Who is Sting? Why did Sting come to WWE? What will come out of this?

Coming off the heels of the 2014 Survivor Series, and a perplexing Monday Night Raw. There's alot of questions going around the wrestling universe. Why did Sting debut at Survivor Series? Why did Sting didn't show up on Raw? Why didn't Sting become the new General Manager? Are we going to see a match between Sting and Triple H at WrestleMania 31? While all these questions are valid and leads to good discussion topics that we will get to eventually,  lets step back in the history books and take a look at the Franchise of WCW and TNA, The "Icon" Sting. Also, I will discuss what will come out of this deal between Sting and the WWE.

Sting was a very athletic and body bulding type of guy from Venice Beach, California that really didn't get the opportunity to watch professional wrestling growing up. Sting was working at a gym where he met, the late great Ultimate Warrior. Sting got his start in professional wrestling as one half of Power USA and The Blade Runners with Warrior in the Continental Wrestling Association and Mid-South. Warrior and Sting partnership ended in mid 1986 when Warrior decide to go to the WWF. Sting stood in Mid-South for the remainder of 1987 and won three UWF World Tag Team Championships, one with Rick Steiner and two with Eddie Gilbert.

At the age of 28, Sting arrived in the NWA and was becoming one of the fastest rising stars in the professional wrestling world. Sting's start in the NWA wasn't a easy one at first, Sting was put into feuds with establish talents like Ric Flair and The Four Horseman, Barry Windham, Mike Rotuna The Road Warriors and even the Great Muta. At that time, Sting only had captured the NWA Television Championship and then in late 1989, Sting won a four man iron-man tournament to determine the number one contender to the NWA Championship. Sting recently join the face verison of "The Four Horseman" in 1989, but tensions starting to grow with the legendary stable when Sting won the tournament. In 1990, Sting was booted out of the Four Horseman and then at Clash of Champions X, Sting injured his knee during his Steel Cage Match with Ric Flair. The injury put the promotion and the bookers in the rough situation as Sting wasn't going to be avaliable to perform on all the events.

Sting finally captured the NWA World Championship at the Great American Bash 1990. I thought that moment made Sting the official franchise of NWA/WCW. Sting would continue to feud with The Forseman towards the end of the NWA. The NWA transition into WCW then in 1991, Sting lost his title to Ric Flair in a rematch at Starrcade. 1991 was a big year for Sting, he had a legendary tag team match with Lex Luger taking on the Steiner Brothers, then Sting won a vacated WCW United States Championship Tournament over a young "Stunning" Steve Austin. Also Sting won the very first WCW Battlebowl then leading towards a feud with the Dangerous Alliance. Sting won his first WCW Championship from Lex Luger at Super Brawl II. Then in May of 1992 at WarGames, Sting and his Squadron defeated The Dangerous Alliance which was also the highest rated match from Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer. Then to finish out the first part of his epic WCW run, Sting had some unique feuds with Vader, Jake Roberts, Cactus Jack, Rick Rude and The Dungeon of Doom.

Right as the Monday Night Wars started in 1996, Sting was already at legendary status especially with all the accomplishments Sting obtian while still not having one run with the WWE is really telling of how important Sting has been to the professional wrestling. We all know the story of the nWo and that there was talks that Sting was going to be the third guy joining Scott Hall and Kevin Nash "The Outsiders." While the nWo was taking over WCW, alot of the fans, wrestlers and commentators ponder what side will Sting be on. Sting's character needed to change as the twlight of his career was coming. Sting came back as the "Crow" Sting and didn't speak on the microphone for over a year. The Crow Sting was one of the most unique characters in the history of professional wrestling in my personal opinion. I thought this Sting was way cooler than the original Sting. This lead to Sting taking on the nWo at Starrcade where he defeated Hulk Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. In 1998, Sting was defending his title against the likes of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page. Sting would join the nWo Wolfpac with Kevin Nash and Konnan. Towards the end of WCW Sting has feuds with Vampiro, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner. The final night of WCW, March 26, 2001, Sting took on Ric Flair in the final match of WCW's history. Sting still sticking to his guns decided to not go to WWE in after the buyout, where he's said numerous interviews that he felt that the company wouldn't present him in the way he wanted to be presented. Which I think kind of hurt Sting in the long run because you never know with the WWE unless you take that leap of faith and give it a try. I thought with the Crow Sting especially in a WWE environment Sting would still be tremendous that move could have reseruceted his career.

Sting would go TNA in 2003, where he became the franchise of that company as well. Sting became the NWA Champion once again and also won the TNA World Heavyweight Championships in 4 in different occassions. Sting had of bevy of feuds in TNA featuring, Jeff Jarrett, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Christian, Mick Foley, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Bully Ray, Kurt Angle, Ace's and 8's, Dixie Carter and Ethan Carter III. Sting was part of a heel faction in the "Main Event Mafia". You can say that Sting's run in TNA was similar to his run in WCW. I thought something that worked pretty well for Sting in TNA is that as opposed to his original Crow character, when Sting was feuding with Immortal he brought on the Batman Joker persona into TNA. Sting became the very first member of the TNA Hall of Fame in 2012. Sting would leave TNA in early 2014 when he lost to Magnus in a Career vs. Title match at Genesis.

There was many rumors of Sting heading towards the WWE after he left TNA. Would he go there to finally have his dream match with The Undertaker? Would he have a actual run in WWE? Would Sting become a general manager of Raw and SmackDown? Sting eventually decided to join WWE where he made an appearance on the Warrior docuementary on the WWE Network, he was the main attraction of this year's WWE 2K15 Video Game, the WWE also release a best of Sting collection on DVD in September. Sting also has made public appearances for the company at the San Diego Comic Con and also the WWE 2K Panel during SummerSlam weekend. Sting finally made his first WWE TV appearance at Survivor Series where he took out Scott Armstrong and Triple H and helped Team Cena defeat Team Authority for power in the WWE.

Now to discuss the topics I brought up at the beginning of this piece. I think it's great that Sting is in WWE, I think it's 14 years too late in my opinion, but I'm honor and happy as a fan of Sting to see him get the moment he deserves. I'm not sure why Sting wasn't on Raw last night, not that's it's a bad thing I think that adds intruige and mystique which always a common thing when it comes to Sting. I don't think that he will become a general manager of Raw or SmackDown there isn't really a need for that to be honest with you. I understand he's 55 years old and maybe he may not be able to put on the performances in the ring like he did in the early 1990's, but I seen Sting have a match with Austin Aries in TNA when they were here in Chicago in 2013 and it was awesome. I think Sting can still go and especially with Sting's future, The Only Thing That's For Sure About Sting in the WWE is that Nothing Is For Sure. The best is yet to come in my opinion, I think it would be cool to see Sting go against Triple H at WrestleMania or even seeing Sting take on Bray Wyatt. It's still up in the air as to whether he will take on The Undertaker, but instead trying to figure out and ruining the moment when this match is officially made I leave it at this. Sting is a Icon, Sting is one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all-time. He's The Undertaker of WCW, He's back in WWE, whether you like him or not, Sting deserves a WrestleMania Moment and it will happen soon let's try to enjoy the journey of Sting in WWE and not let the rumors and the dirtsheets dictate the way we think about Sting let it play out and I think you'll enjoy this run.

Follow Me on Twitter @JoshLopezCSR

Check out my wrestling radio show the "Pro Wrestling Experience" from 10am-1pm CT Wednesdays on Chicagolandsportsradio.com. We'll talk about Survivor Series, Sting, TNA's new contract, Lucha Underground. Two big Ring of Honor Interviews with Adam Cole and Roderick Strong.

ROH vs TNA Could Be "Best For Business"

Most people point to the time period of the Monday Night Wars as the most exciting time in wrestling. You had a viable challenger to the standard WWF/F in WCW. Ted Turner had money to burn on WCW and he did just that. He purchased pretty much every star that Vince McMahon created and still it ended up in failure. As much as we like to roll our eyes at the WWE at times it has been and will be the standard for wrestling likely for our lifetime. Anyone that can honestly think WWE will have a serious competitor at this stage is fooling themselves. Their competition is now more with the UFC and entertainment in general these days.

What the WWF/E was able to do better than WCW was create stars something they still can do today. Do they have more misses than hits? Probably, but that is par for the course with all business’ trying to cater to an ever changing society. Think of how your own life has changed in the last ten years. In this age of technology we are all growing at different rates. So if you think the WWE Network will not eventually be a success you are most likely wrong. Vince McMahon sometimes gets painted as a crazy old man these days and that might be true in some senses. It is not like you or I get to hangout with Vince and he has become far less visible in the last few years. Make no mistake though he has spent by some reports 110 million dollars on the network. It is going to succeed it just might take time for people to get into 2014 technology wise.

WWE thrived with competition and they used the clear advantage they had by being allowed to create a much more edgy program that their competition WCW was not able to do under the Turner corporate banner and even more so once the Time Warner merger happened. In fact despite the huge ratings that WCW did draw it was the red headed stepchild for Time Warner. Maybe like TNA is for Spike-TV? Not exactly as Spike is not exactly knocking it out of the park even with the MMA promotion they own Bellator.

Actually all of the build up was to get to the real point I am getting at which is the race for being the alternative to the WWE. It is not as sexy as Ted Turner offering top talents huge money to jump to WCW and Eric Bishoff bragging about kicking Vince’s butt. However a new wrestling war is starting and it should be good assuming TNA is able to stay in business and stay on Spike-TV.

Ring of Honor as we have been focusing on here in Condo on the Moon is heading to live pay-per-view thanks in part to the void left by the WWE turning their attention to promoting their events on the WWE Network. TNA actually had a decent show for their latest pay-per-view offering despite interest level heading into being at an all-time low.

Ring of Honor in contrast has been riding a huge high in 2014 as you have heard from guests on our podcast like Matt Taven and ROH Champion Adam Cole. They made a successful return to I-PPV with their shows featuring their new partnership with New Japan Pro Wrestling with Global Wars and War of the Worlds. They have replaced TNA for an annual summer event at a minor league baseball stadium in New York City. This has been a strong market for ROH.

The two companies are heading into each others backyards quite literally. The ROH PPV is taking place literally in the birthplace of TNA at the Nashville fairgrounds. It is also the city that TNA has its headquarters. While TNA is heading to New York City and going into the same venue that ROH hold’s it’s version of Wrestlemania that is “Final Battle” held in December. They are in the same building but in a smaller part of it. TNA will be in the place where the WWE first taped Monday Night Raw.

Adding to the intrigue of all this is a former WWE star Matt Hardy who has worked with ROH over the past few years and is scheduled to appear on PPV this Sunday. However, it was announced on Twitter that he in fact will be in competition at the TNA tapings in New York City. He will re-unite with his brother Jeff who of late has been playing his alter ego of Willow in TNA.

This comes after TNA had approached ROH talent’s that under contract to them. Some of the names that have been out there include Jay Lethal who spent time in TNA and ReDragon the current ROH Tag-Team Champions. Hardy was apparently not under contract. This is not the first time TNA has done this to ROH as they stole Kenny King when he was one half of the ROH Tag Team Champions. King is still in TNA and also is or was, a Chippendale’s dancer when he is not in the ring. Does he make more in tips from that than in TNA only he knows for sure?

This is what we have been missing in wrestling is a good old fashion war between rival promotions. It might not be as sexy or involve the big dollars that were being thrown around in the Monday Night Wars but it is a fight. We have picked a side in this fight and obviously it is ROH.

The reasons why are pretty simple it comes down to the product. While TNA seems determined to be WWE light that is so far from what ROH is trying to be it isn’t funny. In addition to this fact, who is the company that is producing the talent that goes on to WWE that would be Ring of Honor. If anyone wants to make the argument that TNA can produce anyone that is going to be in the WWE that hasn’t been their already they are crazy. A.J Styles was the biggest star TNA produced themselves, well not exactly he did start in ROH but people associate him with TNA. He has stated himself that no offer came his way from WWE. He instead has come back home to ROH and is working for New Japan Pro Wrestling and is the first North American since Brock Lesnar to hold the IWGP Championship.

Similar Bad Influence who will be taking on the aforementioned ReDragon on the PPV Sunday. Daniels is returning to his home of Ring of Honor along with Frankie Kazarian who made up the “Bad Influence” in TNA. They did not get an offer from WWE either we can safely assume. The talent that ROH has put in the WWE is a long and growing list. The latest is rumored to Kevin Steen who may be fighting his last match for Ring of Honor on this Sunday at the pay-per-view.

If you like competition and miss the fun of the Monday Night Wars this may be as close as we get to seeing it. So enjoy the competition and hopefully it makes both companies worked harder and creates an even better product for the fans of wrestling. That was what made the WWE it’s best being pushed to produce by a rival. This is not exactly an even fight, but close enough to be interesting in terms of the resources and money these competitors are willing to spend. So let the games begin.

It also is good for wrestlers as competition can lead to better deals and at least having options which is problem for people in WWE. The amount of money is certainly not to the same level anywhere else is not going to happen in the modern wrestling landscape.

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