Armchair Bookers:What if Sting...

[Zack Malibu 0]

Cross-posted from The Pit, as always.

 

Trying another one of these, since between me, Kamala and Dandy, they seem to drum up some interest. Also, the last time I did one of these (with the Radicalz going back to ECW) too many people jumped with "Heyman couldn't afford them, they'd be back in the WWE". It's fantasy booking people...if you had the option of having these guys on your roster in a fantasy world, would you still be willing and able to give them over to a competitor?

 

I digress though. The topic this time again takes a rumored event and we can see what you guys would have done with it. It was known that if Hogan had opted to not get involved in the Outsiders angle at the '96 Bash At The Beach that having Sting turn was going to be the backup plan, as they felt Luger would have been too obvious. So, faithful posters, what would you have done if Hogan did indeed refuse to join up with Hall and Nash? How would you have turned Sting? What would his motivation have been? Would the rest of the NWO group have been the same, or would there be different members. Obviously with this, we'd also have had no Fake Sting angle or Sting's resurgence with his new Crow look, so who would you have pitted them against? Would Hogan have remained the stale red and yellow babyface through all this?

 

Let the discussion commence.

[Maztinho 0]

I thought DDP was the initial third party they had in mind since he had a history managing both Hall and Nash, but they went with Hogan.

 

Personally if Sting had turned, I don't think it would have been as big, or as memorable. I remember being one of a handful of guys that openly admitted to watching wrestling, so when the Hogan turn went down I got asked all the next day about it, "Was it true? Did Hogan go bad?"

 

Sting in that role wouldn't have had the over all impact, and Hogan would have had to be the savior he always was. The storyline ends after a couple of months, and the Monday Night Wars never happen.

[Zack Malibu 0]

DDP was nowhere near the angle at that point, and was not taken seriously as anything more than a midcard guy. The original plan for him was to play the destitute gimmick for a bit until someone (rumored to be either Flair or Ted DiBiase) was revealed as his benefactor. Obviously with the Horsemen going tweener/face for the NWO angle and with DiBiase revealed to be the money man behind them, neither worked out. Feuding with the NWO made his career.

[cabbageboy 0]

The Monday Night War had been ongoing since Labor Day in 1995...the NWO just put WCW over the top for a while.

 

Anyway, Sting as a heel would have had no real shot at being over. What reason would he have for turning? The initial NWO guys all had that previous WWF connection so as to come off like invaders or moles. Sting just didn't fit that at all and he can't play heel worth a crap anyway.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The nWo would have been dead by the end of the year. Sting didn't fit in with that group at all, and he has never been able to get over as a heel. Luger would have been the proper choice, despite the predictability. He had been acting heelish for some time, but more importantly unlike lifetime WCW wrestler Sting, he had just spent the better part of the 90s with the WWF as one of its biggest stars during the same period Hall & Nash were there and had only been back to WCW for a few months.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah Luger would have been a better choice than Sting since at least he can play heel, but that is like saying Luger would have been a base hit to right field, while Hogan hit a home run in the same heel role.

 

Thing is, would the NWO angle tanking have been a bad thing necessarily? WCW would have been forced to think of something else pronto and likely would still be in business.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Thing is, would the NWO angle tanking have been a bad thing necessarily?

 

Yes yes it would have. Now would ending the angle a good year or so earlier than in reality be a bad thing? No.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I wouldn't even go that far. Now probably Sting should have put an end to the angle after Starrcade 1997, but fortunately WCW lucked into another chance with Goldberg. Had they ended it with Goldberg demolishing them leading up to Hogan in 1998 things would have turned out very well. But after they ruined Goldberg the company was never again able to build a true top face.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

They could have had Sting end the angle at Starrcade 1997 then you can move on to have main events consisting of Sting, Hogan, Nash, Hart, Flair, etc, and bring Goldberg up throughout 1998 against those guys individually. I think you can get more mileage out of everyone this way, rather than have it always be NWO vs someone.

[cabbageboy 0]

I maintain that the NWO in the long run wrecked the promotion, which is ironic since that was their goal in storyline. If it had been a marginal angle that they had blown off at Starrcade 96 then WCW could have still gone in other directions.

 

But then again I also think that WCW even doing Monday Nitro to begin with was a terrible idea and would lead to the downfall of the promotion. I remember thinking in 1995 when I first heard about Nitro that WCW were idiots to run a show at the same time as Raw, and that it would end up being a disaster in the long run.

[Maztinho 0]

In 97, Nitro was a great idea, you can't look back in hindsight and say you knew 6 years before the fact that WCW was going to be wrecked by the nWo or going head to head with RAW. Nitro was top to bottom a more interesting show during the times it was winning. Newer guys were being introduced to the wrestling main stream in the undercards, and the nWo angle was WHITE HOT. Going head to head with RAW wasn't the problem, it's when they fell into scatterbrained booking, illogical plot twists, and when they stopped letting the mid-card go crazy is when WCW started falling.

 

Every week on Nitro you were expecting something different, someone else to show up and join the nWo, some other seemingly random attack, it was great television.

[Dr. Zoidberg 0]

I remember when I first started watching wrestling, it was the nWo vs. Sting/DDP/etc. angle that got me hooked, along with Jericho, Dean Malenko, Benoit, and to a lesser extent, Blitzkrieg. The whole thing that got me was Hogan, to be honest. I always knew of him as "Eat your vegetables, take your vitamins, say your prayers!" So to see him as "evil" stoked me out.

 

To answer the question, though: I would have made Sting become completely diabolical, turning people to the nWo every week, attacking random people at random times that had nothing to do with him, and just be a general thorn in everyone's side. Eventually, he would battle Hogan, Hogan would turn, and the nWo would be considered "unstoppable" or something. Keep it going for a while, have everyone that tries to take them down get stopped, them boom. DDP finally has enough and takes them OOOOOOON!~

 

I dunno, though, the original way was just done so well, you can't really re-book it.

[cabbageboy 0]

No, no. I didn't really think the NWO was going to actually wreck WCW when it was happening. I referred more to Sept. 1995 and the angles and roster WCW had, and while the WWF was certainly down I thought there was no way WCW could succeed long term going against Raw.