyone involved.

[PeteF3]

Paul E. to Ross: "Is that you?" Scorpion blithers incoherently while another rail-jumper tries to attack Sting. This has been going on and on and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. It's the same goddamn segment every time out, just the tricks are different.

[Kevin Ridge]

Little audio to this. Someone in a mask tries to attack Sting. Black Scorpion is talking over this but I can’t hear it too well. The magic tricks gave me a chuckle but most of this angle has been real poor.

[garretta]

Pete has it right; the vast majority of this angle has had the exact same setup every time: the Scorpion calls out Sting, Sting comes out and looks around for him like a damn fool, someone in a mask jumps Sting from behind while Ole blabs on and on about nothing in particular, Sting fights them off and demands the Scorpion face him, but the Scorpion refuses (and can't anyway, since it's Ole's prerecorded voice over the PA and nothing more).

 

You'd think that Sting would have gotten smart by now and taken off for the PA booth or the TV truck to see where the voice is coming from, since the voice and the men who attack him never match up, but he's too thickheaded to do that; he just stands in the ring and pouts. Actually, Heyman's hypothesis that it's JR is as good as any, since the voice is so distorted by whatever machine Ole uses. We should have gotten at least one vignette by now where Sting confronts Luger, Pillman, the Steiners, and whatever other faces he can find and demands to know if one of them is the Scorpion. We know Luger's not above such things, and who can tell what the lure of the World title could do to young guys like Brian and Scotty? Or maybe Rick (his former partner, don't forget) is jealous of him being World champion and wants a piece of his own glory.

 

Of course, all of them would deny it, but there would at least be more of a mystery surrounding the whole thing. As it is, there's no effort on anyone's part, including the announcers and other officials, to find out who this guy is before Starrcade. Whether the effort succeeds or not (and it wouldn't) isn't the point; the point is that Sting's perfectly content to be driven crazy for another week, and no one's making an effort to help him and ease his mind. What human being, even in a fictional context, acts like that?

 

I've read about all the nonsensical angles various bookers tried in WCW afterward, but this is as ridiculous as anything Vince Russo or Eric Bischoff or Kevin Sullivan ever dreamed of. Someone who knew something should have pulled the plug on this crap, or at least told Jim Herd that he was being ribbed, that Ole was trying to make a fool out of him for suggesting something so bizarre. Maybe then a whole lot of needless embarrassment could have been avoided for everyone concerned with this abomination, Sting in particular.

[drew wardlaw]

Man, the unknown thugs attacking Sting is not effective, and neither is the Black Scorpion audio. Just very poor and there's no payoff to any of these segments.