TMZ reported today what has been pretty well known for some time, that Sting is retired as a pro wrestler due to the neck injuries suffered in the Night of Champions match with Seth Rollins.
Sting was diagnosed with spinal stenosis and told that he needed surgery, which is it believed he has not yet gotten. According to the story, Steve Borden has seen several doctors who all agreed that he shouldn’t return to the ring.
Sting was injured twice in the match with Rollins in September, both times taking power bombs into the turnbuckles. He went limp briefly the second time but was able to finish the match.
The story said Sting may officially announce his retirement at the Hall of Fame ceremony on 4/2 in Dallas, where he is the main event inductee.
Due to the injury, Sting vs. Undertaker was never under consideration for this year’s WrestleMania nor was he ever talked about after September for a spot on the show.
The story at www.tmz.com stated Sting would be open to a non-physical role with the company.
Borden, who turns 57 later this month, started wrestling in 1985 after being discovered by Rick Bassman working at a Gold’s Gym. He began his career in Tennessee working for Jerry Jarrett as a tag team with Jim Hellwig, who became the Ultimate Warrior. The pair were then hired by Bill Watts, where they split up when Hellwig wasn’t happy with the company. Sting remained and became part of Eddie Gilbert’s Hot Stuff International heel group, often teaming with Rick Steiner.
Gilbert turned him babyface just as the UWF was being purchased by Jim Crockett, and Sting came over in the purchase but wasn’t used well until a 45 minute draw on the first Clash of the Champions with Ric Flair. The last 15 minutes of the match peaked with a 7.8 quarter hour, and the match itself did a 7.1 rating, both records for post-1983 TBS wrestling that were never broken, and Sting remained one of the top stars in wrestling since that time.
On this week’s Wrestling Weekly, Les Thatcher and Vic Sosa look back at the days when you could count on a bunch of roster cuts from WWE shortly after Wrestlemania and wonder if it might be time for that to happen again.
We’ll also talk Sting in the WWE HOF (29:01) and remember the night one of Les’ dear friends was honored by WCW in a very moving ceremony (34:36). As always, we’ll close the show with the mailbag (42:48).
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today to talk all the news in wrestling and MMA including STING going into the WWE Hall of Fame, his future in the ring if it exists, rumors of Conor McGregor and UFC 197 and tons more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
WWE officially announced today that Sting will headline its 2016 Hall of Fame Class to be inducted Wrestlemania weekend in Dallas, TX. He was expected to be the lead inductee this year given he lives near Dallas and that the timing worked out.
Steve “Sting” Borden was one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling during the 1990s with WCW, where he was a six-time WCW world champion and two time International world champion. He was also a two-time NWA champion and four time TNA champion.
Borden started his career working for Jerry Jarrett in late 1985 after only a few weeks of training under Red Bastien and Billy Anderson, as Power Team USA. He was discovered working in a Southern California gym by Rick Bassman, who was trying to put together a group of bodybuilders to capitalize on the popularity of the Road Warriors. Borden and Jim Hellwig, who became the Ultimate Warrior, left the camp and Bassman on their own after sending photos to all the different promotions. Only Jarrett responded, but the team only lasted a few weeks before Jarrett got rid of them.
Bill Watts hired the two based on potential. Watts had trouble with Hellwig, who quit and went to work for World Class wrestling, and then found his way to WWF. Sting started as a heel and was put under the wing of Eddie Gilbert, who turned him face just as the UWF was being sold to Jim Crockett Promotions. Most of the UWF talent got buried, but Sting was kept on as a prelim guy, who started gaining popularity.
His star exploded in one night when he was booked to do a 45 minute draw with Ric Flair on the first Clash of the Champions in 1988. From that day on, he was always considered a major star, and when Crockett Promotions told to Turner Broadcasting in 1989, Sting was considered the heir apparent as the company’s top star after Flair. The decision was to change the title in February 1990, ironically, on Flair’s 41st birthday in Greensboro. However, Sting suffered a bad knee injury in an angle building up the match, and the title change was moved to Baltimore and the Great American Bash that summer.
He remained as a top star with WCW until the promotion closed. He retired after not making a deal with WWF, but then came back for a lucrative deal with TNA. He agreed to come in 2006 and every year, he expected it to be his last. And every year, Dixie Carter offered him a new deal and he remained with the company until his last contract expired in early 2014. At that point, TNA could no longer afford him, and he opened up talks with WWE, later debuting at the 2014 Survivor Series in the show-closing angle.
Sting wrestled a few matches with WWE until suffering a neck injury at the 2015 Night of Champions after taking a power bomb into the turnbuckles in a match with then-World Champion Seth Rollins. He noted when talking with Ric Flair that he requires neck surgery, although has not gotten surgery yet.
There’s always something slightly sanitized about WWE documentary DVD releases — pretty much par for the course. When they finally got Warrior back, watching his sitdown after he became re-ffiliated with the company, we saw a far less angry and confrontational persona than we had seen online in the years prior. What’s obvious from Sting: Into The Light is that Steve Borden is clearly a very nice guy. But for one of the most iconic and important wrestlers of our time, there’s something really muted about the whole experience of this release.
When the documentary piece starts, it actually feels quite eerie. He’s settled in the back seat of a black SUV being taken to WWE HQ and is talking about the nerves and excitement he has for going in for the first time. He’s essentially just going through the exact same motions and emotions that Warrior was doing all of 6 months before.
Over the course of his interview, we’re shown him going from room to room, from department to department, meeting executives who tell him about what they plan to do with him now that he’s with WWE. It would seem that a performer coming in who is in the position that Sting or Warrior is in gets the same programme and agenda for the day, culminating in a meeting with Triple H. It is almost a propaganda movie for WWE, how professional they are and how they are completely unrivaled in a business sense in this industry today. It’s almost identical to the Warrior film. And, frankly, it couldn’t be more dull. Even Sting looks a little bored.
Equally lacking in excitement is footage of Sting going through boxes of old posters, ring gear, boots and other merchandise in his enormous garage. If you’re a fan of Sting, seeing him on his ranch, building a fire and mooching around on a golf kart might interest you. Certainly, seeing his parents, who talk about his athletic prowess as a college student, is the kind of colour one would normally look for in these sorts of documentaries.
Essentially, the narrative follows his return to the ring against Triple H at WrestleMania in San Jose, but in doing so, sees us do a whistle-stop tour of his break into the business, his work with WCW, his subsequent character change and his path to finding faith in real life. We see Sting watching the WWE Network in his home, watching matches that he’s not seen in full since he wrestled them. We follow him to his church where his brother, Jeff, is a senior pastor. Most entertaining is seeing him snuck in, hauled up backstage before his debut at Survivor Series in St Louis in November 2014 where you can tangibly sense his nervousness.
Talking heads from the likes of his father, Jim Ross, Lex Luger, and Ric Flair provide some insight, but a lucid performance from Scott Steiner, who shows great humility, is the most worthy of note. Everyone says, Sting included, that he was a locker room leader and a professional who got along with everyone. All note, and its entirely evident, that Steve Borden is very different to Sting. In fact, watching his WWE Table for 3 with Vader and DDP will tell that much.
Sting is humble and evidently very much at peace. You feel that there’s little to be cynical about with him. He talks openly, yet protectively, about how he was acting in the late 90s before he stopped doing so and found solace in religion. Just as honest, though, is his assessment of his character and gimmick change during the NWO-era WCW days. Some of the vignettes that the company produced for him were remarkable, but none are quite as awesome as that wonderfully cinematic, orchestral WWE 2K15 advert.
To see a full match list, you can do so here, but the stand-out matches are certainly the Ric Flair at Clash of the Champions battle from 1988 (a remarkable 45-minute commercial-free match at the time), as well as a very good match against DDP from Nitro in 1999 that Page himself is a huge fan of. Fans of Sting are never going to be disappointed by the wrestling on show in this collection.
75 minutes to tell the story of Sting is too little. But with a career that was at its peak with WCW and with a 7-8 year gap while he was with TNA (which he mentions by name), there’s little that WWE wants to tell other than the here and now. If you want to learn about his route in to the industry from Red Bastien to teaming with the Ultimate Warrior under Jerry Jarrett to Jim Crocket via Dusty Rhodes and Eric Bischoff and eventually to Vince, you’ll see an enjoyable story.
But, if you want to learn about what he really thinks about Hogan, or what he really thinks about the current product, you’re not going to get much more than a polite answer. Because, that’s really who Steve Borden is. And for all that this documentary doesn’t shine like his career in the ring has done, there’s something effortlessly charismatic and honest about the man that just makes you want to watch him.
Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer returns today to talk tons of weekend news including an update on the Alberto del Rio contract story, whether he will drop the AAA Mega Title, NXT TV notes, Sombra vs. Volador on Friday night, Sting and Night of Champions, judging in a soundproof chamber and tons of questions. A fun show as always so check it out~!
It’s the Thursday BRYAN AND NO VINNY SHOW! Reporting from lovely Malibu, CA, Bryan has full recaps of Raw from 19 years ago this week with Shawn Michaels vs. Steve Austin in the main event, NXT’s first TV show after Takeover, plus Table for 3 with Vader, Sting and DDP! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Sting’s injury was legitimate and we’re trying to get more information on it. The early reports we have is that the injury was significant.
During the nominees rundown for Best Writing in a Variety show on tonight’s Emmys, they showed the Raw clip of John Cena giving Jon Stewart an Attitude Adjustment on an endless loop as they ran down the names of The Daily Show writers (thanks to Jake Koch)
There is a presale for the next show in Houston, a house show on 1/8, going on right now through Friday. The password is Houston.
