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Sting

Hi Scott,

I thought bringing back Sting in the manner that they did at Survivor Series was well done.  It got people talking, and ratings for RAW went up (slightly) than what they normally do the following night.

But I think next week's ratings will go back down again because Sting didn't appear on RAW.  Creatively, to me, it makes absolutely no sense that he wouldn't show up the next night to explain his actions, and to start a program or something.

Now I understand you don't want to burn out the aura of him coming back by having him appear on TV week after week for the sake of just one match at Wrestlemania that's months away, but I don't see the harm in planting the seeds now and getting a bit more of a payoff from his Survivor Series appearance..  He can cut whatever promo and end it with "I'll come back when it's time" and there'll be a buzz about when that time will actually happen.

I guess I'm just ranting a bit, but do you like the way they're handling the return of Sting?  

- Ben

​Considering they're literally just making shit up as they go along with it, there's not really much to like or dislike one way or the other.  I'll reserve judgement until they actually go somewhere with it.  ​

Comments

  1. I didn't care for the debut at all. Why would Sting show up like that? He has no history with any of the people involved, nor with the company.


    Now that he's here, I want to see where it goes. Let's see what you've got Sting.

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  2. I was thinking this Monday's Raw would get a ratings bump from people wanting to see how often the CM Punk chants start and what the reaction will be.

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  3. I wonder if the rating will go down from people being generally disgusted from hearing so much about 'E behind the scenes. It has really turned me off to the product overall.

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  4. We've been waiting for Sting to show up since 2001. They involve him in blowing off a major storyline that he had no previous involvement in and he probably can't even wrestle a part time schedule to follow it up. Because WWE.

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  5. Thank you. At least if it was Orton, there would be some logic...

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  6. This angle only started a week ago. It's a bit early to judge how it's been handled.

    Do I have to be the one to say it? Let's let it play out and see where it goes. They're telling stories!

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  7. While we've been discussing it non stop for three days, the general WWE audience probably doesn't even know about it. But they'll join in with the CM Punk chants just to do it.

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  8. With 5 hours of standard tv and 150 plus hours of network time, the story hasn't really advanced at all concerning Sting. That's not the most evocative way to tell a compelling story.

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  9. You may have a point. After all their chants helped buy his house.

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  10. Are ppl really looking for another randy Orton push? Have the past twelve years not been enough?

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  11. While I agree there probably should have been follow-up, it's still early.

    What do you expect from a company whose world champion hasn't been seen nor mentioned in any meaningful way since September 21?

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  12. This personifies why I have little-no-faith in 'E's ability to develop a story.

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  13. Not saying it's warranted but rather would be logical instead of someone with no history with 'E or the Authority.

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  14. I hear ya but it's still a problem on their part. They've created such a dull, repetitive product that stories around maybe 5 guys make sense and everything else seems out of place. And Orton is really really boring.

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  15. There's a chance your overestimating the influence of colt cabana's podcast.

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  16. I think it's had a ripple effect well beyond Colt's podcast. It'll be interesting to hear the reaction when Vince or Ryback get on stage or in the ring. HHH probably won't make an appearance anyway since he's supposed to be "fired," but that would've been interesting as well.

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  17. Um no. 90% of the audience at least have no idea what you're talking about.

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  18. He spent a year in the rafters and looking ominous. A week is no big deal.

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  19. HHH and Stephanie didn't seem to concerned with how Sting got in the building. Sting walks up to the backdoor and knocks. Someone lets him in and he proceeds to walk right through the backstage area and straight to the ring. Hell, someone even created music and a titantron for him. I'm thinking some kind of conspiracy.

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  20. Let's not pretend like they've got an explanation as to why Sting turned up at Survivor Series. It's entirely possible they don't mention it again.

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  21. We'll see. You just might be right. I forget that not every fan follows wrestling sites and wrestling news.

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  22. This was a year when WCW had only Nitro (and only two hours at that). And Sting still managed to appear pretty consistently in the end segment. 'E has three more hours of televised programming this week with no sighting, let alone ominous shots of the rafters. Even more disconcerting since he was pivotal to the ending of the "biggest Survivor Series of all time."

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  23. True, but I wouldn't expect him to do smackdown in any case.

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  24. Could Sting be a Paul Heyman guy?!? 1992 was a long time ago, after all.

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  25. I really wish they'd have kept his old music.

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  26. I agree, but it's not like they couldn't film some b&w video in a crow filled forest (?) with Sting making veiled threats against those who attempt to run wrestling companies into the ground and air that sometime.

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  27. They had him show up to just get more people to buy the network right?

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  28. Well, to be fair he's 0 for 2 on that front.

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  29. There was an interview Sting did a few months ago and he didn't even remember the Dangerous Alliance.

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  30. Heh, given that he really shouldn't be welcome in 'E.

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  31. TV Tropes Threadjack:

    "WCW always seemed to have a swarm of jobbers named Rick. Between 1991 and 1996 they had 24 men, not counting the big names, known as Ricknote and they had a combined record of 1-125 note The one win belongs to Thames. He beat WCW World Heavyweight Champion Vader by DQ in February 93."

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  32. A better question would be why does anyone even care? He's a thousand years old. He cant wrestle anymore. He could barely wrestle 10 years ago. Enough with the fucking old guys already. I dont want to watch anyone that was in a ring in 1986. Or even 1996. Maybe next year we can get a Midnight Express V RnR Express match. We've never seen that in a WWE ring. Or maybe even Flair v Steamboat. Andres corpse v Warriors corpse in the first ever HOF corpse match loser leaves the Hall. Waste time with guys that are closer to death then their prime then wonder why they cant get some of these younger guys to the top of the card.

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  33. Warrior's corpse probably still has enough residual roids to get him moving for a minute or two.

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  34. You might be underestimating the influence of an always-growing IWC. The podcast was covered by a bunch of media outlets who don't even necessarily cover wrestling

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  35. If I were an investor, I'd have some serious questions at the next conference call due to this podcast.

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  36. I figured Trips and Steph could do it marionette style for control of Raw.

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  37. To be fair, lots of fans may not know about the podcast, but many who go to the show would be interested to know its out there... and may at a later date seek it out. So while they might not initially chant "Steroid Guy" at Ryback, they'd wonder why a segment of the audience was... and slowly pick up why.

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  38. Extant1979 - Mr. Cable AccessNovember 30, 2014 at 8:32 AM

    It's too bad the next quarterly investors call is still a couple months away.

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  39. So you don't think the industry pays more attention to Internet reaction/coverage than it did, say, 10 years ago?

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  40. So, we'll let it play out and see where it goes?


    Sorry, but it was right there.

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  41. If it makes sense, then For god sakes, yes. A Randy Orton...it wouldn't even have to be a push exactly. He doesn't need to be in the title picture. Just tell a few creative stories with whoever is involved.

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  42. I don't care, but if they are going to do this Sting thing, they are best off making him a special attraction.

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  43. It does, he's just being difficult. As you said, it was covered by a bunch of major media outlets. Sporting News, Washington Post, Philly Inquirer, Miami Herald, Deadspin and Yahoo all had something on it, and that's just a casual browse. To think a majority of fans haven't heard or read something about it is to be purposely obtuse.

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  44. People used to bitch about how WWE avoided reusing people's first names (Steven Regal -> William Regal, Shane Helms -> Gregory Helms, etc.)

    This explains why.

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  45. My thoughts exactly.
    I rewatched the jericho v. steamboat/piper/snuka match and the 10-man raw tag a couple days ago. It was just sad seeing piper and snuka wrestling in there. Steamboat at least could still go for a few minutes. However, I wouldn't want to see Steamboat fight for anything for more than 5 minutes. It was a nice pop for the fans who recognized him and he got a nice farewell run out of it and then he left again.

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  46. If we're talking avatars (NO, not you Al Snow), then Vince has to also be in the discussion. I think he'd steal the Andre marionette, and leave one of the others with some semi-jobber to represent them.

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  47. You have to remember that you're in the minority. There are short-term gains to exploiting Sting's status that fans buy into. The guy has sold a shit-ton of merchandise already for WWE and the online reaction among general fans was more "Holy shit!" than "Oh shit..." Fans want to see Sting wrestle -- you might not be one of them, but many do and are willing to pay for it. Sting's presence also promotes the Network.

    It doesn't hurt the young guys much. Ziggler's Survivor Series push and Ryback's recent big push prove that WWE can jerk some guys around the midcard for years and find a way to build them back up very quickly. A guy like Sting - WWE only has a small window of time to exploit his marketability. Use it now. Ziggler can always be pushed again six months from now.

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  48. I disagree with the general audience not knowing about it. It was all over facebook and twitter. People wondered what happened to him and now they know.

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  49. With the network being the boondoggle that it has been, WWE is really tempting fate by bringing in a guy whose most famous stat is riding two (2) promotions with significant financial backing into the ground.


    Where Sting goes, failure is usually close behind. I'm not suggesting that it's his fault directly, but the fates seem to look poorly on companies who associate with him.

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  50. Are you ..."indirectly" blaming Sting for both the fall of the WCW and TNA?

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  51. I'm mostly just being cheeky to annoy the diehards. But it is a fact.

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  52. Not to mention the concept of things in this day going Viral. How big was the audience for korean hip hop before Gangham Style came out? Because I'm going to say it was zero. I'm guessing quite a few people who like different sports at least read about the comments he made.

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  53. Problem with the part-timers like Sting, Rock, and Lesnar is that they only fight with the tippy top guys. Lesnar has only fought HHH (part timer), punk, cena, taker (part timer), and show. What guy has gotten the rub from Lesnar being there? You could say Reigns, but we haven't seen that yet.


    With Rock, he did fight R-truth and Miz, but both guys were quickly knocked down a bunch once he left and both guys still haven't recovered.


    The only part-timers who made anybody in the last few years was Batista/HHH building up the Shield and Bryan and that was because WWE was forced to do that.


    Notice how at WM 14-26 there were few part timers hogging up main events. Imagine if Cena could not have been in the main event of 21 if Ultimate Warrior took his spot. OR if Eddie could not be in the main event at 20 if the Million Dollar Man took his spot. By having very few part-timers, new guys could easily have been built up.

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  54. If you made lists of the 50 people most responsible for the demise of WCW and TNA respectively, Sting wouldn't be on either.

    Hell, I'm a Hogan mark and I think he'd be high on both lists. There has never been any indication that Sting was involved with any backstage tomfoolery that typically sinks wrestling companies.The worst you could say about him as that he was out of shape during
    Starrcade 1997 and the last few years of his TNA run and that hurt the
    product. But that hardly killed either company.

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  55. Hey now, didn't we technically get a Midnights and RnR WWF match? Bombastic Bob and Bodacious Bart!

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  56. I think Scott made the comparison once that it's like the part-timers exist on "Earth 2" and that Earth rarely crosses over to our Earth 1, like when Rock shows up to do a promo with Rusev.

    It's a huge difference from 2002 Hogan, who put over Rock, Angle, Lesnar, Triple H, and tagged with Edge, giving him the rub as well as Lance Storm and Christian when they lost the belts to them. That was a very effective use of Hogan

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  57. They should do a Mania that is New School vs. Old School.

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  58. while you may be being cheeky, Sting was the least of WCW or TNA's problems. First remember Spike TV paid a good portion if not all of Sting's salary (at least for awhile. someone else may know more details). He wasn't booking. He wasn't the one who brought in Russo, Hogan, or Bischoff. he didn't tell Dixie to dominate air time. He didn't tell TNA and the bookers to misuse Samoa Joe.


    In WCW, he wasn't the one killing angle backstage. He wasn't the one out for himself all the time He wasn't on the booking committee running the NWO into the ground, losing opportunities with Goldberg, making nonsensical storylines, wasting Bret Hart, etc. His worst offense is debateable. Some say he wasn't a "draw" And even if you buy that, it's hardly in the top 1000 reasons WCW died.

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  59. Oh man. That would be worth recording if it was right around the corner.

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  60. Under "Mundane Made Awesome":

    "Back in the old Florida territory in the 1980s, they were a minute short of material for the TV show, so King Curtis Iaukea counted down from 60, producing the highest-rated segment of the entire show."



    So for those mocking King Curtis, well go count to 60 and see what TV rating you get. :)

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  61. Well he sure didnt help things.

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  62. it's representative of what a failure the current product is. Older fans are much more interested in their past favorites than the current crop. And half the younger fans are too. It's endemic of not building up a new generation of guys that can compare to Sting, Nash, New Age Outlaws, RVD, etc (notice I'm not even going after Rock or Austin level)

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  63. HowmuchdoesthisguyweighNovember 30, 2014 at 9:31 AM

    That isn't a possibility.

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  64. Oh, they haven't figured out the story at all.

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  65. hmm, maybe he wasn't as drug free as we thought.

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  66. it made for a great moment. If, and this is a big if, WWE wants to be logical, have Sting toss out a promo about living through another authority figure abusing power in Eric Bischoff and the NWO (hell toss in Russo to appease the smart marks). It ain't rocket science.

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  67. How the hell can sting pin Nash? That makes no sense as one of them would have had to been illegal

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  68. neither did Rick Fuller, Roadblock, or the Villanos. Is WCW's demise their fault too?

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  69. Really? WWE has proven it can jerk guys around the mid-card then make them main eventers? Is that why its cup is running over so much with main event talent that they are forced to turn back to Cena so often?

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  70. Even back then he was playing a heel character. I don't doubt that he was stupid but his character was "dumb frat boy here for the face characters to get over on" and his acting wasn't good enough back then to fool anyone into thinking he was genuine in what he was saying 100% of the time. It was obvious that he "got" the concept of playing a character early on. He was running an indy level buffoon heel character during the RW/RR challenges.



    It's a shame he sucks in the ring because he was born to be a wrestler. He's just one of the guys that gets how to draw heat from any situation.

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  71. The Las Vegas season is where it really got bad. That was just all partying, drinking, and good looking people (and Trishelle) fucking each other... and it was the highest rated season so that's what they stuck with.

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  72. And what's funny is that, when you think about it, he has one every single championship currently available. I'm sure if the Big Gold Belt was still active he would've won that too. The dude practically has a Hall Of Fame-type career

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  73. I remember when the internet used to love him. That was before his monstrous huge Wrestlemania main event push. People thought he was underrated, and now everyone thinks he is overrated. I think the truth is somewhere in between. The Miz is pretty good and doesn't deserve his massive internet hatred he has right now. But I would have much preferred CM Punk played the Miz's role at WM 27.

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  74. Loose morals? How do either of those things display a lack of morality?

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  75. Who besides Bryan main-evented Wrestlemania?

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  76. It gets even more complicated at the PPV.

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  77. I wouldn't argue against that.

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  78. He was amazing; I've never seen anyone who can do the lucha style he was able to, from his Japan stuff to ECW to WCW in 1997, before the first knee injury.

    It's a shame to see what he's become due to injury, because the fans today probably only know him as the guy that would wrestle three matches and leave the rest of the year.

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  79. "Meng's like a pig, all chops" Well played sir, well played

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