NWO Twenty Years Later: Where Are They Now?

Sting's relationship with the nWo was a curious one. Whilst virtually all of WCW's headline talent were scooped up by the organisation, to the point where it was so weakened that there was no sense of competition between the warring factions, 'The Franchise' remained an outlier.

Sting's alliance with the nWo remained a mystery for the longest time. The group managed to delude Sting's WCW bestie Lex Luger to his nefarious intent thanks to their impostor Stinger, to the extent that trust between the pair crumbled. Burdened by doubts over his allegiance, Sting announced himself as a 'free agent' in September 1996 - neither with WCW or the nWo - before disappearing from programming.

For the best part of a year, a new, spectral Sting made sporadic appearances on Nitro, often watching silently from the rafters, his enigmatic presence raising questions about his objective.

After many months of such antics, Sting eventually revealed his hand: he was gunning for the nWo, and in particularly, Hulk Hogan. A big-money match between the pair was booked for Starrcade, as anticipation reached fever pitch.

Ultimately, Sting prevailed, but not without being buried by Hogan in the process. The match was a disaster, as the returning challenger took offense from a dominant Hulkster for the best part of the contest, before being pinned by an alleged 'fast count'. The match was restarted, and Sting subsequently bested Hogan with help from Bret Hart.

In reality, Hogan had ordered ref Nick Patrick to count the pin at normal speed - for all intents and purposes, it appeared as though Sting had been pinned clean. The nature of the face's victory entirely killed his momentum.

By 1998, the nWo angle was beginning to wear thin, and desperate for an injection of life, the stable split into two: a heel section spearheaded by Hogan, and the so-called 'Wolfpac' directed by mutineers Hall and Nash. After teasing joining the black and white, at long last Sting shocked precisely nobody by dramatically unveiling his alliance with the good guys.

In 2002, opposed to their then less-than PG content, Sting turned down an offer to join WWF, and instead spent the next twelve years in hibernation as the last remaining bastion defending WCW. In Vince-parlance, anyway. Otherwise, he was working in TNA.

Sting made his long, long awaited debut for WWE in 2015, where he predictably and horrendously lost to Triple H in his first - and last - WrestleMania match. After severely injuring his neck during a title match against Seth Rollins, Sting finally made the decision to hang up his baseball bat, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame of 2016.