83 Weeks - Sting's 1997 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Sting's 1997

Coming into 1997, Sting had quickly become quite possibly the most popular man in the business. A few months earlier, we saw what we thought was Sting attack Lex Luger outside of an arena, and get into a limo with the nWo and join the group.

However, a few days later at the Fall Brawl pay per view, the real Sting confronted Lex, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson, the men he was supposed to team up with that night in the War Games match against the nWo and told them that it wasn't him who attacked Lex. Lex told him that he didn't believe him and Sting left the interview area.

Later in the show, during the War Games match, Sting came out and beat up the nWo and left. The next night he came out and cut a promo, with his back to the hard camera. It was a great promo where he expressed his hurt and felt like he was betrayed by his friends and WCW as a whole.

Then over the next several weeks and months, Sting morphed into a darker, Crow-like character and coming into 1997, it could be said that he might've been the hottest that he'd ever been in his career up to that point, and it was about to get much hotter and much bigger for Sting in 1997

Did you guys go week to week with the things that Sting would do during this time? Or did you guys have things laid out, weeks in advance?

How much input did he have on what he was doing?

This was a totally different character and look that he had. He was dressed in all black with white face paint, where his whole face was painted white, with some black and he was growing his hair long. 

He had stopped coloring it blonde in the months leading up to this character change, so his hair was back to it's natural dark color.

How comfortable was he with his new appearance?

We did a show long ago on his 1996, which tells the story of everything that we just ran over here, and leads into what we're about to talk about with his 1997. It's available in our archives.

Meltzer has said that Sting was originally supposed to wrestle at the SuperBrawl ppv in February, but it was decided to hold his in-ring return off until Starrcade when he'd wrestle Hulk Hogan. Is that true? When did you decide that he wasn't going to wrestle all year, until Starrcade, which is in December?

Let's take a look at Sting's 1997.

On the January 20th Nitro, Randy Savage starts Nitro by taking over the show. He holds court in the ring and when random officials try to stop him, he beats them up

After about 10 minutes or so, Sting repels (for the first time) from the ceiling. He walks casually to the ring, with his bat.He pokes Savage with the bat, hands it over and turns his back. Savage throws it back and they leave together through the crowd

Where did this idea for Sting to come down from the ceiling come from?

How did he feel about doing it?

The next week on the January 27th Nitro, Hollywood Hogan and yourself were in the ring doing a Hogan promo which was very common in those days. You two poked fun at Randy Savage, Roddy Piper & the Giant for losing to Hogan

A few minutes later, Savage & Sting are standing in the crowd together. You tried to sweet talk Savage while Hogan does the same for both. Sting's appearance only lasted less than a minute here, but it was very impactful and set the stage for what we'd see the rest of the year

This was the first time Sting and Hogan were in the arena and on television at the same time since Sting changed all the way back in September 

On the February 3rd Nitro, Hall and Nash were beating up DDP and Sting and Savage appear and the Outsiders leave

On the February 10th Nitro, Sting and Savage come to the ring while DDP is in tehre and they set him down on a chair and do the bat test with him. DDP doesn't hit them from behind with the bat, and Sting and Savage leave the ring

On the February 17th Nitro, Hogan is in the ring doing anohter promo and Sting starts to walk to the ring, but Savage stops in and they go to the back

The next week at SuperBrawl 7, Sting and Savage start to walk to the ring during the Hogan vs Piper match, this time, Sting stops Savage and Sting walks away, thinking Savage is with him, but Savage goes to the ring and helps Hogan and joins the nWo

The next night on Nitro, the nWo is in the ring doing a promo, Sting appears from the back, enters the ring between the nWo and WCW rosters. *This is the first time Sting and Hogan are in the ring together since Fall Brawl 1996.

Face to face with Hulk and Hulk hugs him. Sting remains expressionless but appears to now be with the nWo as the show concludes.

On the March 3rd Nitro, Sting comes to the ring with the nWo as they do a promo. Sting just stands there, and doesn't do or say anything

Later in the show, In the main event, Luger & the Giant are scheduled to battle the Steiner Brothers but it turns into a big fight thanks to nWo interference as they fill ringside as WCW guys are in the ring. Sting has his bat on the outside with the crowd chanting “we want Sting” With the show heading off the air, Sting stays standing outside of the ring

The March 10th Nitro was a sping break Nitro. Sting once again came to the ring with the nWo for a promo. He again just stood tehre and didn't say or do anything

That takes us to the Uncensored pay per view, on March 16th. 

The main event was Team nWo (Hogan, Savage and the Outsiders w/ Rodman) vs. WCW (Luger, Giant, Scott Steiner) vs. Team Piper (Piper, Benoit, Mongo, Jarrett) 

Hogan pinned Luger to win the match. 

The nWo celebrates over Lugers body and they head out of the ring to leave. Out of nowhere, Sting rappels into the ring with his bat. 

Scott Hall enters the ring and gets nailed. Kevin Nash follows suit then Randy Savage. Sting gives Savage the scorpion death drop while Hogan and Dennis Rodman stand watching in the aisle. Sting points the bat at Hogan. Hogan actually gets into the ring

We then see Sting and Hogan in the ring. Hogan goes after him and Sting nails him with punches. Scorpion Death Drop to Hogan and the show is over

The crowd was going nuts during this

For the first time since September when all of this started, Sting made his intentions known that he was for sure with WCW and going after Hogan and the nWo

The next night on Nitro, The main event (Steiner Bros. vs. Harlem Heat) is ruined by nWo interference, but WCW guys fight them.

Sting rappels into the ring and points the bat at Hogan (in the aisle) again. Hogan is not too happy about this and looks scared.

On the April 7th Nitro, the night after the Spring Stampede pay per view, Sting saves DDP from an nWo beat down by rappelling into the ring with his bat. 

On the April 14th Nitro, Luger and Nash were wrestling but the match ended quickly because of the typical outside interference. 

The nWo beat on DDP, Luger and the Giant. Sting comes to the ring and gives bats to Lex, Giant & DDP. The nWo quickly bail as the show goes off the air

We wouldn't see Sting again until the May 12th Nitro. On that show, you claim that you're going to interview Sting. However, you end up interviewing the fake Sting. However, during this, the real Sting comes down. He quickly beats up the fake Sting and you run out of the ring and through the crowd, as the show goes off the air

On the May 19th Nitro, you say that Sting will never wrestle Hogan. Then, Sting comes from under the ring and scorpion death drops you. What was it like to take that move?

This was the only time that Sting had his neck also painted white

On the May 26th Nitro, Hogan and you call out Sting, the Fake Sting comes up from under the ring and the real Sting rappels from the ceiling and drops you with another scorpion deathdrop

The fake Sting is begging and Hogan trips over the fake one who is revealed as Buff Bagwell.

Hogan escapes and the nWo regroups and comes after Sting, but he reattaches the cord and zips up to the ceiling

On the June 9th Nitro, We see a big brawl where Hogan attacks DDP and knocks him out with the WCW Championship. In the middle of the fight, Sting rappels, takes DDP’s body and ascends to the ceiling with DDP attached to him

On the June 23rd Nitro, A DDP vs. Scott Hall main event ends in minutes due to interference from Randy Savage. The nWo beats up DDP for about the 300th time so far in 1997 until Sting comes out of the crowd and scares them away. 

On the June 30th Nitro, The nWo is beating down DDP in his weekly beat down with Fake Sting hanging out in the crowd for whatever reason.

Real Sting rappels from the ceiling and Hogan runs away

On the July 14th Nitro, Luger was in the ring doing an interview with Gene and the nWo came out and surrounded him. A guy came to the ring dressed as Sting with a long, black wig on and a fake Sting mask. He walks through the nWo, gets in the ring, takes off the wig and mask, and it's Sting and the show goes off the air

On the August 4th Nitro, JJ Dillion offered Sting a contract to wrestle Curt Hennig. Sting tore it up and walked out of the ring and to the back. Later in the show, Luger beat Hogan to win the World Title.

Lex would lose it back to Hulk a few days later at the Road Wild pay per view

That night, Nitro got it's biggest rating ever up to that point, with a 4.4

On the August 11th Nitro, which coincidentally is Hulk Hogan's birthday. JJ again is in the ring with Gene Okerlund. JJ says he has a new contract for Sting. He repels down from the ceiling. JJ tells Sting the contract is for a match with Syxx. Sting once again tears it up. 

Gene asks Sting who he wants and the crowd starts chanting Hogan, and Sting leaves

On the August 18th Nitro, JJ is again in the ring with Gene. Sting once again comes down from the ceiling. JJ says he wants Sting to tell him who he wants. Sting grabs JJ by the tie and points to the crowd, and Gene says he's pointing at a sign that says Hogan. Sting then leaves the ring and gets a sign that says Sting vs Hogan and comes back in the ring and holds the sign

On the August 25th Nitro, finally, Dillon understands and says Sting will wrestle Hogan. You're in the ring doing an interview with Gene Okerlund and you're saying it will never happen.

Sting walks to the ring from the back. As he gets in the ring, you're saying it'll never happen and you tell Gene to tell him that. Sting's standing behind you and Gene says he'll tell him when he sees him. 

Sting puts his hand on your shoulder and you drop to your knees. Gene leaves the ring and calls you a chicken. Larry Zbyszko says on commentary, what's he doing, proposing? 

Sting pulls out a Hollywood Hogan shirt & stuffs it down your throat. Sting never saying a word, but he does smile. First time we saw him do that all year on TV

Raw was pre-empted that week, and that Nitro got it's biggest rating ever with a 5.0

We wouldn't see Sting again until the September 29th Nitro. The nWo was beating up WCW guys and Sting walks to the ring and beats up the nWo and never gets hit

On the October 13th Nitro, we saw the infamous Sting army. A bunch of fake Stings make their way to the ring one-by-one only to get knocked down/out by nWo members. This goes on for a bit until finally, the real Sting is revealed, and he beats up everyone

On the October 20th Nitro, DDP and Piper were dressed as Sting, and attack Savage and Hogan. Then the legit Sting rappels down and beats up the nWo to close the show. 

On the October 27th Nitro, A match between Hogan and DDP ends prematurely and there’s a big brawl with DDP getting beat up, for old time’s sake. Sting comes out of the crowd and cleans house again 

On the November 3rd Nitro, we see the contract signing between Sting and Hogan for Starrcade.

This was only shown for a few minutes. Why didn't you guys make a bigger production out of this?

On the November 10th Nitro, this is the Nitro the night after the Montreal Screwjob in the WWF where we saw Bret Hart get screwed out of the WWF Title in his match against Shawn Michaels, signifying the end of his 14 year WWF career and he'd be heading to WCW shortly after that.

You and Hulk were in the ring and challenged Sting to come down. He repelled from the ceiling and walked to the ring. When he got in the ring, he took his gloves off as he got in Hulk's face. 

The nWo ran to the ring and Sting turned his back to Hulk to face them, and Hulk hit him from behind and the nWo beat up Sting. Hulk hit Sting with several leg drops. This was the first time all year that we saw Sting not only take a punch, but get beat up.

All year, Sting had been coming down and saving WCW guys, but not one came down to help him here. He saved DDP about 843 times in 1997, but DDP didn't come down, Lex didn't come down, Giant, no one. Why? Wouldn't in storyline, this make Sting angry at WCW that no one came to help him, during his first time of need all year?

On the December 8th Nitro, we hadn't seen Sting since the beat down he took 3 weeks earlier. However, weird things were happening. Such as the lights going out and when they come back on, Savage is out cold in the ring with a sting mask on his face.

During this Nitro, we see the Sting dummy come down from the rafters and go through the ring. The nWo guys pick it up and put it on the ropes But, when Hogan goes to take the mask off, it’s the real Sting. Sting then beats up the nWo

You would think that when they're picking him up and walking him to the ropes, they'd realize that it's a real human being and not a dummy?

On the December 15th Nitro, Sting plays more mind games, going around the arena when the lights go out. Show goes off the air as Sting walks to the ring for Hogan 

On the December 22nd Nitro, which was the go home Nitro for Starrcade, Hogan and you are in the ring doing a promo, and a guy comes in the ring and hands Hulk a present. Hulk opens it, and it’s a fake head of him. Hulk then starts yelling and screaming. Sting then appears at the top of the entrance, and ziplines to the ring, as the show goes off of the air

A fake head..who booked this

That takes us to Starrcade 1997 and quite possibly the most anticipated match in WCW history, Sting vs Hulk Hogan for the World Title.

We had one of the most talked about debates on our show about this match on our Starrcade 1997 show. Any memories of that?

You guys did a masterful job of building up to this match all year long. It might've been the best booking that WCW ever did. In hindsight, would you do anything differently in the buildup to that match, or as we've gone through Sting's 1997 here, do you think you did everything as perfectly as you could've?

Talk about the meeting that you and Hulk had with Sting during the day of Starrcade 1997

During 1997, Sting became the #2 merchandise seller in the business without even wrestling 1 match, that's how effective this angle was. In case you were wondering, the #1 merchandise seller of 1997 was a guy you fired 2 years earlier, Steve Austin.

That takes us to Starrcade

Meltzer wrote - It would turn a great phrase to say that 16 months of work was exposed about halfway through Sting's walk down the aisle and before he ever got in the ring. The mythical super hero turned human right before the fans' very eyes. It wasn't as if it was a bad wrestling match that did it, although the match itself was bad. But you could see the big initial pop after all the hype and special effects didn't even last until Sting made it to the ring. 

The match itself was a struggle. The finish was totally botched up. Sting did leave as champion. But after WCW's most successful quarter in history, the record-breaking show raised more questions about the future than answers the record revenue will provide. 

In hindsight, do you think Sting should've come from the ceiling for this match? It probably would've gotten the crowd fired up for the match even more than they already were

Before we get into the Sting/Hogan match. You had your first ever wrestling match on this night in a losing effort to Larry Zbyszko

Anything you'd like to talk about regarding that match?

Sting won the WCW title for the fourth time beating Hulk Hogan in 12:54. Sting, in a sleeveless outfit, looked really small compared to the past. Hogan looked lighter than usual as well. Not much of a match. Sting threw a few dropkicks but mainly Hogan dominated. Hogan's selling was pathetic. Sting did a no sell spot on a suplex and then pointed to his crotch ala DX or NWO. So much for product differentiation. Hogan then used Sting's bat on him. 

Sting reversed a whip and Hogan took the weakest guard rail bump in recorded wrestling history. Sting then took a better guard rail bump crashing onto it when Hogan moved and he tried a Stinger splash. Hogan crotched Sting on the rail and gave him a reverse atomic drop. The Hogan version was a hell of a lot better than the version Luger did earlier in the show with Bagwell that had about a foot of light. Then came the foot to the face and legdrop, without the fast count, for the three. Hart came out and stopped the ref from ringing the bell and threw Hogan back in the ring and took over as ref. Bagwell and Norton tried run-ins while about 50 WCW wrestlers at ringside just watched. Sting knocked them both out of the ring and glanced at Hart, then put Hogan in the scorpion and Hart signalled that Hogan had submitted. All the WCW wrestlers that were at ringside the entire show then hit the ring for a great post-match celebration. 1/4* 

Talk about the fast count that really wasn't a fast count. 

There's been rumors that you guys tried to sign Earl Hebner away from the WWF to be in this match. Is that true?

Why was Sting's first words into the camera in spanish? Did you know he was going to do that?

Should we get into the tan debate again?

Do you think that the match lived up to the hype?

About that, Sting said in an interview once - Very, very hard thing to live up to. You know they pushed it, and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it. Yeah, it was very, very difficult. I was out of the ring for 12 months, and Hogan’s knees were really bad at the time. So yeah, it was a little difficult and probably didn’t live up to the hype. 

We saw a rematch between the two the next night on Nitro.

Was that always the plan, or did you guys decide to do that during the day of Nitro?

They had the match and we never saw the ending of it. The show went off the air while the match was still going on. That's an old wrestling trick from the 80s, to get the fans to tune in next week.

We end up seeing the footage of the rest of the match on the first episode of Thunder on January 8th, 1998. We see ref Randy Anderson get knocked down, and Sting puts Hulk in the scorpion deathlock and Hulk submits, but no ref is there to call it. Nick Patrick comes down and Sting grabs him and Hulk hits Sting from behind and rolls him up and Patrick counts 3

Without going too much into what happens at the start of 1998, because I'm sure we'll do a show about that, the World Title is stripped from Sting because of the ending of the match on Nitro. 

They end up having a match at the SuperBrawl pay per view in February for the held up title and Sting wins that match to win the World Title

This was really a big mess. Would you do all of this differently? Or just let Sting have his title run after Starrcade

Would you say 1997 was the biggest year in Sting's career, and he only wrestled 2 matches?