10 Wrestlers Who Turned Down WWE Contracts

4. Sting

Sting Darby Allin
ImpactWrestling.com

Sting, a WCW icon and the last great holdout of the Monday Night Wars, finally - courtesy of the savvy mediation of 2K Games - relented on years of refusal to cross over to the other side, at last signing a big-money deal with WWE in 2014.

What had been the sticking point for The Franchise, given the likes of Booker T, Goldberg, and DDP had all agreed to work for their prior rivals - in the latter's case, at the cost of a lucrative stay-at-home contract?

As it happens, precisely that fact. Having seen so many of his former WCW colleagues creatively undermined by the company - he found The Rock's burial of Booker T particularly galling - Sting repeatedly turned down WWE's overtures. Perhaps ironically, he thought his legacy would be better preserved slumming it as the biggest star in TNA.

And what happened when he did eventually buckle? Why, his vigilante angle opposite Triple H was recontextualised as a decade old Monday Night War revival, which Sting, the WCW representative, obviously lost. Perhaps he had a point.

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Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.