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1897_0 | Trey Ellis (born 1962) is an American novelist, screenwriter, professor, playwright, and essayist.
He was born in Washington D.C. and graduated from Hopkins School and Phillips Academy, Andover, where he studied under Alexander Theroux before attending Stanford University, where he was the editor of the Stanford Chaparral and wrote his first novel, Platitudes in a creative writing class taught by Gilbert Sorrentino. He is a Professor of Professional Practice in the Graduate School of the Arts at Columbia University. |
1897_1 | Novels and memoirs
Ellis's first novel, Platitudes, was published in 1988 and reissued by Northeastern University Press in 2003, along with his 1989 essay "The New Black Aesthetic". Platitudes follows the story of Earle, a black, private high-school student in New York City. The novel itself wrestles with many concepts outlined in "The New Black Aesthetic," namely the existence of the cultural mulatto. Earle, as a second generation middle-class, black nerd, embodies this identity—on his visit to Harlem he feels entirely out of place. Alongside this narrative is the story of Dorothy, a black student at a private high school who lives in Harlem, yet can navigate easily in her mostly white social circles. |
1897_2 | The novel makes extensive use of structure. Largely a metafictional work, Ellis moves between a more post-modern, deconstructed style and a more traditional, black female style through the voices of fictional authors Wellington and Ishee Ayam. Ellis' exaggerated representations of each style is humorous, essentially complicating the hegemonic artistic voice of the Black Arts Movement.
As a black nerd, Earle complicates traditional ideas of black masculinity. He occupies a place as an intellectual outsider, excluded from the mainstream, and yet the nerd identity is hyper-white. This idea of how blackness can be diverse and differ from typical ideas blackness accurately depict what the NBA is trying to say.
Ellis is also the author of the novels Home Repairs (1993) and Right Here, Right Now (1999), which received an American Book Award. His latest book is Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood (2008), a memoir of his life as a single father of two. |
1897_3 | Film
His work for the screen includes the Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated The Tuskegee Airmen, and Good Fences, starring Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg, which was shortlisted for the PEN award for Best Teleplay of the year, and was nominated for a Black Reel award. In 1994, he co-wrote The Inkwell under the pen name Tom Ricostronza.
Essays
His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and GQ, among other places. He is a regular blogger on The Huffington Post and lives in Manhattan, where he is an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Film.
Plays
His work for the theater includes the plays Fly, Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing and Holy Mackerel. |
1897_4 | Holy Mackerel had its first staged reading in 2016. The play follows the evolution of The Amos 'n' Andy Show, which ran from the late 1920s to the late 1950s, and was a household favorite. Before it became a television show, it was America's most listened-to radio show. During the time, it was voiced by white actors, and the show was criticized for the way it "vilified [the characters] as modern-day Uncle Toms for wanting the same opportunities for success that their white counterparts took for granted". However Amos 'n' Andy also "introduc[ed] America to a range of black people who included doctors and lawyers, and depicted the black family at a time when no one else was doing so". When the show moved to television, they hired black actors. After only two seasons, the show was cancelled due to a boycott led by Walter White, head of the NAACP. In Ellis' own words, "When I discovered that everything I thought I knew about Amos 'n' Andy was wrong, that it was one of TV's first ever |
1897_5 | sitcoms and the all-black cast were some of the most brilliant comedians to ever walk the earth, I knew I had to bring their story back to life". 'Holy Mackerel!', the phrase the show invented, is a comedy about the tragedy of what happened to them." |
1897_6 | The New Black Aesthetic
Ellis is also known for the small piece he wrote titled "New Black Aesthetic" (NBA) which describes the change in the overall image of "blackness" that has emerged in American society in the past few decades. In this essay, Ellis argues that there is a broader way to characterize middle class blacks today, and with this new characterization comes a new aesthetic movement. |
1897_7 | The NBA represents, in Ellis' mind, a new stage in cultural interaction for black Americans. He does not deny that there are many aspects of American society that still work against the interests of black Americans, but the emergence of the NBA opens up an aesthetic realm that was, until recently, closed to blacks in America. It signals an opening of socially acceptable aesthetic possibilities for blacks beyond "Africa and jazz". Now, for example, black students go to colleges to be art majors rather than always pursuing a law degree or going to medical school upon graduating because their parents have given them the means to do so. In this short piece, Ellis includes interviews from black filmmaker, Spike Lee, as well as the black band, Fishbone. He uses these as examples of thriving hybrids, or people who don't leave behind their culture to be successful. Ellis' novel Platitudes takes advantage of the NBA in order to represent some of the new aesthetic possibilities available |
1897_8 | to blacks in America. He also talks about the concept of the "cultural mulatto", or someone who can relate to multiple cultures the same way a multiracial person can relate to their different heritages. He refers to Whitney Houston and Lionel Richie as "neutered mutations" that chose to conform and commercialize their once soulful style just so they could maximize their profits by appealing to multiple cultures. |
1897_9 | Cultural mulatto
The phrase, coined by Ellis in his essay "The New Black Aesthetic", (NBA) refers to a black individual who possesses the ability to thrive and successfully exist in a white society while simultaneously maintaining all facets of his or her complex cultural identity. Ellis signifies two types of cultural mulattoes: "thriving hybrids" and "neutered mutants".
The thriving hybrid has transcended the stereotypes associated with blackness and predicates their identity on their individuality as opposed to their blackness. They recognize the position that society has placed on them because of their race, but they don't let it inhibit their growth. Ellis writes: "Just as a genetic mulatto is a black person of mixed parents who can often get along fine with his white grandparents, a cultural mulatto, educated by a multi-racial mix of cultures, can also navigate easily in the white world." |
1897_10 | Ellis appropriates the somewhat offensive term mulatto in his creation of rhetoric to describe this contemporary black locus as a means to challenge prevalent notions of multiracial; or in this case, "culturally multiracial", black people falling subject to the fate of the tragic mulatto, or "neutered mutant". The tragic mulatto is an individual who, while struggling to fit into white culture, alienates him or herself from black culture. "Today's cultural mulattoes echo those 'tragic mulattoes' critic Sterling Brown wrote about in the Thirties only when they too forget they are wholly black." While prevalent as a stereotypical figure in 19th- and 20th-century American literature, the tragic mulattoes need not exist in postmodern society. The NBA, as characterized by Ellis, allows space for the cultural mulatto to perform a self-defined, authentic form of identity that does not rely on the self-deluding practice of negating his or her blackness. Relatedly, the cultural mulatto need |
1897_11 | not perform a "superblackness" to overcompensate for "acting white" or to gain cultural credibility from the black community. On the converse Ellis also defines the "neutered mutation", a cultural mulatto who tries hard to please both worlds and ends up pleasing neither. Cultural mulattoes exist in great numbers and, fueled by the ideology of the NBA, space for hybridity is opened and, subsequently, feelings of dislocation in a strictly dichotomous society are collectively obliterated. |
1897_12 | Through their skills that allow successful navigation in both the white and black social spheres, the cultural mulattoes that typify the NBA are using their access to higher education and various breeds of dominant cultural capital to make "atypically black" art and earn respect devoid of essentialist racial categorizations. |
1897_13 | Contemporary examples
According to B.D. Ashe, this is still the era of the New Black Aesthetic, or what he calls the "Post-soul Aesthetic". Ashe writes, "There has been no fundamental, sociocultural paradigm shift akin to the civil rights movement to alter the post-soul aesthetic focus" or to thrust black Americans into a new way of being and existing. As it is, there are a number of modern examples that emphasize the NBA's persistence through the contemporary moment. |
1897_14 | Some current examples of this are television shows like Donald Glover's Atlanta or Issa Rae's Insecure. As characters, Issa and "Earn" display an ability to navigate white spaces to varying degrees and embody the idea of the "cultural mulatto". For Issa, this is a common occurrence at her workplace with her boss and white coworkers. For Earn, this is best established in the episode "Juneteenth" in which while at a Juneteenth celebration attended by mostly white people, he and his girlfriend play along with the expectations of the attendees to an almost ludicrous degree. Throughout most of the party, the white people that Earn and his girlfriend interact with are oblivious to their game. |
1897_15 | Even further than television, there are examples of artists who exemplify the New Black Aesthetic through mediums such as music. One vocal artist who embodies this idea that blackness can and does exist in a multi-faceted way is Janelle Monae. Specifically, in her album Dirty Computer, Monae gives a voice to the kind of blackness that she embodies as a queer black woman. Janelle Monae doesn't cater to a specific black or white audience, but an audience that can relate to the experiences she speaks of in her music. While many of the songs on Dirty Computer speak of the challenges black people face in America, Monae focuses on these issues in a way that empowers people like herself. She uses her music to empower black queer women when these voices have been historically ignored. Dirty Computer encapsulates Eliss's image of the New Black Aesthetic as a compilation of intersecting black identities that reflect Janelle Monae's existence as a thriving hybrid. Monae expresses this identity |
1897_16 | clearly in her album, as well as through her personal style and her refusal to conform to anyone's idea of what she should and shouldn't be. This solidifies her place as a trendsetter, rule breaker, and cultural mulatto. |
1897_17 | Platitudes
Platitudes is a 1988 metafiction. It tells the tale of competing African-American fictional characters, Dewayne and Isshee, as they struggle to define blackness using two cultural mulatto characters. This novel provides examples of what Ellis describes as New Black Aesthetic in his 1989 essay of the same title. |
1897_18 | Plot summary |
1897_19 | Trey Ellis is most famous for his first work of metafiction called Platitudes. The metafictional component of Platitudes helps the reader explore the New Black Aesthetic by portraying one story in which the two fictional authors, Dewayne and Isshee, embody two different ideas and perspectives on how black should be expressed and another story of two characters’ struggle to fit into the white world as a “cultural mulatto”. In Platitudes, the story begins with an experimental Black writer by the name of Dewayne Wellington. He is trying to figure out how to write his novel. He scoffs at the mainstream image of "authentic blackness" by creating the character Earle, a chubby teenage New Yorker who only thinks about sex (that he is not having) and academics. This is a departure from the stereotypical young black male who is assumed to only care about girls/sex, basketball, and hip hop music. He is in all sense what Ellis calls the cultural mulatto. Earle is a black 16-year-old who lives |
1897_20 | and attends school in the wealthy neighborhoods of the Upper West Side, Manhattan. While Earle is phenotypically black, he is quite assimilated into white culture. While most of his surroundings and relationships are with white people, Earle is also portrayed as a nerd which is often regarded as having “white” attributes as well as being someone who is intelligent, lacks social skills, and has a hyper-focus on a particular field, in Earle's case that is computer programming. However, Earle tries to explore his black roots when he visits the diner in Harlem where he meets Dorothy for the first time. Dorothy is the attractive female character Dewayne creates. She attends the private St. Rita's School for Girls in Manhattan. Although she lives in inner-city, Harlem, she socializes and attends school on the primarily white side of the city. Dorothy is a part of the popular crowd at school and wants to live the wealthy lifestyle despite her background. Dorothy is considered a "cultural |
1897_21 | mulatto" because she is someone who is able to thrive in the white world while still embracing her racial identity. She is comfortable among her white friends and even has some power and status among them, but she is also aware of her black identity and how she differs from her them. After asking for advice on how to write his novel, Dewayne encounters Isshee Ayam, an African American feminist writer. She ridicules his works and attempts to "correct" his mistakes by creating her own renditions of the story with more feminist elements. She changes the setting of the story to rural Lowndes County, Georgia as well as most of the characters' traits. As the story goes on, Wellington compromises some of his original ideas to accommodate some of Ayam's preferences. The two narratives of Dewayne and Isshee begin to align as the authors’ writing styles and stories reflect each other's styles and beliefs. By altering the story in accordance to both of the authors’ writing styles and beliefs of |
1897_22 | how the black characters should be portrayed, Ellis expresses the concept that there is no one black identity that can be defined. Instead, blackness should be defined separately in the case of each person's life through their interactions with the culture and his or her experiences. Along with the aligning of the two stories, a relationship buds between Dewayne Wellington and Isshee Ayam. All in all, a majority of the events that happen in the story of Earle and Dorothy are an indirect reflection of the dynamics of Dewayne Wellington's relationship with Isshee Ayam. In the end, as Earle and Dorothy reconnect and consummate their relationship, Isshee and Dewayne do as well when Isshee visits Dewayne in the last chapter of the novel. Ellis uses Isshee's and Dewayne's novel and of two characters who provide examples of the cultural mulatto to portray the "new black aesthetic" and the absence of a single black identity. |
1897_23 | Analysis |
1897_24 | In Platitudes, Ellis depicts the tension between two African-American authors, Isshee and Dewayne, as they debate on the proper portrayal of Black characters. Isshee objects to Dewayne's portrayal of Black women, claiming he presented them in an “atavistic” sense, overtly sexualized by Earle, a protagonist in their stories (15). In opposition to Dewayne's story, Isshee recreates his characters as strong, intelligent female characters reinforcing the stereotype of the “Strong Black Woman”. Isshee transforms Earle's doting, White mother into a Mammy figure that she calls “Sister Pride” (41). And she endows Dorothy, the other protagonist in their stories, the beautiful, hyper sexualized teen into a girl with “keen intellect”(42). Isshee develops Dorothy into “the first black female J.D.-M.D.-Ph.D. in the history of the land” (42, 43). Through this conflict, Ellis demonstrates the tension that exists in the literary sphere with the transformation of soul literature, Ishee's narrative to |
1897_25 | post-soul literature, Dewayne's narrative. Isshee recreates the narrative to an “Afro-American glory-stor[y]” while Dewayne gives a modern, sensual take on middle-class African-Americans (19). Isshee's failure to represent other forms of blackness within her literature represents the theme of respectability that existed within the soul era that Dewayne does away with, resembling New Black Aesthetic and Post-Soul Aesthetic. |
1897_26 | In Dewayne's narrative of Earle and Dorothy, both belong to the class of the Black post-bourgeoisie. Earle is the son of a working-class white mother. His existence is the product of the civil rights movement which sanctioned the ability for him to live unpunished within the white world of Downtown Harlem. While Dorothy, is a resident of urban Uptown Harlem and the daughter of a restaurateur. She comes from humble beginnings, but she shares the same privileges as Earle able to transverse both white and black worlds and still fit in. Their integration in both worlds indicates their ability to participate socially and culturally as members of both space. Earle and Dorothy are cultural mulattoes, a term coined by Ellis in his essay “The New Black Aesthetic” (NBA). |
1897_27 | However, Earle and Dorothy are different types of cultural mulattoes. Earle is a neutered mutation, another neologism created by Ellis, mainly “white-cultured” he is able to fit into the white society, downtown Harlem, but he is unable to blend with ease in uptown Harlem, the black world. His inability to blend with the black world is demonstrated by the double consciousness he experiences while in a restaurant in uptown Harlem. He perceives himself through the eyes of others thinking “Stop fooling around and just look mean so they won't know you're not from uptown” (23). His counterpart, Dorothy is a thriving hybrid, another neologism by Ellis, she is capable of blending into the landscapes of both worlds, yet she is still self-conscious of her presence in both spaces. She views Earle and herself as commuters between the two worlds and contemplates the loneliness they share that comes from being interlopers between the two worlds (147). |
1897_28 | As a part of Ellis' NBA (also related to Mark Anthony Neal's concept of the post-soul aesthetic), Earle represents a sort of new black male whose narrative is free to explore his non-archetypically "black" conflicts. This NBA tenet is repeatedly evident in the presentation of Earle's relationship to masculinity and the stereotype of black hypermasculinity throughout the novel. Traditionally race and gender intersected in black men to create a hypermasculine archetype; however, Earle is an NBA black male who struggles with understanding and asserting such masculinity in key moments. For example, when Dorothy's boyfriend (hypermasculine LeVon) usurps him as her potential love interest, his response was not aggressive, or even particularly assertive: "I can't believe it. She's not only got a boyfriend but he's Gigantor the Thunder Tyrant. I should’ve known. She's too beautiful for you fatso, why can't you just settle for a tubby acnehead with halitosis who hates you." (141). The |
1897_29 | self-deprecation of his physical size and shape relative to LeVon's indicated Earle's internalization of his failure in hypermasculinity. Earle's problematized relationship to masculinity is an example of black literature speaking to the experiences of black people who don't resonate with hypermasculinity—a prime illustration of Ellis’ NBA democratization of the black authenticity. This process serves to create a discourse in which black people with non-standard black experiences represented in the NBA and PSA are allowed and encouraged to explore their discomfort with blackness as Earle does. |
1897_30 | Genre
Platitudes is a realistic metafiction, a story within a story. The story of Isshee and Dewayne's correspondence frames the bildungsroman, coming-of-age, narratives about Earle and Dorothy. The novel falls under the genre of New Black Aesthetic, art produced by the post-bourgeoisie Black that portrays cultural hybridity and escapes the boundaries of civil rights literature and their themes of respectability.
Structure
Like most postmodern literature, the structure of this novel is discontinuous. Ellis maintains the aleatory disconnection by constantly changing the style of the novel; he shifts from dialogue to stream of consciousness to a third-person omniscient point of view. Ellis breaks the normal flow of extended prose not by default of this being a metafiction but because he writes the novel in an epistolary format. The novel is a bricolage of letters, menus, exams, songs and other documents. |
1897_31 | Themes |
1897_32 | One theme of the novel is the question of how to represent blackness. This theme is portrayed in the novel through the conflict between Dewayne and Ishee. The two characters argue on how they think black people should be represented in their works. While Dewayne's style is postmodern and depicts atypical forms of blackness, Ishee's style is more traditional and characters are like those found in many works of African American literature. An example of this is found in a comparison of Earle's mother in Dewayne's version of the story vs. in Ishee's. The disparity in how the two authors choose to represent the black matriarch echoes the differences in style between different schools of black thinkers present in the time the book was written. Even in what they serve to their children, these two mothers depict the differences in representation that the two authors espouse. Through the conclusion reached between the two characters, Ellis seems to suggest that a synthesis of these two styles |
1897_33 | should be worked toward. It is only when Dewayne and Ishee reconcile their differences and give in to their feelings for one another that the conclusion of the story they are writing can be reached. Far from the postmodern beating out the traditional, or the experimental taking a back seat to the realist, the honest black experience of the time can only be told through a combination of the two approaches. In the narratives of Dewayne and Ishee several stereotypes of Black literature are explored, both common and unexpected. Here are a few: |
1897_34 | The Black geek, Earle in Dewayne's narrative. He is technologically skilled and has ambitions of an undergraduate education at Caltech or M.I.T..
The Black masculine figure, Levon, Dorothy's athletic boyfriend in Dewayne's narrative. He is described as the “humongous black” football player “who looks like he could rip out a door” (140).
The Jezebel figure, the portrayal of females as lascivious, promiscuous, and hypersexual. Dewayne's mother, Dorothy, and Julie and Isshee's Darcelle are portrayed as Jezebels.
The mammy figure in Isshee's story, Earle's Black mother, “Sister Pride”. She is a desexualized, self-sacrificing, religious, strong Black woman.
The absent Black fathers appear in both Isshee's and Dewayne's stories, Earle and Dorothy are always fatherless. |
1897_35 | The theme of representation is shown in the ways Earle chooses to align himself within the different communities of Uptown and Downtown. In Downtown Harlem, Earle is friends with other geeks and nerds and this nerdom, is a marker of whiteness. In Uptown Harlem, Earle aligns himself with Black Politics by assisting with the campaign of a Black politician. |
1897_36 | Additional work
He was also the subject of a half-hour documentary aired nationally on PBS, part of the series A Moveable Feast on South Carolina Educational Television/WETA-TV in 1991.
References
Ellis, Trey (2003). Platitudes and 'The New Black Aesthetic'. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
External links
https://shadowandact.com/2016/09/12/black-list-live-presents-mykelti-williamson-david-alan-grier-jesse-williams-amos-n-andy-comedy-live-read/
1962 births
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
African-American novelists
African-American dramatists and playwrights
American Book Award winners
20th-century American male writers
20th-century African-American writers
21st-century African-American people
African-American male writers |
1898_0 | Steve Borden (born March 20, 1959), better known by the ring name Sting, is an American professional wrestler and former bodybuilder, currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as the mentor of Darby Allin. He is regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, having cultivated a legacy over a career spanning five decades. Throughout his career, he won a total of fifteen world championships.
Sting is widely known for his time spent as the public face of two major American professional wrestling promotions: the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which was bought by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 2001, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA, now Impact Wrestling). Although the WWF had purchased WCW, Sting did not sign with them at that time. Prior to WCW, he also wrestled for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), and Mid South. |
1898_1 | Sting's 14-year association with WCW and its predecessor, Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), began in 1987. He quickly rose to main event status and has been described as the WCW counterpart to the WWF's Hulk Hogan. Dubbed "The Franchise of WCW", he held a total of 14 championships in the promotion – including the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on six occasions, the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship on two occasions, and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on one occasion – and made more pay-per-view (PPV) appearances for the company than any other wrestler. Against Hogan, Sting headlined the highest-grossing PPV event in WCW history, Starrcade, in December 1997. Upon the acquisition of WCW by the WWF in March 2001, Sting and his long-term rival Ric Flair were chosen to perform in the main event of the final episode of Nitro. Sting would later face Hogan and Flair in their last televised matches, defeating both. |
1898_2 | Following the expiration of his contract with WCW's parent company, AOL Time Warner, in March 2002, Borden held talks with the WWF, but ultimately did not join the promotion and instead toured internationally with World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) – winning the WWA World Heavyweight Championship – before joining the then-upstart TNA in 2003. Over the following 11 years, he won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on one further occasion and the TNA World Heavyweight Championship four times. As a result, he became the only wrestler to have won the NWA, WCW, and TNA World Titles in a career. He was also the inaugural inductee into the TNA Hall of Fame in 2012. |
1898_3 | Previously described by WWE as the greatest wrestler never to have performed for that promotion, Sting finally joined WWE in 2014, making his first appearance at Survivor Series and having his debut match at WrestleMania 31 the following year. His last match in WWE came at Night of Champions in September 2015, which also marked his sole WWE pay-per-view main event for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the organization, losing to Seth Rollins. Sting headlined the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2016 on April 2, where he announced his retirement. His induction rendered him the second performer to be inducted while still an active WWE wrestler, after Ric Flair. In late 2020, Sting signed with AEW, coming out of retirement and had his first match in over five years at the promotion's Revolution pay-per-view on March 7, 2021, a tag team cinematic Street Fight that he and Darby Allin won. Sting then had his first live wrestling match in over five years at Double or Nothing on May 30, |
1898_4 | 2021, another tag team match that he and Allin won. |
1898_5 | Sting held 26 total championships throughout his career, including 21 between WCW and TNA. Readers of Pro Wrestling Illustrated named him "Most Popular Wrestler of the Year" on four occasions, a record he shares with John Cena. In 2016, Sting was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. Slam! Sports wrote that he holds "a lofty level of prestige that few will ever touch".
Early life
Borden was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Southern California. He played football and basketball in high school and later embarked on a career in bodybuilding, once co-owning a Gold's Gym health club. Borden had no interest in professional wrestling and no television access to it within his home community, but decided to pursue a career in the industry after being taken to an "incredible" World Wrestling Federation (WWF) event in Los Angeles where he saw Hulk Hogan, The Iron Sheik, The British Bulldogs, André the Giant and others perform.
Professional wrestling career |
1898_6 | Continental Wrestling Association (1985–1986)
Borden, originally wrestling under the ring name Flash, teamed with Jim "Justice" Hellwig (who would gain fame as The Ultimate Warrior in the WWF) as two members of Power Team USA in independent All-California Championship Wrestling. Power Team USA was a four-man unit also featuring Garland "Glory" Donahoe and Mark "Commando" Miller, plus manager Rick Bassman. Hellwig and Borden later moved to the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA), a wrestling company based in Memphis, Tennessee, and became known as the Freedom Fighters. Fans were slow to respond to the lumbering hulks, so the team turned heel under "coach" Buddy Wayne and soon afterwards manager Dutch Mantel. The Freedom Fighters left the CWA after an uneventful run, the highlight of which was an angle in which they broke the leg of veteran wrestler Phil Hickerson. |
1898_7 | Universal Wrestling Federation (1986–1987)
The duo surfaced in the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), an organization run by Bill Watts and based in Alexandria, Louisiana where they were known as the Blade Runners. Borden changed his ring name from Flash to Sting, while Hellwig became known as Rock. They soon joined Hotstuff & Hyatt International, a heel stable headed by "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert and Missy Hyatt. Together with "Russian" wrestler Kortsia Korchenko, the Blade Runners became henchmen in Gilbert's on-screen feud with Watts. Hellwig left the promotion in mid-1986, leaving Sting without a partner. Sting won the UWF World Tag Team Championship twice with Gilbert in 1986 and a third time with Rick Steiner in 1987. |
1898_8 | Sting and Steiner lost their tag titles to the Lightning Express after Gilbert accidentally hit Sting with his boot during a title defence, leading to a falling out between the two (with Steiner siding with Gilbert). Shortly afterwards, following a match against Terry Taylor in mid-1987, Gilbert interfered on Taylor's behalf, costing Sting the match. Taylor and Gilbert then ganged up on Sting until Taylor's former tag partner Gentleman Chris Adams came to Sting's aid. Adams cleared the ring and then asked Sting if he was with him or against him in his feud with Taylor and Gilbert. Sting turned face by declaring his allegiance to Adams. |
1898_9 | Behind the scenes, Gilbert endorsed Borden by telling a dirt sheet that Sting would be a megastar in the future. Later that year, Sting was tabbed to win the UWF Television Championship, then held by Gilbert, until Jim Crockett of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) bought the company from Watts. Crockett's booker, Dusty Rhodes, decided to put the Television title on Taylor to set up a feud between Taylor and NWA Television Champion Nikita Koloff to unify the two titles. Rhodes used then-unknown Shane Douglas as the transitional champion from Gilbert to Taylor because Rhodes did not want to diminish Sting's growing stardom with a brief title run.
Jim Crockett Promotions / World Championship Wrestling (1987–2002) |
1898_10 | Rise to stardom (1987–1989)
Sometime after Sting's arrival to the NWA in July 1987, Dusty Rhodes used the opening bout of Crockett's first foray into pay-per-view, Starrcade '87, to showcase the young superstar. Sting partnered with Michael P.S. Hayes and Jimmy Garvin in a six-man tag team match against Gilbert, Steiner, and Larry Zbyszko that ended in a 15-minute time-limit draw. |
1898_11 | Having established himself as a rising star, Sting was one of the few UWF alumni to be pushed in the NWA. At Clash of the Champions I in March 1988, Sting challenged Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The match ended in a draw after the 45-minute time limit expired and the ringside judges could not declare a winner. Sting lost to Flair in several non-televised rematches following the Clash and, later that year, battled other members of Flair's stable, the Four Horsemen. Sting teamed with Koloff at The Great American Bash in July 1988 to challenge Horsemen Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson for the NWA World Tag Team Championship; Blanchard and Anderson retained the titles when the match ended in a 20-minute time-limit draw. |
1898_12 | Rhodes continued to book Sting in title matches throughout the year against both NWA United States Champion Barry Windham and NWA Television Champion Mike Rotunda. In the fall of 1988, Sting was attacked by Hawk and Animal of The Road Warriors after a televised match. Rhodes, as booker, identified Sting as the face who was most over with the fans, despite knowing that turning the Road Warriors heel would be no easy task. Rhodes himself teamed with Sting to challenge the Road Warriors for the tag team championship at Starrcade '88 that December. Rhodes and Sting got the win by disqualification, allowing the Road Warriors to retain the titles. |
1898_13 | Sting returned to singles matches in 1989, starting the year off by wrestling Flair to a one-hour draw in Atlanta's Omni on New Year's Day. He would also have his first experience in Japan with a brief tour in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), with his most notable match in AJPW against Dan Spivey at Nippon Budokan in June 1989. After a long push, Sting won his first title in the NWA when he defeated Rotundo for the NWA Television Championship at a live event in March. In mid-1989, The Great Muta challenged Sting at The Great American Bash. The match was booked with a classic, controversial Dusty finish even though Rhodes (the namesake of the technique) had been fired months earlier. Sting got the three-count and was announced as the winner, but a replay showed Muta's shoulder was up at the count of two. The NWA decided to declare the title vacant. Sting and Muta battled in many rematches for the vacant Television title, but they always ended in a disqualification, giving neither man |
1898_14 | the championship. Eventually, Muta won a No Disqualification match against Sting at a live event in September by using a blackjack to get the win and the title. |
1898_15 | In the main event of that year's Great American Bash, Flair defended the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Terry Funk, who was a member of Gary Hart's J-Tex Corporation. After Flair got the victory, he was attacked by Funk's stablemate, Muta. Sting came to the aid of his old rival Flair, and the two feuded with Muta and Funk for the rest of the summer and fall, culminating in a Thunderdome Cage match between the two teams, which Flair and Sting won, at Halloween Havoc '89. The alliance with Flair resulted in Sting joining the newly reformed and now-face Four Horsemen along with the Andersons, Arn and Ole (kayfabe cousins). Sting finished out the year by winning a four-man round-robin Iron Man tournament at Starrcade '89. In the final match of the night, Sting defeated Flair to accumulate the necessary points to win the tournament. The victory made Sting the number one contender for Flair's NWA World title, leading to tension within the Four Horsemen. |
1898_16 | Feud with The Four Horsemen (1990–1991)
Sting was summarily dismissed from The Four Horsemen on February 6, 1990, at Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shootout after refusing to relinquish his title shot against Flair, thus restarting their rivalry. Later that evening, Borden suffered a legitimate knee injury while interfering in a steel cage match featuring the Horsemen. Borden's injury forced the bookers of World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the dominant promotion in the NWA, to find a new opponent for Flair for the forthcoming WrestleWar pay-per-view event. |
1898_17 | Lex Luger was chosen to challenge Flair at WrestleWar. During the match between Flair and Luger, Sting came down to motivate Luger to come back and beat Flair. Before this Sting and Luger had been at odds. When Luger was close to winning Sting was attacked by Ole Anderson. Luger opted to save the already injured Sting and ended up losing the match by count-out while assisting his friend. Behind the scenes, WCW officials had wanted Flair to drop the title to Luger at WrestleWar, but Flair refused, saying he had promised Borden he would hold the title until Borden could return to the ring. Despite the injury, Sting was still utilized on television and pay per views when necessary. |
1898_18 | At the Capital Combat event in May, Sting was accosted by the Four Horsemen and thrown into a metal cage at ringside. In a promotional crossover, Sting was rescued by his buddy RoboCop. After Borden's recovery, Sting finally defeated Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on July 7, 1990, at The Great American Bash. Sting went on to feud with title contenders Flair and Sid Vicious. Vicious appeared to defeat Sting in a title match at the 1990 Halloween Havoc, but the "Sting" that Vicious pinned was revealed to be an impostor played by Horseman Barry Windham. The real Sting appeared soon after and pinned Vicious to retain his title after the match was restarted. |
1898_19 | During Sting's title run, a masked man known as The Black Scorpion would taunt and attack Sting on many occasions. This feud culminated in a final showdown between Sting and The Black Scorpion at Starrcade: Collision Course in December. The cage match ended with Sting pinning and unmasking the Scorpion, who turned out to be Flair in disguise.
WCW World Heavyweight Champion (1991–1993) |
1898_20 | Sting's first world championship reign ended January 11, 1991, when Flair defeated him in a rematch from Starrcade. In the same month, WCW seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance, in the process of recognizing a WCW World Heavyweight Championship and a WCW World Tag Team Championship. Sting then took part in what many consider to be the best match of 1991, teaming with Luger to face The Steiner Brothers at the SuperBrawl I pay-per-view for the world tag-team titles. The Steiners won by pinfall after Koloff, who had been feuding with Luger, interfered in the match by swinging a chain at Luger but hitting Sting instead. Consequently, Sting feuded with Koloff throughout the summer of 1991. In August 1991, Sting defeated Steve Austin to win a tournament for the vacated WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. Sting held the title for 86 days before losing it to Rick Rude at Clash of the Champions XVII. |
1898_21 | At Starrcade '91, Sting won the first-ever Battlebowl battle royal, for which he received a Battlebowl championship ring. Sting then became embroiled in a feud with the Dangerous Alliance, headed by manager Paul E. Dangerously. The stable targeted Sting because he was the so-called "franchise" of WCW, and the Alliance vowed to destroy both Sting and the promotion he was the face of. At the same time, Sting was being targeted by Luger, who had once again turned heel and, as WCW Champion, viewed Sting as a threat. Sting engaged in many matches with Dangerous Alliance members, especially Rude, who was the group's biggest star. It was during this feud that Sting won the first of his six WCW World Heavyweight Championships, defeating Luger on February 29, 1992, at SuperBrawl II. The feud ended when Sting formed Sting's Squadron, consisting of allies Ricky Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes, Windham, and Koloff, and defeated the Alliance (Rude, Austin, Arn Anderson, Zbyszko, and Bobby Eaton) in a |
1898_22 | WarGames match at WrestleWar in May 1992. Dave Meltzer awarded the match his highest rating of five stars. |
1898_23 | Near the end of Sting's battles with the Dangerous Alliance, the seeds were sown for what became arguably one of the most famous feuds of Sting's career. Sting defended his WCW World title on April 12, 1992, at The Omni in Atlanta against the 450-pound Big Van Vader. During the match, Vader splashed Sting, cracking three of Sting's ribs and rupturing his spleen. Sting recovered and defended his title on July 12 against Vader at The Great American Bash, dropping the belt to Big Van Vader after missing a Stinger Splash, hitting his head on the ring post, and receiving a powerbomb. After beating Cactus Jack in a Falls Count Anywhere Match at Beach Blast and WCW newcomer Jake Roberts in a Coal Miner's Glove match at Halloween Havoc, Sting defeated Vader, who had lost the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in August, in the "King of Cable" tournament final at Starrcade. |
1898_24 | The Sting-Vader feud continued into 1993, with Vader, who was again WCW World Heavyweight Champion, defeating Sting in a bloody Strap match at SuperBrawl III. Sting exacted revenge by beating Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on March 11 in London, England, but lost it back to Vader six days later in Dublin, Ireland. Sting then teamed with WCW newcomer Davey Boy Smith to beat the team of Vader and Vicious at Beach Blast in a match that was set up by a mini-movie in which an evil midget blew up Sting's boat. At the end of 1993, Sting was one of the first people to congratulate Flair, who had just returned from the World Wrestling Federation, after his WCW World Heavyweight Title victory over Vader at Starrcade. |
1898_25 | WCW International World Heavyweight Champion (1994–1995) |
1898_26 | Sting feuded with Vader and Rude through the first half of 1994. Sting won the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship from Rude in April. Rude recaptured the title on May 1 at Wrestling Dontaku 1994 in Japan, but the decision was reversed because Rude had allegedly hit Sting with the title belt during the match; this was to cover for a real-life back injury Rude sustained in the match that forced Rude into retirement. Sting refused to have the title handed to him and instead defeated Vader for the vacant WCW International World Heavyweight Championship at Slamboree. Soon afterward, Flair defeated Sting in a title unification match at Clash of the Champions XXVII, turning heel in the final moments of the match when Sensuous Sherri turned on Sting and took Flair's side. Sting spent the second half of 1994 and most of 1995 teaming with new arrival Hulk Hogan in his battles against Kevin Sullivan's Three Faces of Fear and its successor stable, The Dungeon of Doom. |
1898_27 | At The Great American Bash 1995, Sting defeated Meng to win another tournament for the WCW United States Championship. Sting defeated Meng in a rematch for the title at Bash at the Beach 1995. Sting was on the first-ever Monday Nitro in a match where Flair defeated Sting by disqualification as a result of a run-in by Arn Anderson to attack Flair. At Fall Brawl, Sting teamed with Hogan, Luger, and Randy Savage to defeat the Dungeon of Doom, consisting of Kamala, Zodiac, Shark and Meng, in the event's WarGames match. In October 1995, Flair convinced Sting to team with him in a match against Anderson and Brian Pillman at Halloween Havoc. Anderson and Pillman had attacked Flair earlier in the night, rendering Flair unable to come out for the first part of the match. Sting fended off his opponents until Flair emerged. Later in the match, Flair turned on Sting and reformed the Four Horsemen with Anderson and Pillman, later adding Chris Benoit to fill out the group. |
1898_28 | Sting defeated Flair on a subsequent Nitro with the Scorpion Deathlock, refusing to let go until Luger persuaded him to do so. Sting defeated Flair again at the World War 3 pay-per-view. Later in the night, Sting competed in the World War 3 battle royal for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, which was won by Savage. Sting's alliances with Hogan and Savage led the Horsemen to attack them as well. Sting's second U.S. title reign lasted until November 13, when he was defeated by Kensuke Sasaki in Japan. At Starrcade, Sting defeated Sasaki, representing New Japan Pro-Wrestling, in a non-title match to win the World Cup of Wrestling for WCW. In the next match that night, Sting lost a Triangle match involving Flair and Luger; Flair won by count-out to become number one contender for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, which Flair won from Savage in the next match.
Feud with the New World Order (1996–1998) |
1898_29 | Early in 1996, Sting's appearance started to change: he grew longer, darker hair, replacing his blond flattop haircut, and he often wore black tights with a multi-colored scorpion, although he occasionally wore his colorful ones and maintained his colorful face paint. Sting teamed with his old friend Luger, who had returned to WCW from WWF in September 1995, despite Luger's standing as a heel. The duo beat Harlem Heat for the WCW World Tag Team Championship on the January 22 edition of Nitro. The team often retained the championship as a result of Luger's cheating tactics, to which Sting remained oblivious. When Luger was temporarily unavailable for WCW Uncensored in March, Harlem Heat member Booker T teamed up with Sting to successfully prevent the title from changing hands. Sting and Booker T developed a mutual respect that showed itself when Sting and Luger granted Harlem Heat a rematch. During the Tag title run, Sting received a World title shot against The Giant at Slamboree in |
1898_30 | May, but lost after accidental interference from Luger. Harlem Heat eventually won the titles back on the June 24 edition of Nitro. |
1898_31 | In the summer of 1996, Sting was the first to stand up to The Outsiders: Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who had recently competed in the WWF and whose alliances and agenda were unclear, had been infiltrating and causing chaos at WCW events. Sting teamed with Luger and Savage to defend WCW against Hall, Nash, and a mysterious third Outsider to be revealed at the Bash at the Beach. Hall and Nash started the bout without their third partner, but the WCW's temporary three-on-two advantage was short-lived: Luger left the match after he was accidentally injured by a mistimed Stinger Splash. The two-on-two match continued while Hogan, who had been a face character for nearly fifteen years, emerged at ringside. Hogan appeared ready to back up the WCW wrestlers until he attacked Savage with his leg drop finisher in one of wrestling's most famous swerves. The match was ruled a no-contest, and Hall, Nash, and Hogan declared a new world order in professional wrestling. The name stuck and Sting became |
1898_32 | one of WCW's stalwarts against the New World Order, or nWo for short. |
1898_33 | As part of this, Sting and Luger went up to rivals and Four Horsemen members Ric Flair and Arn Anderson some time after Bash at the Beach and asked them to team with him, saying that they needed to put aside their differences for the good of WCW. Flair and Anderson agreed and the four wrestlers composed Team WCW for the annual WarGames match at Fall Brawl in September 1996. They would be facing the nWo's team of Hall, Nash, Hogan, and a fourth member yet to be determined. On the Nitro prior to the event, however, the nWo played a trick on WCW claiming that Sting was joining their side. A vignette was shown where the nWo had a recording of Sting's voice playing in its limousine as Luger was being lured into the parking lot. Once he was there a man dressed as Sting, played by Jeff Farmer, attacked him and the crowd at home was led to believe that Sting had joined up with the nWo and would be their fourth man against what was now a three-man WCW team. Sting, however, was not at that |
1898_34 | edition of Nitro and showed up at Fall Brawl just as his teammates declared that they would face the nWo by themselves. Sting told Luger that he did not attack him, but Luger refused to believe him. Later, during the match, Sting entered as the fourth and final man for Team WCW, after the impostor Sting had entered for the nWo. Once in the ring, Sting immediately took out all four members of the nWo. He then stopped, turned to Luger, and angrily said to him, "Is that good enough for you right there? Is that proof enough?" Sting then gave Luger an obscene gesture and walked out of the match, leaving Team WCW at a four-on-three disadvantage which they did not overcome. The next night on Nitro, Sting came out unannounced during the middle of the show with no music or entrance pyrotechnics. He entered the ring and, with his back turned to the camera side of the audience, launched into an angry tirade about what had transpired over the last week: |
1898_35 | Declaring he would visit "from time to time", Sting threw the microphone down and left the ring. Days after the infamous promo, he was booked for shows in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, to take part in the Japan/U.S. Superstars Tournament, where he defeated Masahiro Chono in the first round, but was eliminated in the second round by Shiro Koshinaka. His last match of 1996 took place on September 23 at the Yokohama Arena, where he and Lex Luger teamed up to defeat Arn Anderson and Steven Regal. It would end up being his last tour of Japan. On the October 21, 1996, edition of Nitro, Sting returned for the first time since the night after Fall Brawl. In a match where the impostor Sting was wrestling Mr. JL, Sting emerged wearing a trench coat and white face paint with black marks around his eyes. He went in the ring and attacked nWo Sting (who was still imitating Sting's old mannerisms at this point) with his new finisher, the Scorpion Death Drop inverted DDT, two jumping elbow drops, a |
1898_36 | Stinger Splash and a Scorpion Deathlock while the rest of the nWo came to ringside. Rather than intervene, they simply stood by and watched. After Sting was done, Ted DiBiase and Kevin Nash came into the ring and made Sting an offer to join the nWo and get back at WCW for betraying him. Sting, after a pause, first called out the nWo Sting as a "cheap imitation," before telling the nWo, "the real Sting may or may not be in your price range," and then concluded by saying "the only thing that's for sure about Sting is that nothing's for sure". With that, Sting left the ring and would not speak (on mic) on WCW programming again for over a year. After this a silent, almost ghostly Sting, carrying a baseball bat as a weapon, began appearing in the rafters at WCW events and began painting his entire face with black and white corpse paint. Sting's new gimmick was inspired by the 1994 film The Crow. In retaliation, nWo Sting, who was still imitating Borden, began painting his face this way as |
1898_37 | well. While appearing on a WCW/nWo merchandise special on QVC Sports in late 1999, Borden admitted that Scott Hall had initially suggested the idea of painting his face like the character of Eric Draven from The Crow. Sting maintains aspects of his "Crow" persona to date, occasionally with different designs and use of color of the face paint. |
1898_38 | In a series of unusual loyalty tests over the next months, Sting would confront a WCW wrestler in the ring and shove the wrestler several times with his bat until the wrestler was provoked enough to advance on him. Then Sting would draw the weapon back as if he were going to assault him, causing the wrestler to stop. Sting would hand the bat to the offended wrestler and turn his back, offering the wrestler a chance at retaliation. When the wrestler hesitated or declined, Sting would nod, retrieve the bat and leave the ring. In January 1997, a "blackballed" Randy Savage returned to WCW for the first time since Halloween Havoc and aligned himself with Sting as a "free agent" as he refused to join the nWo although WCW Vice President Eric Bischoff, also one of the leaders of the nWo, declared he would not be allowed back in WCW if he didn't. For the next few weeks, the two were seen in the rafters together and coming to the ring together. This story, however, petered out at SuperBrawl VII |
1898_39 | in February; Sting and Savage had come to the ring together to watch Roddy Piper face Hogan in a match for the WCW world title. As Sting left, Savage went to the ring and helped Hogan win the match, thus going back on his word and joining the nWo. Over the next couple of weeks, Sting would accompany the nWo, indicating that he too joined the group. However, at WCW Uncensored in March 1997, as the nWo celebrated a victory in the main event battle royal which guaranteed them title shots whenever they desired with their newest recruit, Chicago Bulls NBA star Dennis Rodman, Sting rappelled from the roof of the arena on a vertical zip-line. When Hall and Nash went to approach him, Sting attacked them and Randy Savage when he tried to intervene, revealing his allegiance to WCW. |
1898_40 | In subsequent weeks, Sting frequently rappelled from the rafters or came up through the ring to attack unsuspecting nWo members, came to the aid of wrestlers once subjected to his loyalty test as they battled the nWo, and employed decoy "Stings" to play mind games with the nWo during the closing segments of Nitro. Sting's appearances to fight the nWo at the end of almost every Nitro helped WCW keep and widen its television ratings advantage over the WWF's Monday Night Raw throughout the summer. On-screen WCW commissioner James J. Dillon tried many times to get Sting to return to wrestling by making contracts to fight various nWo members. Sting, however, did not accept any of the contracts, often tearing them up in Dillon's face. A confused Dillon then asked Sting who he wanted on one edition of Nitro, and Sting went out to ringside, picked up a fan's sign, and pointed out one name on it: Hogan. Eventually, Sting got his wish and he and Hogan finally met in December at Starrcade for |
1898_41 | the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The finish of the match was supposed to echo the Montreal Screwjob finish that the WWF had used to double-cross Bret Hart just one month earlier at their annual Survivor Series event. Nick Patrick, the referee for the contest, was supposed to execute a fast count on Sting while Hart, whose signing with WCW was the linchpin for the Montreal Screwjob, would come out to protest the decision and, since he had already served as the guest referee for the match between Larry Zbyszko and Eric Bischoff earlier that evening, order the match to be restarted and Sting would emerge victorious by forcing Hogan to submit to the Scorpion Death Lock. However, Patrick did not do his part properly and instead counted the pin at normal speed, which added an unintentional level of controversy to the finish. |
1898_42 | The next night on Nitro, Hogan protested the decision claiming that Patrick's decision should have been considered final and a rematch was granted. The match ran over Nitro's allotted time slot and the finish was aired later in the week on the inaugural episode of Thunder. Similar to the Starrcade result, two different referees declared the two different men as the winner. Later that night, Dillon vacated the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, forcing Sting to surrender the belt. Sting responded with his first words (on mic) since October 1996 when he told Dillon, "You've got no guts!" Sting turned to Hogan and said, "And you... You're a dead man!".
The Wolfpac (1998–1999) |
1898_43 | As 1998 began, the nWo began to splinter. Sting recaptured the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship in February at SuperBrawl VIII with the help of Savage, who was beginning to split from the nWo. Sting went on to successfully defend the title against the likes of Hall, Nash, and Diamond Dallas Page (DDP). Like Savage, Nash began to pull away from the Hogan-dominated nWo, and Nash helped Savage beat Sting for the championship at Spring Stampede in April. Nash and Savage officially split from the original nWo on May 4, forming the face group nWo Wolfpac, while Hogan's heel faction became identified as nWo Hollywood. The two nWo factions vied for Sting's allegiance, with Sting's friends The Giant joining nWo Hollywood and Luger joining nWo Wolfpac. Sting seemed to have joined nWo Hollywood when he appeared wearing a black and white nWo shirt, but he soon tore off the shirt to reveal the red and black of the nWo Wolfpac. Sting began wearing red and black face paint and tights as a |
1898_44 | member of nWo Wolfpac. |
1898_45 | Sting and The Giant won the WCW World Tag Team Championship at Slamboree in May when Hall turned on his teammate Nash. Sting and The Giant also split, and the team was forced to vacate the title 18 days later. Sting then defeated The Giant at The Great American Bash in June to take control of the Tag Team titles and chose Nash as his partner. Throughout the summer, Sting and fellow nWo Wolfpac members Nash, Luger, and Konnan feuded with Hogan and nWo Hollywood. Sting also got involved in a feud with Bret Hart over their similar finishing holds, the Sharpshooter and the Scorpion Deathlock. Hart cost Sting and Nash the Tag titles by interfering in their match with Hall and The Giant on the July 20 Nitro. Sting and Hart squared off at Halloween Havoc, where Hart, the United States Champion, attacked Sting with a baseball bat, putting Sting out of action for several months. Ironically, Hart would eventually be pinned by Sting after he himself fell afoul of a baseball bat, wielded by Lex |
1898_46 | Luger, eleven months later. |
1898_47 | Sting returned to Nitro in March 1999, sporting the black and white Crow-inspired attire he debuted in 1996 and began to participate in more mic work. By this time, the nWo storyline had faded, and Sting was not aligned with any of its factions. Sting competed in the main event of April's Spring Stampede, a Four Corners match for the World Championship, against Hogan, DDP, and champion Flair. Savage served as special guest referee and delivered a diving elbow drop to help DDP win the match and the title. |
1898_48 | Final world title reigns (1999–2000)
Sting defeated Page on the April 26 edition of Nitro to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship for the fifth time. Later that night, Sting defended the title in a four-way match featuring DDP, Goldberg, and a returning Nash. DDP pinned Nash, allowing DDP to win the title without directly beating Sting. Sting's 90-minute reign was only the second shortest WCW World Heavyweight Championship reign in WCW history. Sting lost to Rick Steiner in a Falls Count Anywhere match at The Great American Bash after he was attacked by Steiner's three pet dogs backstage and Steiner forced the referee to prematurely declare himself the victor, claiming his dogs had pinned Sting for him. |
1898_49 | Over the next several months, Sting feuded with Goldberg, Rick Steiner, Vicious, and Savage. Sting teamed with WCW World Heavyweight Champion Nash at the Bash at the Beach in July to take on Vicious and Savage of Team Madness. Savage pinned Nash and won the World title as a result. Hogan returned from injury on July 12 as a face to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Sting defeated Flair on the July 19 edition of Nitro to become the on-screen president of WCW. Later that night, Nash turned heel by attacking Hogan during a title defense against Vicious. Sting remained president for just one week and used his power to book a main event pitting Hogan and himself against Nash and Vicious. Sting vacated the presidency the following week because he only wanted Flair out of the position rather than wanting the power for himself. Along with Goldberg, Sting and Hogan feuded with Nash, Vicious and Rick Steiner for the next month. |
1898_50 | Sting began to question Hogan's trustworthiness and credibility in the weeks leading up to Fall Brawl. At the September pay-per-view, Luger brought a baseball bat to the ring and Sting used it to beat Hogan for his sixth and final WCW World Heavyweight Championship, turning heel for the first time in WCW. Sting's heel turn and subsequent attitude change did not resonate with the WCW fans. They still cheered Sting despite the fact he was supposed to be the villain (reminiscent of The Road Warriors' heel turn in late 1988). It was during this heel turn that Sting and Luger, with helpful interference from DDP, defeated supposed faces Hogan and Hart in a tag-match, Sting pinning Hart after Luger hit him with a bat. Then, at Halloween Havoc, Sting retained the WCW World Heavyweight title against Hogan after Hogan entered the ring in street clothes and laid down for Sting to pin him. After the match, Sting sounded his disdain of the result and issued an open challenge for later tonight. |
1898_51 | Later that night, Sting lost an unsanctioned match to Goldberg, who accepted his open challenge and then attacked referee Charles Robinson. Sting was stripped of the title the next night for attacking the official. |
1898_52 | Sting entered the 32-man tournament that was set up to award the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Sting defeated Brian Knobs, Meng, and Luger to reach the semi-finals to be held at WCW Mayhem. At the November event, Sting lost to Hart, the eventual winner of the tournament, by disqualification after ostensibly "bungled" interference by Luger (in fact payback for Sting's quarterfinal win). This led to a falling out with Luger. However, Hart asked for an immediate rematch, which was granted, and won by submission to advance to the final. After the match, Sting shook hands with Hart in a sign of respect, turning face again. Sting sought revenge against Luger the next month at Starrcade. Sting won by disqualification when Luger and Miss Elizabeth assaulted Sting with a steel chair and baseball bat, putting Sting out of action for some time. Sting ended his feud with Luger by defeating him in a Lumberjacks with Casts match at Uncensored the following March. |
1898_53 | Last feuds and contract expiration (2000–2002)
WCW officials Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff, in an attempt to save the fading company, rebooted the storylines on April 10, 2000, and declared all titles vacant. At Spring Stampede the following week, Sting advanced to the finals of the United States Championship tournament by defeating Booker T and Vampiro in the first two rounds. Vampiro cost Sting the championship in the finals against Scott Steiner, leading to an intense feud between Sting and Vampiro. Sting pinned Vampiro at Slamboree in May, and Vampiro beat Sting in a Human Torch match at The Great American Bash the next month; for the climax of the match, Borden switched with a stuntman, who was set on fire and thrown off the top of the frame of the stage's entrance video screen. At Bash at the Beach, he returned wearing another Sting mask as men wearing cloaks and Sting masks carried him in a casket, and then he attacked Vampiro. |
1898_54 | Sting went on to feud with Jeff Jarrett and then Scott Steiner. Steiner attacked and injured Sting in November 2000. Sting stayed off WCW programming until the final episode of Nitro on March 26, 2001. WCW had been purchased by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and the final match in WCW history pitted Sting against his longtime rival Flair; the two had also competed on the very first edition of Nitro on September 4, 1995. Sting defeated Flair and the two embraced at the end of the contest.
After the WWF did not buy out Sting's contract with AOL Time Warner, he rejected a buyout offer of 50 cents on the dollar from AOL Time Warner, instead waiting until his contract expired in March 2002 (he announced a short-lived retirement in February of that year). Borden then entered into contract negotiations with the WWF, but ultimately did not join the promotion. |
1898_55 | World Wrestling All-Stars (2002–2003)
In 2002, after over a year and a half of hiatus, Borden toured Europe with the World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) promotion throughout November and December. His first match in the WWA took place on November 28, 2002, in Dublin, Ireland, where he reunited with Lex Luger to defeat Buff Bagwell and Malice. At The Retribution on December 6, 2002 in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, Sting lost to Luger in a bout for the vacant WWA World Heavyweight Championship. Sting defeated Luger to claim the WWA World Heavyweight Championship in Zurich, Switzerland, on December 13.
Sting embarked on a second tour with WWA in May 2003, successfully defending his championship against Rick Steiner, Shane Douglas, and Disco Inferno. The WWA held its final show, The Reckoning, on May 25 in Auckland, New Zealand, where NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett defeated Sting for the WWA World Heavyweight Championship, unifying the two championships. |
1898_56 | Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2003–2014)
Sporadic appearances (2003–2004) |
1898_57 | In 2003, Sting signed a contract committing him to four appearances with the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion. He debuted in TNA on the June 18 one year anniversary show, teaming with Jeff Jarrett to defeat A.J. Styles and Syxx Pac. Following this, Borden engaged in a comprehensive series of sitdown interviews with Mike Tenay, discussing his career and his faith. Sting returned to TNA on November 5, 2003, defeating Jarrett by disqualification in a match for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. On November 12, Sting teamed with A.J. Styles to defeat Jarrett and Lex Luger. He made his final TNA appearance of 2003 on December 17, defeating Jarrett in a non-title match. On March 24, 2004, Borden was interviewed once again by Mike Tenay as part of the promotion for his direct-to-video biographical film, Sting: Moment of Truth, and on March 31, he returned to the company for one night only as the special guest enforcer for the main-event, a four-way match between Abyss, |
1898_58 | A.J. Styles, Raven, and Ron Killings, which Raven won. |
1898_59 | Feud with Jeff Jarrett (2005–2006)
On December 11, 2005, at Turning Point, as Jeff Jarrett stood in the ring celebrating his victory, the lights in the arena went out as images of a scorpion—Sting's symbol— appeared on the arena screens, along with the date "January 15, 2006". Spotlights then illuminated the ring, revealing a chair bearing Sting's signature trench coat, boots, and a black baseball bat in the center of the ring. His return to TNA was officially announced one minute after midnight on the January 1, 2006 episode of Impact!. On January 15 at Final Resolution, Sting and Christian Cage defeated NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett and Monty Brown in a tag team match after Sting pinned Jarrett. On the January 28, 2006 episode of Impact!, Sting made his Spike TV debut and first appearance on national television in almost five years, announcing his retirement. |
1898_60 | With Sting gone, the storyline continued with Jeff Jarrett and Eric Young worrying that Sting had not actually retired and sending Alex Shelley to California to videotape Sting at home. Sting discovered Shelley filming, then walked up to Shelley's car and told him that he was going to show up at Destination X and confront Jeff Jarrett as Steve Borden. Clad in "street clothes" and without face paint Borden returned on March 12 at Destination X, saving Christian Cage and Rhino as they were attacked by Jarrett's Army. He placed Jarrett in the Scorpion Deathlock, but was attacked by the debuting Scott Steiner shortly thereafter. This led to a Lethal Lockdown match between Sting, A.J. Styles, Ron Killings, and Rhino against Jarrett's Army. On April 23 at Lockdown, Sting's team won the match. Following Lockdown, Sting proceeded to seek out partners to help him defeat Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner for good. After bringing out Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell, and Rick Steiner as options, he settled |
1898_61 | on Samoa Joe. On May 14 at Sacrifice, Sting and Joe defeated Jarrett and Steiner after Joe pinned Jarrett with a Muscle Buster. Still having proven unsuccessful at putting Jarrett away, Sting defeated Scott Steiner by disqualification to earn a spot in the King of the Mountain match at Slammiversary on June 18. Due to a confrontation with Christian Cage during the match, Sting was distracted, which allowed crooked referee Earl Hebner to knock over the ladder both were on, sending both men to the floor and allow Jarrett to pick up the victory. |
1898_62 | On July 16 at Victory Road, Sting won a four-way to win a title shot for Jarrett's NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Sting received his title shot on August 13 at Hard Justice, but failed to capture the title after Christian Cage turned heel and hit Sting with Jarrett's guitar. He would have another match at Bound for Glory, where Sting put his career on the line. He went on to claim his second NWA World Heavyweight title when he made Jarrett submit to the Scorpion Deathlock marking the first major championship title Sting had won since 1999. With that victory, Sting became the oldest NWA World Heavyweight Champion of the TNA era, as well as the only person to ever win the title both before and after the inception of TNA. This would also go on to make Sting the longest superstar to recapture his second NWA title from 1990 to 2006 (16 years). |
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