Gimmick Some (Wrestlemania) Lovin': Sting is Back

In each edition of Gimmick Some Lovin', we take a look at one iteration of a gimmick match available on the WWE Network. Some are iconic for their success, others for the extent to which they flopped, and some just... happened.

We defined a "gimmick match" as, in any way, adding a rule/stipulation to or removing a rule from a match, changing the physical environment of a match, changing the conditions which define a "win", or in any way moving past the simple requirement of two men/women/teams whose contest must end via a single pinfall, submission, count out, or disqualification.

Apologies for the extended break in gimmick love; this author has a day job which is particularly busy and stressful from the beginning of December through February (then possibly again after WrestleMania season), which enforced an unplanned hiatus.

In this article, we take a look at Pro Wrestling Illustrated's 2014 "Comeback of the Year" recipient Sting, in his first match ever in a WWE ring, and first match since January of 2014, when The Vigilante faced WWE Chief Operating Officer Triple H in a No Disqualification Match at Wrestlemania Play Button 31 in 2015.

The Hiatus

Two men who took two very different paths after the WCW buyout (yet still ended up having their talents squandered in TNA)

Technically, this WrestleMania contest wasn't a comeback for The Stinger, as he had never wrestled for WWE in any capacity to begin with, and had been an active competitor for almost the entire 13.5-year span between the demise of World Championship Wrestling and his November 2014 Survivor Series debut.

Most fans, however, felt that comeback was the only appropriate term, as TNA was and had always been its own brand of obscurity, at times making WCW in 2000 appear sensible and restrained (which we know is not the case). This was Sting's first venture into a major wrestling company since the turn of the millennium.

When Vince McMahon purchased the carcass of WCW, which basically amounted to some sets and rings, the rights to a handful of contracts, and the rights to an extensive video library, fans immediately began fantasizing about matchups we never thought we would see between WCW lifers and WWF Superstars.

In execution, like we've discussed, most of those fantasy matchups did not come to be, and the talents who did come over were either lukewarm castoffs (Shawn Stasiak, KroniK, etc.) or a small number of megastars who were not treated according to the stature they had built down south (most notably Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page).

It was a combination of the massive amount of money Time Warner still owed WCW's top performers on their guaranteed deals and promos like the above video which soured Sting on the possibility of inking a deal with McMahon; rumors abound that The Franchise of WCW was willing to become a part of the Invasion storyline until he heard The Rock ask five-time WCW Champion Booker T, "Who in the blue Hell are you?"

Sting feared, and rightly so, considering the stalker storyline immediately thrust upon Page, that his character would not be given a fighting chance, and would be denigrated so far in the eyes of the fans that he would be unable to match his Atlanta success in Stamford.

Deciding that the damage to his long-established persona would not be worth what McMahon might pay, Sting would make sporadic appearances for World Wrestling All-Stars (a company seeking to answer the unasked question of what WCW's oldest and least in-demand competitors might look like in smaller arenas with worse video equipment) before opting to follow fellow former WCW Champion (and fellow future WWE Hall of Famer) Jeff Jarrett to a new National Wrestling Alliance offshoot (and eventually independent promotion) Total Nonstop Action (TNA).

Sting remained in TNA consistently for a decade, clashing with a mixture of old foes (Hogan, Scott Steiner, Booker T), WWE castoffs (Christian Cage, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy), and future WWE fan favorites (AJ Styles, Bobby Roode, Samoa Joe).

TNA is an admitted blind spot for this writer, so we'll just leave this page with the only full bell-to-bell TNA match I've ever seen.

The 2K Path

Continuing a pattern which has been repeated several times, with fan favorites such as The Ultimate Warrior, Bill Goldberg, Kurt Angle, and The Man They Call Sting, fans first got a glimpse of the possibility of a Sting-WWE partnership in the digital arena. Advertisements in late 2014 began hyping that Sting would be available as a pre-order bonus for fans who committed to buying the latest entry in WWE's video game franchise.

Ads like the above featured the familiar music, face paint, dark imagery, and descent from the rafters associated with Sting's post-NWO persona inspired by The Crow. Both World Wrestling Entertainment and Steve Borden were tight-lipped about any further partnership, and it seemed that a pixelated Stinger would be the only version fans might see compete against modern WWE stars.

That all changed with the ending to the 2014 Survivor Series pay-per-view. At the end of an above-average Survivor Series bout (which we've established is one of my favorite speciality matches) pitting Team Cena against Team Authority, Dolph Ziggler had managed to ragdoll his way to being the final member of Team Cena to face off against the last surviving member of Team Authority, Seth Rollins.

The way Ziggler sells, it's difficult to tell if this is four minutes or 40 minutes into the contest.

Triple H used his considerable influence to disrupt Team Cena's chances at victory, taking out the referee and viciously attacking Ziggler to put Rollins on top of FOX News's favorite wrestler. Just as victory looked certain for the bad guys, a film splice and crow's caw signalled that one of the greatest "never say never" moments was underway.

Vigilante justice accomplished, Sting disappeared again to allow fans to marinate in their anticipation of his next appearance (not unlike his 1996-1997 period of inactivity). One thing was certain, though: Triple H was unhappy with the Survivor Series ending, and only one stage was large enough for him to settle the score.

The Build

Without saying a word, Sting cuts a more coherent promo than Helmsley's first WrestleMania opponent, The Ultimate Warrior, ever could

Team Authority's Survivor Series loss stipulated that Triple H and his wife, Stephanie McMahon, would be removed from power in the company, which lasted until Rollins threatened retired (and near-fatally injured) Hall of Famer Edge with a Curb Stomp Blackout to a pile of bricks unless John Cena agreed to reinstate the couple as heads of WWE.

Upon their return, Triple H and Stephanie began an epic quest for revenge on the men who had dared to oppose them at Survivor Series, while continually calling out the man who ultimately attacked Helmsley and laid bare the final pinfall, Sting.

In a promo filled with Sting doppelgängers, blackouts, and implications of supernatural abilities on the Stinger's part, Triple H demanded a face-to-face confrontation at WWE's February schedule-filling live event, Fastlane.

When WWE wants to protect someone's image, they know exactly how to do it. Want to keep the Sting mystique intact? Easy: silence, baseball bats, and spooky imagery!

The confrontation would focus on Helmsley's resentment over Survivor Series, as well as his frustration that the Icon of World Championship Wrestling would wait 14 years to insert himself into WWE operations. A brief brawl ensued before the fan in that picture got exactly what they wanted: sledgehammers and baseball bats in a standoff duel.

Sting would use his bat to both to attack The Game and to perform Ronda Rousey's signature manoeuvre (pointing at the Wrestlemania sign), and a once-in-a-lifetime match (which was more once-in-a-lifetime than we realized at the time) was made official.

The Rules

The Future Endeavorer masquerades as The Terminator.

The contest in Santa Clara's Levi's Stadium was billed as a No Disqualification Match. As with previous contests throwing order and logic out the window, this had plenty of both storyline and real-world justification.

In kayfabe, the simmering hatred between The Game and The Icon, as well as their reliance on signature weapons, meant that the rules would be relaxed to give neither man an easy way out of the brutality his opponent wanted to inflict.

In reality, the combined age of the two performers drifted into the triple digits, and that fact, combined with Wrestlemania emanating from an outdoor stadium on the West Coast, gave WWE its fair share of factors for which it needed to overcompensate; taking away disqualifications gave WWE the opportunity to inject its own brand of chaotic nonsense ("gaga," as Bruce Prichard is fond of saying on his podcast) as a contingency plan for the fact that two middle-aged part-timers might not be able to put on a classic.

The Match

This wouldn't be the only time that sunlight would make a great image slightly less awesome at this Wrestlemania.

For starters, calling this one a "match" is a bit of a misnomer; it more closely resembles a Hall of Fame retrospective segment letting the company get as many legendary performers onto the Wrestlemania broadcast as possible, and does so despite any logic, internal or otherwise (but more on that later).

Second, this match was hampered in the entrances by occurring in broad daylight on a sunny California afternoon; when Wrestlemania is outdoors and some of your biggest attractions' entrances (namely, the two performers in this match and, later on the card, The Undertaker and Bray Wyatt) rely on darkness as an enhancement for their theatricality, the fact that the sun doesn't go down in this show until the main event has already begun is a pretty big drawback (and there's barely even full darkness when Seth Rollins hoists the WWE World Heavyweight Championship to close the show).

The crowd gives this match a very low bar to clear at the start; like with the debuting Shinsuke Nakamura a year later at NXT Takeover: Dallas, the mere presence of Sting in a WWE ring is enough to start the "This is awesome!" chants. A flurry of what seems like very basic manoeuvres later, the crowd lets Stinger know, "You still got it!"

Pictured: the WWE Universe's definition of still having "it".

The match from there swings in and out of distinct phases where Helmsley is on the plodding offensive, mostly with punches and rest holds, interspersed with hope spots for the Stinger to massive cheers and crowd participation (the way the crowd leaps to answer Sting's "WOOOOO!" with calls of their own is impressive).

Sting no-sells some classic Triple H offense like the facebreaker knee smash, and begins to take advantage with his first Scorpion Deathlock attempt when a familiar series of chords hits and D-Generation X members X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws jog down the ramp to ringside.

[David Attenborough voice] Without the aid of a tank, the New York degenerate is defenceless against the Atlanta scorpion.

Sting handily dispatches the degenerates, hitting a plancha from the top turnbuckle to ringside on all four men, before Helmsley manages to take control inside the ring. Just as it looks like Sting is going to fall to the WWE's front office team, another familiar guitar chord rings out, one which used to signal trouble for WCW's icon(s).

Let's pause for a moment to talk about the logic of this choice. During the build to this contest, Helmsley had constantly reiterated that this was about proving the superiority of the WWF/E once and for all, and squashing the last remnants of the Monday Night Wars under his boots (and sledghammers). Meanwhile, once he took microphone in hand, Sting emphasized that this feud was not about Nitro, World Championship Wrestling, or the Monday Night Wars.

Instead, in Sting's mind, this was about correcting the misdeeds of one Paul Levesque during the 14 years Sting refused to sign with McMahon. In his mind, Triple H was guilty of any number of crimes of politicking, backstabbing, manipulation, and general Machiavellian backstage control of the company even before ascending to his official corporate role.

Sting's pull-back-the-curtain promos attempted to swing this match away from the "WCW vs. WWF/E" perception and into something more relevant to modern fans (which was lost on the announcers, who yammered on and on about World Championship Wrestling for this entire segment).

No three men on the planet are better suited than these to help lead a crusade against performers exerting too much backstage influence

Returning to the match, this backstory was one of a myriad reasons why it was confusing that, of all people, the New World Order's theme hit, and the living embodiments of politicking, manipulation, and backstabbing strolled into Levi's Stadium in the form of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Hulk Hogan.

Despite Sting's promos about this not being about WCW vs. WWF/E, the only justification for the NWO to intervene is the fact that the NWO was synonymous with WCW (despite the fact that these three men were lambasted throughout the Attitude Era for being former WWF guys and also had long, semi-successful WWE runs after the buyout, and the fact that all three men and X-Pac had been an NWO member in two different companies and now I'm giving myself a headache).

Anyhow, the NWO makes Goldberg's Wrestlemania 33 entrance look swift before engaging in battle with D-Generation X, as Sting builds toward a loooooooong Scorpion Deathlock, which is broken up by a Shawn Michaels superkick (who was sporting a DX shirt but had also been an NWO member and who was close friends with 2/3 of the NWO invaders and there's that logic headache again).

Oddly, this isn't Shawn's greatest crime against that particular hold.

Triple H takes advantage with a Pedigree for two, and manages to get the sledgehammer, to which Sting responds by accepting a baseball bat dramatically offered to him by Hogan (who...never mind, this is just another headache). Sting uses the bat to snap the definitely-not-fake sledgehammer handle in half, then attempts a series of Stinger Splashes to Helmsley in the corner.

In between splashes, Triple H grabs the half of the hammer with the head still attached with the subtlety of a toddler sneaking a cookie, and decks Sting with it before collapsing on top of him for the three count.

My Rating

Let's go ahead and forget about the debuting legend and make this about the off-and-on retirees with checkered pasts who had made several trips through WWE's revolving door.

It's easy, on a surface level, to get caught up in the "gaga" of this match and have fun with the nostalgia pops, as long as you don't think too hard about what you're seeing. In an era of Stranger Things and Everything Sucks the "Hey, remember this?" booking and rehash of the glory years of wrestling's popularity seemed fine when I watched this live.

Each successive rewatch, though, lessens the match, and this week's re-watch hammered home why for me (pun absolutely intended): for being Sting's debut match, this match is not about Sting, and is only barely a match.

Sting made a valiant effort to make the match a personal conflict between himself and Triple H with those worked-shoot promos, but Sting was fighting a losing battle there. Sting was WCW, as far as WWE creative was concerned, and the match was never going to be about anything more than revisiting Monday nights in the late 1990s.

Sting does little in this match, and the Wrestlemania crowd is very gracious with their applause for even the most basic of manoeuvres. It's clear that they are just happy to see the Stinger on the WWE's grandest stage alongside some of the biggest stars of his era, and the interfering factions soaked up the unearned adulation.

To borrow a line from The Miz's theme song, Sting came to play, and works with a decent level of intensity, which presents its own set of problems. Sting has a great look in promos and during his entrance. His stoicism, gaudy coat, and facepaint are a timeless sports entertainment look, and, standing still, Stinger could have stepped out of a time machine.

Getting shallow for a moment, as the match heated up, Sting went from looking like the stoic vigilante to looking like someone's great uncle dressing as a scary clown on Halloween. Perhaps some consideration should have been given to Borden's thinning hair, as the frizzy (and patchy mane) shatters the mystique quickly, as does each subsequent flash of a growing bald patch.

All that's to say that this was much better in concept than in execution; seeing it any time after March 29, 2015, creates too many headaches from working out the aforementioned plot inconsistencies, and that's to say nothing of the out-of-nowhere finish (which has been lambasted enough online that we don't need to go into detail, but it didn't feel like enough to put down someone of Sting's stature after only 16 minutes, most of which was low-impact brawling and Hall of Famers' entrances).

Growing up a WWF kid, and never getting into WCW product until the NWO angle began, the first time I saw a Sting match was the main event of Starrcade 1997, which made it very difficult for me to understand his popularity. That match squandered 18 months of build with a confusingly-booked and sloppily-worked match, which gets a lot of coverage in WWE retrospectives.

This match commits similar crimes, but, thanks to the nature of WWE's programming calendar, with a much shorter build. Neither man seemed to be in agreement as to the reason for the contest to happen, and Sting seemed to be the only one who hadn't been told the match wasn't about Sting.

Had Borden's unfortunate injury not happened that fall (no, Bret, it wasn't Rollins's fault), it would have been interesting to see Stinger get a shot at redemption in Dallas (with the added benefit of a mysterious entrance in the dark).

Unfortunately, though, we have the one Sting Wrestlemania moment, whose appeal diminishes with each rewatch. This rewatch, my enjoyment has dipped to a measly 4/10.

Meltzer Says:

Meltzer goes **1/2 on this match.