Author’s Note: This is the second in a recurring series, where I’ll take a look at how one wrestling event going differently could’ve changed the business long-term. Obviously, this is all speculation. This is simply one wrestling fan’s version of an alternate reality. There will undoubtedly be perspectives that I have overlooked, and I’m sure there will be aspects that you may not necessarily agree with.
Either way, I hope these pieces will be enjoyable to read and I encourage you to tell me what
you think I got right, or wrong, or how you think things would have happened in the comment section below. Enjoy!
“You know who I am… but you don’t know why I’m here”
-Scott Hall, WCW Monday Nitro, 5/27/96
One of the most memorable lines in wrestling history. For wrestling fans of the late 90’s, specifically those who followed WCW, the image of the former Razor Ramon walking through the crowd in his denim vest and jeans, with his patented toothpick hanging out of his mouth, this moment is one that will never be forgotten. In the weeks that would follow, Kevin Nash, who had performed as Diesel in WWF would appear as well, and the two men who would come to be known as The Outsiders set out to take down WCW.
Nash and Hall made it known that they wanted a match against the best three guys that WCW could offer, claiming at Great American Bash that they had a “surprise buddy” that would be joining them. WCW President Eric Bischoff accepted the challenge and announced that the match would take place at Bash at the Beach. When Hall pressed Bischoff to tell them who would be repping the WCW, Bischoff refused, which led to him getting powerbombed off of the stage.
Weeks later at Bash at the Beach, Nash and Hall would start the 6-man tag, dubbed “The Hostile Takeover Match”, by themselves, taking on the legendary trio of Sting, Randy Savage, and Lex Luger. Just a few minutes in, with Nash and Luger tied up in the corner of the ring, Sting would hit a splash that landed on Nash, but draped Luger over the top turnbuckle, sending the Total Package crashing to the floor. Luger was stretchered out, turning the match into a tag team match for the time being. Later on, Savage would go on a heater after a hot tag from Sting, taking down both Outsiders, but the tide would turn when Hall grabbed the referee, allowing Nash to hit a low blow on the Macho Man.
With all four men down, no music would hit, but the crowd began to rise to their feet as they noticed a figure clad in red and yellow heading down the sand-lined entry way. Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes were relieved to see Hulk Hogan coming to the rescue of WCW, but Bobby “The Brain” Heenan called it right away.
Heenan: Yeah, but whose side is he on?!
Rhodes: … what are you talkin’ about?
Heenan: WHOSE side is he on?
The rest, of course, is history. Hogan would clear the Outsiders out of the ring, but only so he had room to drop the leg on the Macho Man, executing one of the biggest heel turns in professional wrestling history. The New World Order of professional wrestling was born on that night. Documentaries and anthologies have been devoted to this time period in WCW’s history, but it almost went down very differently.
According to accounts from several people involved, Hulk Hogan only agreed to be the third man at the eleventh hour. As the story goes, leading into the match, Nash and Hall weren’t even sure Hogan was going to show up. Just in case, Eric Bischoff had a backup plan in place. If Hogan got cold feet and decided to not go through with it, the third man that Nash and Hall had promised would have been Sting.
So what if Hogan had backed out?
What if Sting had been the one to turn on WCW to join Nash and Hall? How would late WCW have been different?
This…. is the Butterfly Effect!
Crow Sting Never Happens
As the WCW roster regrouped from Hogan’s betrayal, Sting and Lex Luger took leading roles in trying to galvanize the locker room. They even convinced their long-time rivals, the Four Horsemen to join them for a War Games match against the nWo at Fall Brawl. But on the episode of Nitro six days before the event, a man dressed like Sting, even adorning his signature face paint, attacked Luger in the parking lot. The Franchise maintained his innocence, but the Horsemen and Luger decided they couldn’t trust him, so they bounced Sting from the team and went into War Games with a 4-on-3 disadvantage.
As the match progressed, the real Sting would come down, make his way into the War Games cage easier than he probably should’ve been able to, and cleared house of Hogan, Hall, Nash, and the Sting imposter, hitting Stinger Splashes in all four corners of one of the rings. With Luger, Ric Flair, and Arn Anderson looking on in complete bewilderment, Sting walked out, obviously bitter that his Luger, his long-time friend hadn’t trusted him.
The following night on Nitro, Sting came to the ring and told anybody that doubted him that they could stick it. He announced that he was a free agent, essentially severing his allegiance to the WCW. Sting would reappear for the first time about a month later, draped in a black trenchcoat, his signature colorful face paint having been replaced by white and black. He would attack the imposter Sting as the rest of the nWo looked on. For weeks, speculation would run rampant that Sting was joining the nWo, while The Icon lingered in the crowd and the rafters, donning face paint that resembled Brandon Lee’s character, Eric Draven in the 1994 film, The Crow. This would go on to be his signature motif, the look that he would support for the majority of the rest of his career, and the one that he would be the most famous for.
Over the years, we’ve learned that it was Scott Hall who suggested that Sting begin to fashion his look after Eric Draven. The look would become synonymous with the vigilante character that Sting would be throughout the rest of his time in WCW. He would also don the same color scheme in TNA, where he would win the World Title 5 times, in his short stint in the WWE, where his limited highlights were debuting at Survivor Series and competing at WrestleMania, and finally in AEW, where he would win all 29 of the matches he competed in.
If it had been Sting that teamed with Hall and Nash at Bash at the Beach, he may have never adopted the look that he became synonymous with throughout his legendary career.
The nWo Legacy
It’s pretty tough to argue the idea that the New World Order revolutionized wrestling. Initially, it blurred the lines between kayfabe and reality, and forever changed the blueprint of the “cool heel” that other stars like Stone Cold Steve Austin would subsequently follow. The nWo was not without flaws. They added members perhaps even more quickly than Don Callis adds to his Family, eventually breaking off into separate factions on multiple occasions. Future iterations of the faction in late WCW and early aughts WWE lost their luster, but despite all of its flaws, the nWo era continues to be one that many wrestling fans (this writer included) look back on fondly.
But how would the nWo have been different if Sting was initial leader?
My own thought is that the nWo still would’ve had a really good run in late 90’s WCW if Sting was in Hogan’s spot. With the history that Sting and Lex Luger had, the Total Package would’ve been the obvious candidate to lead the WCW charge, which could’ve drastically changed the course of Luger’s career too. If Luger was the main guy leading WCW, where would that have left Hulk Hogan?
Knowing what we know of the human beings behind the characters, it’s not unreasonable to posit the possible scenario where Hulk Hogan would’ve found his way into the nWo eventually anyway. Known as ever the backstage politician, the Hulkster likely would’ve seen the impact that the new faction was having on the business and asserted his contractually obligated creative control to interject himself into the group somehow. Hollywood Hogan seems like it was inevitable, even if he hadn’t been the one to run in at Bash at the Beach.
Steve Borden on the other hand, has always been known as the consummate professional, so it’s fair to assume that he would have made the heel turn work. To remember the depth and versatility of the man, I’m reminded of the Joker persona he took on in TNA. It was a different take on the character Sting played before and after, but it showed his range better than most other timeframes in his career. Because of this, Sting leading the nWo probably would’ve worked out just fine, but Sting, ever the company man that he has the reputation of being, may not have pushed back against Hogan’s inevitable push to get involved.
If that had happened and Hogan eventually replaced Sting, the nWo legacy suddenly becomes a little more cloudy. Would the faction be looked back on as fondly? Or would the nWo have faced louder criticisms about members joining and leadership changing, similar to what modern day factions like the Judgment Day and the Vision have faced?
The Dream Match That Never Was
It’s tough to extrapolate exactly where the nWo would’ve gone had Sting been a founding member, but the history of the Man Called Sting and the New World Order will always be intertwined. Sting’s ensuing feud with Hulk Hogan, his friendship with Lex Luger, and joining the nWo Wolfpac all have their own chapters in the WCW history books. Even without the rub that a huge heel turn would’ve provided him, nobody would argue that Sting still put together a nice little career for himself.
But even if Hogan had pulled his creative control card and forced his way into the nWo like I suggested above, I believe Sting’s stock would have been elevated either way. Let me put it this way:
If Sting had been the initial nWo leader, he could’ve had a Hollywood Hogan like run as a huge heel, the likes of which we usually only see once in a generation. A Sting-led faction would’ve undoubtedly been different, but judging by the longevity and range of the man, it could’ve been just as impactful.
If Sting had been the initial nWo leader and was forced out by Hogan, that could’ve led to a huge babyface run for Sting, even bigger than the one that he actually went on. Being a part of such a huge moment like Bash at the Beach would’ve set him up for a potential year-long redemption arc that could’ve seen an emotional and powerful reunion with Luger and an epic battle against the Newer World Order, led now by Hogan.
Either way, Sting’s star power would’ve unquestionably been higher if he had been the third man at Bash at the Beach. Debating whether a heel Sting could’ve saved WCW is a conversation for another day, but what would have happened if this timeline continued until 2001 when Vince bought the company? Famously, many of the top WCW stars were not brought in for the disappointing Invasion storyline that summer, but some of the big name stars like Ric Flair, Goldberg, and others would find their way to the company in the years that followed anyway.
At No Way Out in February of 2002, three more of those WCW stars would be brought in when Hogan, Hall, and Nash reunited to reform the nWo. This would famously lead to a generational dream match between Hulk Hogan and The Rock at WrestleMania X8 just a few months later. Sting, on the other hand, famously had contract negotiations with WWF when his WCW contract ended, but ultimately decided against joining the company. If Sting had been involved in the foundation of the nWo, Vince might have pushed harder to bring him in for the revival, which could’ve open the door for Sting to have some dream matches of his own, most notably the one that many wrestling fans clamored for in the 2000’s, against The Undertaker.
This bit of fantasy booking is not without its flaws, as The Undertaker was using his American Badass persona at this time in 2002, and wouldn’t revert to being the Deadman until two years later. Seeing Sting against the motorcycle riding Taker wouldn’t have hit as hard, but it’s fair to assume that if Sting had joined the WWF in 2002 instead of when he did over 12 years later, the possibility of Sting and the Deadman squaring off at some point would’ve been way higher.
Now it’s your turn to weigh in, Cageside Universe! How would wrestling history have been different if Sting had been the third man at Bash at the Beach? Let us know in the comments!
