10 Shocking WCW Plans That Almost Happened
9. Sting As The NWO's Third Man
Back in 1996, it was a time of change for Sting.
With his cropped blonde locks now a floppy mop of brown hair, his usually vibrant outfits toned down to darker colours, and ongoing trust issues with grapplers he'd for so long been pals with, the Stinger was of course in the midst of transforming from Surfer into Crow.
Heading into that year's Bash at the Beach PPV, there was at one point a plan to have Sting be the one to turn heel and join Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in what would become the New World Order. Obviously that spot ended up going to Hulk Hogan, but Hogan's turn was a relatively last-minute call.
Both Hall and Eric Bischoff have addressed this over the years, with the Bad Guy even stating how he and Nash had reached out directly to Bret Hart to see if he'd be interested in jumping ship and leading the nWo charge. With Hart happy with his WWF deal at that time, Sting was given the nod as the famed Third Man.
As Bischoff detailed on his 83 Weeks podcast just this month:
"Once Sting agreed to be the third man, it was literally within days that I ended up getting a phone call from [Hulk] Hogan and flew out to California. I hadn’t spent a ton of time thinking about or communicating with Sting about the best way to present this new character. What I’m about to say is what I would’ve hoped I’d done, I would not have wanted to see him in face paint. The idea behind the nWo was to make it more real and more believable. The face paint would have made it so miscast within the nWo. I probably still would’ve stuck with the name Sting. I think everything else about him would’ve changed. He would’ve gone from the glittery, more energetic character to something more real."
Those plans all changed when Hulk Hogan decided that turning heel and aligning with Hall and Nash would be the perfect way to revitalise his stale act - and man, was the Hulkster ever correct on that front!