The night Sting wrestled two matches on Raw, and a look at his entire WWE run

This is a script for my YouTube channel, the video version can be found here: https://youtu.be/qksFUuZ5ePE

On September 14th 2015 WWE presented Raw from Memphis Tennessee. On this night, Sting would wrestle his first and last match on WWE's flagship show, something even I an avid Sting fan, had completely forgotten about. But first, a brief history of how the Icon came to join WWE after many years of doubt and speculation.

Throughout Stings entire run with TNA, which started in 2005 on a full time basis and ended in 2014, he had been signed to one year contracts that expired around December time. Because of this every December there would be speculation that Sting might not renew his contract, and would go to WWE and have his much wanted clash with the Undertaker. Behind the scenes Sting was very concerned about how WWE would treat him, for reasons I explained in an early video on this channel (https://youtu.be/nr7Xx62f6jE), and put it off for many years. In 2014, Sting left the now renamed Impact Wrestling having lost a title vs career match to then champion EC3. This was likely due to Impact trying to cut their costs, as AJ Styles also left around this time due to being offered a new contract with insultingly less money on the page.

Throughout 2014 Sting began appearing in WWE through, but not directly. He appeared in a documentary about the recently passed Ultimate Warrior, who Sting was a tag team partner with in their early careers. In September WWE released a DVD called 'The Best of Sting.' Before the WWE Network best of and documentary DVD's were monthly releases, but they became irrelevant as the library on the network gradually grew. In October, 2K released WWE 2K15, in which Sting was a pre-order bonus. Despite all of this interaction between Sting and WWE, it still didn't feel like we would ever see the Icon in a live WWE setting, but that would change at Survivor Series.

In the main of Survivor Series 2014, a group of heroes aligned to face the evil Authority, led by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. That feels like a weird thing to say aloud in 2022. If the good guys won the Authority would lose their power having terrorised Raw for over a year at this point.By the end all that remained was Dolph Ziggler against the Authorities chosen one, Seth Rollins. Dolph got so close to winning that Triple H who wasn't in the match got involved, hitting Ziggler with a Pedigree. Just then the lights went out, and after a few tense seconds we hear a crow, and see the familiar pained face of the the man called Sting.

As much as I love the way Sting made his WWE debut, I don't like to complain but there is one thing that has always bugged me about this moment. Stings appearance was supposed to be a complete surprise, and Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler on commentary do a good job of presenting this, but everyones best mate JBL launches into a long list of Stings World championships, reeling it off as if reading a script. Sadly this kind of hurts the shock of this moment for me, despite everything else working so well. Triple H sells his surprise extremely well also, despite behind the scenes having been a key figure in bringing Sting in.

Alas, the Icon enters the ring to a deafening pop from the crowd, and stand up to the Game. Triple H attempts to strike first, but falls victim to the Scorpion Death Drop. Sting then pulls the apparently dead Dolph Zigglers arm over the apparently deader Seth Rollins, and a referee enters to count the three. On his way out of the ring, Sting gives a fallen and soon to re-employed Triple H a glare, and takes his leave. Over the following weeks Sting would be rebranded with a new nickname, "the vigilante", playing off his history of being the man who turned the tide for WCW against the nWo back in the 90's,

Stings debut eventually leads to a match at Wrestlemania 31, where Triple H would defeat Sting. At the time I loved this match purely because I was thrilled to see Sting at Wrestlemania, but looking back I can't abide it. The seeds were planted when promotion for the match kept harkening back to Stings WCW days a bit too much. They put a little too much effort into turning the story into WWE vs WCW, 14 years after that company folded. You could argue that they did this because Sting was the last of all the main event wrestlers associated with WCW to join WWE, with most arriving throughout the early 2000's to very mixed results. Some fit in perfectly like Booker T and Rey Mysterio, and some were dealt a raw deal like DDP and Scott Steiner. The match between Triple H and Sting became the final nail in the coffin for WCW. Part way through the match as soon as Sting locked in the Scorpion Deathlock, D-Generation X's music hit, and Road Dogg, Billy Gunn and X-Pac hit the ring. Soon after the nWo's music plays, and Hogan, Hall and Nash run in to help Sting. Any long time WCW fan would point out that while Sting did have a run in the red and black version of the nWo, it was the original version led by Hogan, Hall and Nash that Sting rebelled against, so it felt jarring that the nWo were even involved. Once Triple H had won it seemed like Sting might be done, until he made a surprising return.

On the August 24th 2015 Raw, The Authorities chosen champion Seth Rollins demanded a statue be made of him similar to the ones to honour Andre the Giant and Dusty Rhodes among others. That statue was due to be unveiled on this night, celebrating his victory over John Cena at Summerslam on the previous night. When the curtain was raised however, the statue wasn't there. Sting was. Triple H and Stephanie acted like they had seen a ghost while Sting went after Rollins, and then raised up the WWE championship belt. This led many to question what had happened to the statue, which WWE eventually addressed on the September 7th Raw, when Sting destroyed the statue by pushing it into a trash compactor. This would lead to Stings final WWE match against Rollins for the WWE title at Night of Champions, but before that Sting would wrestle on Raw, remember what this video was originally about...

On the September 14th Raw Sting was due to face the Authorities hired gun, the Big Show. This felt like a fitting pairing, as Sting and Big Show would have known each other since Shows early days in WCW as the Giant in the mid 90's. The match would last about a minute though, as Seth would run in to attack the Vigilante. Technically Stings Raw in ring debut would last just over a minute, and he would win by DQ, before John Cena would run in to save Sting. Not content with this development, Triple H would book a tag team match with Sting and Cena facing Show and Rollins right now.  Most of this fairly short TV main event is John Cena playing good guy in peril, trying to make the tag to Sting. This match was the final build before the Night of Champions pay per view, where Rollins was due to defend his US title against Cena, then the World title against Sting later on. At the time WWE caught a little bit of flask for this, as this was the exact same storyline that Ring of Honor was doing its World and Television champion Jay Lethal, although the details of both stories were slightly different. The Big Show would make a crucial error in this match, going for his Vader Bomb and missing, allowing Cena to tag in Sting, who runs wild. He quickly runs through his trademark moves, before making Seth tap out to the Scorpion Deathlock.

Sadly Stings WWE career would begin with a bang and end with a whimper, as during the match with Rollins, he took a powerbomb into the turnbuckle that would injure the Icon, so much so it looked like he would never wrestle again. That would last until December of 2020, when Sting would make his surprising debut in All Elite Wrestling. By February Sting along with his new protege Darby Allin would be taking part in cinematic matches, and would later take part in live in ring matches, always teaming with Darby to take the pressure off him a bit. At the time of writing this, Sting last competed at All Out 2022, and there seems to be no clear end in sight for the Icon that has transcended generations.