His TNA theme, "Slay Me" is pretty badass as well.
During his triumphant 2020 return in AEW he had "Arrival", an almost Rhapsody of Fire-reminiscent Power Metal instrumental which is borderline divine and contains elements from all his previous iconic themes.
There's an exchange from Calvin and Hobbes ("Has Stupendous Man ever won a battle?" "Well, they're all moral victories) that sums up Sting's 20-year war against Hogan, just replace "Stupendous Man" with "Crow Sting".
Sting's later years, particularly his time in TNA, are often derided for this by his haters and even some of his fans. While his days as a top superstar are unquestionably over (mainly because he has nothing left to prove other than not being washed up), Sting was still a damn good wrestler, only being forced into retirement due to a neck injury.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Thought that big voiceover at the top of the main page was pretty cool? Well, this being WCW, they had to mess it up somehow. The main event of Clash of the Champions XXXV was Scott Hall and Randy Savagenote Subbing for Kevin Nash. The nWo imposed what they called "Wolfpac Rules," meaning that some other nWo member could sub for Hall or Nash in tag team title defenses; basically "Freebird Rules" under a different name. defending the WCW World Tag Team Titles against Lex Luger and Diamond Dallas Page. After the match, which Hall and Savage of course won, the nWo came in to celebrate before the camera saw Sting in the balcony with a vulture. The voiceover played, and the lights went off. When they came back on again,note ECW had done the lights out/lights back on again trick a few times already the vulture was on the top rope. The show ended with the vulture walking along the top rope and the nWo having to sell being "afraid" of it. WCW never mentioned the vulture again.
A minor one between Sting fans: which Sting is better: Surfer or Crow? The casual fans prefer Crow Sting because he had a better look and character, but most smarks prefer Surfer Sting because he put on better matches.
While Wolfpac Sting and Joker Sting are both generally considered inferior to the Surfer and Crow personas, both personas have their fans and haters.
The Sharpshooter vs. Scorpion Deathlock debate. They're the exact same hold with the only major difference being that Sting does it right handed while Bret Hart does it left handed. You could say Sting does it "right", since the hold actually predates his usage, although Bret did apply more pressure. It goes to the point that people tend to assume that either of them invented the move, when it was actually invented in Japan by Riki Choshu.
Designated Villain: Had two brief heel runs in TNA which turned out to be exactly this. The late 2008 turn to join the Main Event Mafia was a matter of spreading his message of respect, which he knew they would initially embrace before eventually turning against him. The early 2010 turn happened because he knew Hogan was Evil All Along but also that nobody would ever listen long enough to see it.
"The Dumbest Man In Professional Wrestling".Explanation Because Sting rarely worked as a heel and remained a face for most of her career, other wrestlers had a tendency to do a Face–Heel Turn on him. This meant that Sting came across as a gullible idiot for trusting the same people over and over again. Notably, Ric Flair turned on Sting no less than three times in a five-year period from 1990-1995, and the two weren't even in the same company for over a year of those five years.
"Brother Borden" - In reference to his deep Christian beliefs.
"Lobster Sting" - Due his face paint being mostly red as a member of the nWo Wolfpac.
"Real Estate Steve" - Referencing his no make-up, suit-wearing Main Event Mafia run. Long story short, MMA Fighter Frank Trigg knew a guy who owned a lot of property his town nicknamed Real Estate Steve and found out he was Sting at a TNA show.
Many fans would love to forget his time in TNA, especially after 2011. While Sting had many good matches in TNA (and TNA admittedly booked his character far better than WCW did, averting his "Good Is Dumb" reputation for the most part) he essentially spent so many years there that by the time he did make it to WWE, he had next to nothing left in the tank. As far as WWE's concerned, it never happened. Even Steve himself said that in hindsight, he wished he had gone to WWE instead of TNA.
Speaking of WWE, his time there gets even more of the "would love to forget" treatment than his TNA run ever did. At least in TNA, he didn't (1) lose most of his (very few) matches and (2) get a neck injury that forced him to temporarily retire.
Franchise Original Sin: Although since Vindicated by History, upon its debut the Insane Icon / Joker Sting gimmick was widely derided for being a an on-the-nose and out-of-character attempt to slap a bizarre and ill-fitting gimmick on Sting blatantly inspired by a recent popular film, salvaged only by Sting's charisma and promo skills and willigness to commit to the bit. But it's worth noting that that same description could be applied word-for-word to the much-beloved Crow Sting gimmick, up to and including taking heavy inspiration from a recent popular film. A key difference rests in the atmosphere of the times; WCW was, seemingly, riding high as Crow Sting debuted. And before taking on the mantle of a grim-yet-righteous champion of justice Sting was kind of a generic white-meat babyface; giving him a some cool factor and edge while not abandoning the parts of his character audiences liked was seen as a refreshing way to put a bit of shine on Sting without having him undergo a full-fat heel turn. Conversely, Joker Sting happened in a company desperately clawing for relevance and replaced a well-tenured and much-beloved gimmick, so audiences turned on it as a short-sighted attention grab.
His final appearances (and indeed, much of his career) in TNA were spent fighting a power grab by a corrupt regime consisting of the company's legit ownership going mad, and failing due to the numbers game. His first appearance ever in a WWE was spent the exact same way, with the numbers largely neutralized beforehand, and it was a smashing success.
His "Joker Sting" era in TNA seems a lot less like an Audience-Alienating Era if you interpret Sting's antics as him just trying to screw with Hogan to goad him into a match, rather than actually going insane. He even dropped most of it after actually getting the match.
Harsher in Hindsight: Before 2014, he refused to join WWE — believing they'd misuse him. Come 2015, and not only does he lose most of his (very few) WWE matches, but he even gets a Career-Ending Injury that makes said losses his final in-ring moments. Properly Paranoid 101. Fortunately he was able to come out of retirement to try and get a better ending in AEW.
On the 8/9/1997 edition of Nitro the nWo ran an angle where they called Sting down from the rafters (as he'd been doing for some time at that point). However, Sting came down way too fast and crashed at ringside. Hogan and the rest of the boys start selling it like the man was really hurt, apparently breaking character and gathering around him, called for help from the back, brought a stretcher down...and then they revealed that it was a dummy, and pulled it into the ring to mock Sting and have Hogan beat "him" in a match. Owen Hart would die from a rappelling stunt gone wrong two years later. This gets especially grimmer when once considers that Owen's rappelling stunts were supposed to specifically be a Take That! to Sting's.
Despite being less famous than Gordon Sumner, Steve Borden actually holds the trademark on the name "Sting" for a performer. That means that Sting the musician has to pay Sting the wrestler in order to use the name he's best known as (apparently, it's a token sum). They HAVE been photographed on stage together, so it must not be too big of a compromise.
Between 2001 to 2008, Sting was consistently the most requested wrestler in fan polls, magazines and even peer polls to get a WWE contract, even more so than darlings like AJ Styles (who himself would finally show up in 2016). Ever popular was the hypothetical Sting vs Undertaker program, preferably culminating at WrestleMania. Come 2014, Sting did show up in WWE, only to unleash a wave of apathy and backlash about how it wasn't the right thing to do, as the WrestleMania 31 match ended up being basically one last attempt for WWE to piss on WCW's grave, and Night of Champions 2015 ended his career, and no one even wanted the Undertaker match anymore because by that point both men were considered to be too old to put on a quality match without a younger wrestler to carry them through it. To add insult to injury on the latter, Undertaker's WrestleMania streak had been broken just months before Sting's debut.
Relatedly: around the time that Sting and the Undertaker were both semi-retired, it emerged that the two men actually had once faced each other in a 1990 NWA match—when 'Taker was still wrestling as "Mean Mark Callous", and Sting was still using his old surfer gimmick. It was considered such a minor match at the time that it wasn't filmed or televised, and no video footage of it apparently exists. They probably couldn't have imagined that fans would be clamoring for them to wrestle again a decade later.
Hype Backlash: Non-hardcore wrestling fans and/or The Crow (1994) fans often have a hard time understanding why a wrestler whose more immediate characteristic is that he impersonates the character of the film can be (or have been) so massively popular. Of course, Sting was already popular before the gimmick switch, he just became even more popular afterwards.
I AGREE. explanationThe TNA Victory Road 2011 main event against Jeff Hardy was cut short due to the fact that Hardy was stoned out of his mind as he came down to the ring. Angered at Hardy's lack of professionalism, Sting forcibly pinned Hardy and wouldn't let him back up, to prevent either of them from getting hurt. The result was a title match that lasted about thirty seconds. When a fan screamed "This is bullshit!" at Sting, this was Sting's response.
Sting wearing a Sting maskexplanationA gimmick that's been played at least three times. The first and most effective is in WCW, where he reveals himself to be the real Sting among a crowd of Fake Stings (as was common in 1997). The second, in TNA, is the most remembered, in which he comes out of the crowd, delivers an incredibly light chair shot to Rob Van Dam, and unmasks to the bewilderment of the commentators. The third, in AEW, is a reference to the previous moments (both epic and bizarre).
"That's not Sting! That's a picture of Sting!"explanationA line used by JBL when Sting was displayed on the TitanTron not moving. The mere absurdity of the comment, plus Sting immediately proving Bradshaw wrong by heading through the curtain, makes this absolutely hilarious
Parody Displacement: As popular as The Crow (1994) was (and still is to a degree), Sting's Darker and Edgier persona — which was a blatant ripoff of the film's protagonist Eric Draven — had a much larger cultural impact at the time.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: He and Warrior were pretty awful in their Freedom Fighter/Blade Runner gimmick and fans didn't respond well to them, being two generic muscleheads who couldn't do anything besides gorilla press slams. Sting outgrew this and became a big star, as did Warrior, for a while at least.
So Bad, It's Good: Sting: Moment of Truth. Barrage of montages? Check. Historical inaccuracies? Check. Hilariously bad acting? Check. The redeeming quality? Steve himself is a great actor and made an otherwise lackluster film at least watchable. It's clearly not intended for wrestling fans and is meant to be something shown to kids at Sunday School.
Suspiciously Similar Song: One of his TNA theme songs mimicked Metallica's "Seek And Destroy", which seems to have been influenced by how in his later years in WCW, he actually DID use a live performance of "Seek and Destroy" as his theme from late 1999 until it's end in 2001; this is overdubbed on WWE DVDs with his original Crow theme.
A lot of people are pissed that WWE would not allow Sting use his Crow theme, despite it being used in WWE 2K15 and during his appearance at San Diego ComicCon in 2014. At Survivor Series, he came out to a generic rock song by CFO$, which appears to be a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for "Slay Me".
Some fans felt this way about Surfer Sting's makeover, believing Hall and Nash had taken WCW's biggest star and neutered him by changing his gimmick (it took him off TV), then sticking him in a meaningless "faction" of the nWo. Scott Hall was the one to suggest the gimmick.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: It's almost universally agreed that WWE totally botched Sting's run with them, having him lose to Triple H at WrestleMania 31 and only winning two matches (a tag match with John Cena where he managed to make Seth Rollins tap out of the Scorpion Death Lock, and a win by DQ against Big Show) out of four total before an injury inflicted by Rollins ended his career until his AEW debut. While they couldn't have predicted the injury and presumably had more planned, the booking they'd subjected him to up to that point didn't exactly inspire confidence. At least his Survivor Series debut was good.
Vindicated by History: Joker Sting was hotly controversial in the midst of its run, but you are willing to see a lot more love for it today. At the time it was largely viewed as TNA being TNA; giving an iconic wrestler a bizarre and ill-fitting gimmick in an attempt to capitalise on a recent popular film, with confusing results. Now however, the gimmick is increasingly praised for its creativity and depth of character; mixing the grounded backstories and Worked Shoot aspects of popular wrestlers at the time with a classic Parts Unknown-style character to great effect. The gimmick is also praised for giving Sting, who has played a white-meat babyface for most of his career, the opportunity to try something completely different and hone his promo skills; and now that the stigma associated with TNA has largely faded, people are willing to admit that he did a great job in the role. In the years since we have seen psychological horror-inspired acts such as The BROKEN Universe, The Fiend and Danhausen all become incredibly over, and so you are now willing to see a lot of fans view Joker Sting as ahead of its time and a genuine bright spot in TNA's early-2010's Audience-Alienating Era. Sting himself even acknowledged it in a promo he cut on MJF on the 12th of April 2023 episode of AEW Dynamite where he engaged in a bit of Trolling towards the heel champion.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying", a whimsical country song with a music video featuring Sting with a corn-shaped pompadour interacting with CGI aliens; it's unlike any other video Sting had put out before or since.
Broken Base: Fans of The Police tend to be divided on Sting's solo career. Some have no problem with it, considering it a logical continuation of Synchronicity's more sophisticated stylings, while others dislike it for being hugely antithetical to the Police's general oeuvre. The larger divide between rock and pop fans doesn't help.
First Installment Wins: Sting's first two albums (or three, depending on who you ask) are typically regarded as his best solo work, with most of his output after that being regarded as comparatively naff, owing to his shift in sound from art pop to pop rock in 1993.
Harsher in Hindsight: "Russians" is about the arms race between the Soviet Union and the USA, and was written in the '80s when nuclear war was a genuine threat (and the world actually came very close to it in 1983). Fast forward to 2022, when Vladimir Putin hinted he would pull out the nukes if NATO intervened during the war on Ukraine, and the song was still as relevant as ever. Sting himself thought as much, recording an acoustic version of "Russians" as a charity single supporting humanitarian relief in Ukraine, with the song's announcement commenting on the song's renewed relevance in the wake of the conflict.
Sampled Up: "Shape of My Heart" is so popular of a choice for samples and interpolations among Hip-Hop artists that many tend to forget that those segments were originally from a Sting song.
Signature Song: "Fields of Gold", "Englishman in New York" and "Shape of My Heart" as a solo artist, "Every BreathYou Take" overall (with "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle" very close behind).
Much of The Soul Cages when you take into account the real-life events that influenced its creation.
"Fragile" has become the go-to song for any tragedy.
Unintentional Period Piece: "Russians" very quickly became one as it was released shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev took power. In fact, its single release was within a week of his and Ronald Reagan's one-on-one meeting in Geneva. By 1989, relations between the two powers had thawed significantly and Gorbachev officially declared the Cold War "over".
Values Dissonance: "We Work the Black Seam", a protest song taking the side of striking British coal miners against Thatcher's government, has some lines glorifying coal mining ("We tunneled into the nation's soul ... [And] light a thousand cities with our hands") that sound very out of place in the 2020s, when coal mining has come to be seen as a major contributor to climate change and people like Sting applaud when Britain uses less coal, or none at all.
Values Resonance: "Russians" became timely again after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, putting the world on a knife's edge upon fears that the conflict could escalate significantly if the violence were to spill over into any of Ukraine's NATO-protected neighbors.
One line from the song: "There's no such thing as a winnable war, its a lie we don't believe anymore!" given how war-weary the general population in the US and UK have become in response to the second Iraq War and the War on Terror.
", an almost Rhapsody of Fire-reminiscent Power Metal instrumental which is borderline divine and contains elements from all his previous iconic themes.
