Surfer Sting To Crow Sting (30 Years Later)

 It always amazes me how much time flies in this world and today's subject is no different. One of the more positive influences in my life and that is a professional wrestler named Sting.

30 Years ago, was an interesting time in the life of a young Joshua and I was in the mix of watching pro wrestling during the 1990s and it was also a major turning point in the career of Sting. Of course it is much easier to look back today and see how much of this amazing character change was for Sting and really pro wrestling.

By this point in my wrestling joy, was seeing Sting who at the time was a mostly blonde hair and was tag teaming with his buddy Lex Luger. And honestly, I do not think these two get enough credit of how great of a tag team they were.

But also happening at this time of professional wrestling, was a storyline that ultimately tipped the scales in the favor of one WCW during the Monday Night War and it was the NWO.

The NWO was a major driving force in professional wrestling and changed the way business is today. Whether it was good or bad is a story for another time.

To me, Sting was the hero of WCW and he certainly was a hero to me. But looking back on it, you can see the shift of where we were at as a society, for better or for worse. Society was becoming much rougher and it was cool to be bad.

As a little kid, I was confused with actually what was going on and looking back on it as adult, I was completely impressed with Sting's transformation. Plus, I love how relatable it was for me back then and especially nowadays.

WCW was all about honor and respect of traditional wrestling that had dated back since the days of the NWA. So seeing the NWO destroy what was once sacred was a complete shock to me and several other wrestling fans, many of which had more experience than me.

Seeing Sting struggle with that really saddened me as a kid and it especially got worse when the NWO made fans believe that Sting had turned on them despite Sting telling everybody that it was not him. Sadly, nobody would believe him.

It all came to ahead in September of 1996 during the Fall Brawl pay-per-view event where Sting along with Luger, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson against the NWO. During the match, the NWO had their version of "Sting" come out and attack the other members of WCW, only for the real Sting to show up and clean house so to speak. However, Sting left the cage afterwards which in turn allow the NWO to win the War Games match.

The following night on Nitro, the Stinger appeared and basically vented his frustration about how much effort he put into this company, everybody just simply abandoned him and declared himself a free agent only to show every once in a while when no one expected it. 

From there on, Sting donned the name famous Crow look that many of us see today. In fact, after speaking with the NWO and told the world that the only thing for sure about Sting was that nothing is for sure. It ended up being two years later until we heard the sound of Sting's voice again.

Since then, Sting has been retired from pro wrestling, which I hope and pray he is enjoying it. This story has always stuck with me for many reasons but I will try my best to keep it simple.

As a kid, I was mind blown at Sting's transformation, it reminded me of the story The Crow. Which was ironic because that was exactly where they got the idea from and I dare say, it was one of the best tellings of The Crow story outside of the original book and movie which is just my humble opinion.

And like I said before, it made an impact on a lot of us because who didn't want to bring justice to a bunch of thugs who needed a good butt kicking.

Plus also, the feeling of betrayal that was displayed in the early part of the Crow Sting was amazingly done because of Sting being the guy for WCW for so long only to be taken away from the NWO as well as some fans thinking it was cool, like being a good person was somehow a terrible thing for some strange reason.

Now that I am older, I have really learned to appreciate it more than ever, the effort by all of those involved in this epic story and 1996 was the genesis of it all.

Again, this all was the begin, 1997 would end up being one of my personal favorite years of wrestling and Sting would really become a megastar, superhero.

Congrats to you Sting! Thank you so much being an inspiration to us all! God Bless you and your family!

Until Next Time!

God Bless and Be Safe Everybody! 🙏🙏🙏