Well, the Survivor Series is definitely going in the books as a night to remember. Going in, things were really looking bleak for the show as injuries and departures depleted the roster to the point where there just wasn't much they could do make for an interesting six or seven match card. Even the five officially announced matches looked like slim pickings. But boy did they make the most of a limited hand. That image at the top gave a million wrestling fans goosebumps. I figured that once Sting signed a WWE deal that he would do at least one match, and once it was announced that he would be appearing at the show it was obvious he'd involve himself in the big match some kind of way, but that didn't diminish the moment one bit. Seeing two icons of the business stare each other down the way he and Triple H did was an all time mark out moment for anyone who watched NWA/WCW wrestling back in the day. Sting is the one guy who never crossed over to the WWE; all the other big names had at least a short run there but even after WCW was bought out and shut down he didn't join the company. A lot of that was because Vince McMahon didn't want to spen the money to buy out the biggest contracts of course. So when went over to TNA to spend the rest of his full time working days, it was just kind of assumed that we would never see him in a WWE ring. But now, he's here.
If you didn't start watching wrestling until after the Monday Night Wars were over then you have no idea just how much of a big deal Sting really was. Imagine if, instead of going back home to Cleveland Lebron James went to the San Antonio Spurs. Or if Derek Jeter's last few years as a baseball player were spent in a Red Sox uniform. Or going to see Avengers: Age of Ultron next year to witness Wolverine, movie rights be damned, show up in the final scenes to help Iron Man and Captain America defeat the bad guys. When the NWO was the hottest thing going in the business back in 1996-97 it's no coincidence that the man chosen to be their ultimate antagonist was none other than Sting. Before then, when both he and Lex Luger were seen as many fans as being on equal footing Ric Flair (allegedly) used backstage politics to keep from dropping the championship to Luger but didn't oppose losing it to Sting. From 1992 through the end of the decade Sting was as important a figure in the business as anyone out there. And like I said earlier he was the only one on that level who never set foot in a WWE ring. Luger, Flair, and Goldberg all gave it a shot at one point or another. But Sting stayed away, through a combination of failed negotiations and reportedly not liking what plans they would have had for him had he come over. But all that's gone now and here he is.
Now the first thing the naysayers will bring up is that Sting is 55 years old and cannot be counted on to do anything significant at this point. I agree with that wholeheartedly and don't expect him to. I expect a few run ins and an eventual showdown with Triple H at WrestleMania 31. Triple H can still work a good 10 to 15 minute match, Sting is still decent enough to keep up, and you can make it no holds barred so he can bring out the sledgehammer and Sting can use his trademark black baseball bat. No one with any sense is asking for a 30 minute technical showcase here. And once that's done maybe he can do the whole Raw GM thing for a few months and retire to doing the whole legends circuit thing like Hulk Hogan does now. Win-win for everyone involved. But for right now, we can just continue to revel in him saving the day one more time like he used to on WCW Monday Nitro every week. Thanks for turning what was looking it was going to be a show that the company itself was just trying to survive into something memorable.
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