Sting's brief heel run in 1999 is considered a low point of WCW booking (well, one of many), and rightly so -- it made no sense, the crowd didn't want to boo him, Sting didn't want to work heel, and the whole thing was forgotten about months later. During his reign of terror, though, he was set to defend the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc. When the show came around, though, Hogan laid down in the ring and let Sting pin him for one reason or another (no, it wasn't a shoot -- I guess it's okay when a guy pins you and it's fake, but not when he pins you and it's real... hey, wait a second...). In any case, Sting made an open challenge at the end of the show, brand new United States Champion Goldberg answered, kicked his ass, and seemingly became the WCW Champion. The following night on Nitro, though, the storyline took a 180. Sting opened the show, complaining about how his open challenge was never supposed to be for the title. Commissioner JJ Dillon agreed, but said that due to Sting's attack on the referee after the match, he was stripped of the belt (because that's a thing, I guess) and a tournament would be held to crown a new champion. Goldberg was eliminated in the first round that very night, losing the U.S. Title in the process. It was a rude awakening for the fans who tuned in expecting to see "Da Man" as WCW Champion once again.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
