The Complete History Of The New World Order | Wrestling Timelines
September 16, 1996 - Sting: Origins
Sting still looks like the Surfer of old as he makes his way to the ring on Nitro. In a great touch, he will later build the tension of his suspect loyalty by daubing himself in black-and-white.
The week prior, the nWo debuted ‘nWo Sting’ (Jeff Farmer) in a bid to convince the WCW roster that the real deal had turned - a contrivance made possible, and just about plausible, through Sting’s face-painted look. At Fall Brawl the night before, Sting came to Team WCW’s rescue, proving that the imposter was helping the nWo, but left Luger to the wolves in a measure of revenge.
Sting grabs the mic and cuts the promo away from the hard camera - a tease, picked up on commentary, that he is turning his back on WCW. While the symbolism doesn’t quite work, since it is made explicit, this is nevertheless highly sophisticated by the standards of U.S. pro wrestling narrative.
Tying up and making sense of a well-received but dropped angle, in which he played face as his mate Lex Luger played heel in secret, Sting says that he’s tired of giving Luger the benefit of the doubt only to be questioned by him.
“If you stand by me, I’ll stand by you,” Sting says, before addressing his doubters. Those who doubted him, he says, in a great red herring, “can stick it”. This, in no coincidence, is what Hogan said during Bash At The Beach.
“From now on,” Sting wraps up, “I consider myself a free agent. But that doesn’t mean you won’t see the Stinger from time to time. I’m gonna pop in when you least expect it.”
In a secret hint that he is a babyface, Sting is true to his word. Until December, he doesn’t wrestle a televised match in 1997 - but he becomes the defining figure of the year…