9) 1996 - 1997 – WCW Sting vs Hulk Hogan
This is one of the greatest examples of story telling in a feud that has ever been. The sheer length of this feud which stretched over more then a year made it an unbelievable exercise in patience, and the reason why its number 9? Because in the end it’s a feud that ended up starting the death spiral of WCW and the exit of disgruntled fans. Its one of the key reasons why WCW lost its lead in the Monday Night wars.
Lets face facts, the original execution of the NWO was unbelievably well done, the heel turn of Hulk Hogan was inspired genius. For months the NWO destroyed everyone and made all the WCW wrestlers look like panty waisted dweebs, oh and lawn darts.
I will say that at this point, everything that Eric Bishoff touched turned to gold, that can never be argued. We also have to give credit to Eric as he showed an incredible amount of patience with this when Eric was well NWO for not having patience and hotshotting angles for ratings. In the end Eric built up a story line the likes that had never been seen before and all he had to do was pull the trigger on the end and there was a real possibility that WWE might never have recovered. But in the end ego’s and selfishness dragged this feud down and everyone ended up looking like idiots.
To understand this, feud the first player that we have to understand Is Sting. A colorful high-energy white-haired super over face. The fans loved Sting and never tired of his exuberance, style, and energy. He was also WCW through and through. He was the top baby face and the one guy that WCW could count on. So, what do you do with him when the evil NWO invades and runs roughshod over the company that he loves what should happen. If you said that Sting should be the hero and get that first major victory over the NWO you would be . . . . right. But that’s not what happened. Instead, you get a incredible journey of twists and turns and questioned loyalties and one of the great character changes or gimmick changes of all time. To understand this we have to look at how it started.
Well at Bash at the Beach in 1996 when Luger, Sting and Savage faced off against the Ousiders and a mystery partner. The night that Hogan told the fans to stick it brother and formed the NWO. From that point on fans expected Luger to betray WCW and join NWO and Sting to lead the charge against the NWO, it didn’t happen like that.
This is when we get a story of perceived betrayals that lead the fans and WCW to believe that Sting was a betrayer. In a match between Luger and Rick Steiner, Luger was called to the back where we heard Sting talking to Ted Dibiase who for a short time was the money behind the NWO. Then Nash, Sting and Hall beat down Luger, and the questions was is Sting NWO part of the NWO.
A week later at Fall Brawl, Sting Luger and Flair and Anderson were set to take on the NWO, but Flair didn’t trust Sting even though Sting told them “It wasn’t me on Monday Night”. Instead, we get a match with Flair, Luger and Anderson taking on Hall, Nash, Hogan and Sting. Wait a minute how could he betray the WCW like this. Of course, the NWO took full advantage and beat down the faces, until Sting came down to the ring and beat the hell out of the NWO, then he turned to his friend Luger while leaving the cage and asked him “if that was good enough for him”. Then Flair told the WCW favorites to stick it and leave as the NWO won the night.
NWO you’re asking how this is happening, two Stings what the hell is going on. Well fake Sting was played by WCW jobber Jeff Farmer who was NWO enjoying what would be the biggest moment of his career.
At the next Nitro Sting marched to the ring, and elaborated about what happened at Fall Brawl, that he witnessed his friend being attacked by an imposter. Then he bought up the fact that nobody, not the fans nor his friends and colleagues believed or trusted him despite giving everything to WCW. He would always stand by the fans. But the wrestlers and friends and commentators that did doubt him could stick it.
Then he stated that he was a free agent, you might see him from time to time when you least expect it.
It was a brilliant piece of story telling. Whose side was Sting going to be on, what did this mean. This is when Bishoff perfected the slow burn. We didn’t see Sting for a month. The next time we saw Sting was when he came out in Black leather and Crow makeup and attacked the fake Sting. Then the NWO invited him to join them. Sting didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no. He told the NWO that he might or might not be in their price range, but one thing was for sure about Sting “That nothing is for sure”
Now I’m not going to go into every single detail, but a week later Sting ascended to the Rafters. This was on Oct 28th 1996. He went from energetic and charismatic to sullen and silent and a picture of rage. What was more brilliant was between Oct 28m 1996 and the supposed final blow off match in Dec of 1997, we didn’t see Sting in a match period. Sure Sting would come out of the rafters and for a while he would attack WCW loyalists and NWO wrestlers without discrimination to further the who’s side he was on. We would get awesome visualizations. Sting would hand bats to wrestlers and turn his backs on them. Or walk into the ring during a match between a NWO wrestler and WCW wrestler and drop a bat to leave. On Hulk Hogans birthday Sting left a vulture in the ring.
The fans wanted to see the blowoff, to see sting come down and destroy the NWO and specifically Hogan. At the same time outside of Sting Bishoff kept the NWO booked incredibly strongly. They were unbeatable. In fact, the only guy they were scared of, was Sting.
Then it all fell apart. After over a year of Sting making mystical entrances and being the Dark Avenger for WCW fans we get to the blow off match. Now before I go into this, I have to again give Eric credit. He had a sure-fire winner in this angle. He had millions of dollars in revenue whenever he pulled the trigger, or quite possibly the death blow for WWE if he did this right. All he had to do was wait. And he did. All he needed to do in the end was have Sting come out and basically destroy the NWO and Hogan and he would have another year of stories with Sting in the WCW fold. Instead, disaster struck.
First of all the vibe was off. Hogan came out as NWO Hogan does. Instead of looking the least bit scared or intimidated he strummed his air guitar. Then we got the Sting entrance. Did Sting come down from the ceiling? Or appear from a cloud of smoke, or ride in on a black skeleton horse? (Ok, I suddenly want this). Nope Sting walked to the ring with a neutral look on his face. But that’s ok Hogan was going to get his comeuppance, right? Right? It’s the big payoffs in front of one of the biggest PPV numbers of all time in wrestling in front of a sold out house. Here we got Sting. Was going to bet beaten down like a doofus and Hogan was going to pin him for a three count. Clean. Now wait. Newly acquired Bret Hart came out in the ultimate lets make Sting and Hart look like idiots so they can never draw a dime again, lets have Hart scream about a fast count and not letting another screwjob happen again. But was it a fast count? Watch the clip it looked normal to every fan. But that didn’t matter. Hart punched out crooked ref Nick Patrick and restarted the match. Sting sprung to life and hit two scorpion death drops on Hogan and locked him in the Scorpion Death lock and pointed at Bret who rang the bell as Hogan verbally submitted.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22pl1e
I could only find the full match on Daily motion
We had a new Heavyweight champion, and as Sting was carried around on the shoulders of his friends to celebrate the end of Hogan, the fans crapped all over it.
And it wasn’t the fault of Sting or Bret or even Eric who had waited so patiently for this glorious payoff. Hogan had once again played his politics. In later interviews Eric went into the day of the match without a match. After meticulously planning things for an entire year Hogan, and Sting and Bishoff never came to an agreement.
Sting literally said there were a lot of politics at play and a lot of confusion and last minute changes. But in the end Hogan squashed anything that would put Sting over him in a conclusive manner. It was an attack on his spot. Hogan just didn’t feel it.
So instead we got a mess that made Hogan look strong, Sting being the good solider eventually did what he was told and the only question was who told Patrick to do a normal instead of fast count. I think we know.
Instead we got a panicked hotshot booking piece where somehow Bret Hart became a licensed official, and literally did to Hogan what McMahon did to him. Yes because Hogan was nervous about Bret coming in with heat, he literally made it look like Bret screwed Hogan.
It was a tragic end to an awesome, unbelievable story. Even their attempt to fix it was typical of later years WCW. The next night they set up a Nitro angle between Hogan and Sting where they had to fight for the title. But the fight went long and it went off the air with the two men still fighting. Then the end was shown on Thunder with two different referees giving two different decisions so in the end no one had the belt. What should have been that time when the NWO got what it had coming. That in the end Sting would top a masterpiece of a year long storyline with ultimate triumph never happened and Sting ended up looking like an idiot.
To me this was the beginning of the end. This PPV had generated $550,000 In live gate and a 1.9 PPV buyrate.
Within 4 years WCW would be dead, but it started here as fans felt disrespected and we started to see that slide in buy rates and in ratings. Sure we got the finger poke of doom, and Kevin Nash’s experimental Nitro booking. But at that point we expected bad booking and stupidity from WCW. But nobody expected this feud to end like this.
When you look at the effects of the major players in this. Sting was still popular but never the same. He eventually joined the NWO Wolfpac but he became just another guy. Bret never gained traction, but after the events with Owen he didn’t have the same fire. But he was booked into oblivion due to Hogan’s desire to protect his spot, and Nash’s dislike of Bret. Instead of having a huge rivalry with Hogan that would have made money for WCW Hogan and Hart. Hogan basically threw that money into a hobo barrel and burned it. Eric never had another moment of inspiration. The NWO and this feud were the height of his creativity, where everything worked. But it was the last of his big ideas. He was fired, bought back, went to TNA to watch Hogan drive that promotion into the dust and spent time as a character in WWE.
And WCW died. Alfred Hitchcock once stated that he liked playing his audience like a piano. Eric and Hogan and Sting did this for a year. Then they dropped the piano on the audience killing it.
Coming soon number 8