WWE Pays Tribute To Sting On Raw

Michael Cole and Pat McAfee paid tribute to Sting's career and his "epic" AEW Revolution match.

by Andrew Pollard
Sting AEW
AEW

In most cases, a wrestling company spending a few seconds paying respect to the career of one of the greatest to ever lace up a pair of boots shouldn't be a big deal. Due to how WWE has handled such matters over the decades, though, a mention of Sting on last night's Raw very much becomes noteworthy.

Famously, WWE has so often avoided referring to those not with the company, let alone someone who's one day removed from headlining a PPV for a rival promotion. That was then, and this is now, with the stewardship of Paul Levesque and Nick Khan clearly having a different viewpoint to Vince McMahon on those moments.

As such, WWE Raw had Michael Cole and Pat McAfee send congratulations to "the great Sting" as Gunther and Dominik Mysterio squared off. In fact, McAfee would even reference the "absolutely epic match" that saw Sting and Darby Allin retain the AEW Tag Team Titles against the Young Bucks in the AEW Revolution main event.

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Historically, WWE would outright go out of their way to avoid mentioning someone not signed to the promotion, but thankfully such pettiness seems to be in the rear-view mirror. One other instance of this came at WWE Elimination Chamber last month, where Michael Cole casually name-dropped AEW's Chris Jericho; something that never would've happened under the previous regime. Likewise, both Taz and Jim Ross got mentions on this week's Raw.

Either way, it was a nice touch for WWE to, well, do the classy thing and acknowledge the retirement of a trailblazer, a game-changer, and a true icon of the business.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.