Gimmick Some (Wrestlemania) Lovin': Sting is Back

The Hiatus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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