In 97 the two biggest stars faces (I say faces because many think Hogan was the top draw for WcW, I believe it was Sting, but whatever.) for both companies were Sting (WcW) and Austin (WWF). Austin was on the rise after his feud with Hart. After having a title shot and winning the tag team belts a couple of times he focused on facing Owen Hart for the intercontinental title. By the end of 97 he was arguably the biggest star in the company. After coming back from a broke neck that he suffered at SummerSlam. Yet, he hadn't even won a world title.
Mean while Sting was getting the biggest reactions in WcW while not even competing in a match until Starrcade of 97. After the nWo came in and started the war. Sting's loyalites where question. This is when he "walked out" on WcW claiming that he was a free agent. This was also the time that he began wearing the black and white face paint, and wearing the all black with the trench coat. From that point on he would come out or come down from the rafters and either attack or test them. At first it was different, but then he started going after the nWo. Going into Uncensored Sting was standing in the ring with the nWo and even let Hogan hug him. Many questioned where Sting's loyalties where again. Then at Uncensored he attacked the nWo and Hogan, and over the next 9 months Sting continued to take on and take out the nWo. Until he finally received a match at Starrcade against Hogan. Sting went in with a ton of momentum, as did Hogan. This was going to be THE match. It had the biggest build and had the most hype going into a match of that year.
We all know how Hogan wouldn't lose clean because he didn't want to look weak, and we know what went on in the weeks following. Really this was the beginning of WcW's downfall in my opinion, but thats for another thread.
My question is this. If Sting would have won cleanly over Hogan at Starrcade, and gone and continued to battle the nWo over the belt. Would that have killed any momentum that Austin would have brought to the WWF in the monday night wars? Simply, could Sting have taken down Austin. Instead of Austin bringing down WcW. I think Sting could have done it, because WcW was getting there first upper hand, and they could have drawn the feud between Hogan/nWo and Sting out, instead of him joining them later. You could have had him and Goldberg being the only ones standing up against the wolfpac and hollywood.
No I don't think Sting would have ever surpassed Austin, even if WCW's momentum had continued and the WWF had not been reborn, not at all. Why do I say this, because in addition to Austin, you had the rise to the main event of guys like The Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley. Along with Steve Austin's role as a an anti-authority badass you had an instant formula for success, let's also not forget The Undertaker's role in all of this, he had some great matches with Austin as well as The Rock and Mankind. Another thing to not forget is that during Austin's role in reversing the WWF's struggling fortunes you also had a fantastic tag team division which over the next several months to couple years built up to a roster of teams like The Hardys, The Dudleyz, Edge And Christian and while some people might not look upon them with so much fondness now, no one can deny that the New Age Outlaws were a very OVER heel tag team, plain and simple. Now WCW did have the Steiners and The Outsiders there was just no comparison to what WWF offered in the way of tag teams and make no mistake about it, while Austin and the other main event guys might have been the marquee names at the show, the tag teams were instrumental in keeping people's interest and we also shouldn't discount that Owen's role as a mid card heel along newer talents like Val Venis (again some may laugh now but during the Attitude Era he definitely had his moments) Ken Shamrock and X-Pac (along with the post-HBK version of DX headed by Triple H with Chyna and the aforementioned New Age Outlaws) rounded out the rest of the midcard. Right there that was just great talent and we had great match ups and moments out of the rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin and the way the WWF built the organization around him.
Now on the WCW side of things you had amazing talent, with the New Japan and Mexican imports, many of which were cruiser weights you had an exciting amount of wrestling to build around your big storylines and stars. Along with stars such as Rey Mysterio (While Mexican in origin and he has of course performed there, this guy was born in San Diego and wrestled in the States prior to WCW) Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit you had stars that not only wrestled lighter divisions and solid mid card matches but they could step up to the Heavyweight matches and many of these guys did. Malenko, Benoit and Guerrero all former US Heavyweight Champions in addition to their Cruiserweight contests, Guerrero and Malenko held both the Cruiser and US Titles and Rey Mysterio even wrestled Ric Flair once for the World Title. Then of course you still had some other solid and dependable mid card Heavyweight exclusive talent like William (Steven) Regal, DDP, Bret Hart (who would eventually return to main event status) and Raven that kept people interested in the product. The tag team division had some interesting teams like the always dependable and perpetual favorite Steiner Brothers, Harlem Heat and villainous Outsiders. With all that as a group to build around our main event stars like Flair, Hogan, Lex Luger, Goldberg, Randy Savage and Roddy Piper and of course Sting as a possible flagship of this group considering he was with the promotion the first day Turner bought Crockett Promotions and renamed it to WCW, he would seem like a logical choice. However, I don't think these guys as awesome as they were were as entertaining to as many people as the WWF guys were with Austin at the forefront, and this is just my opinion without my bias as a fan. Because in all honesty I liked WCW just as much if not more than WWF, but I still liked both. Hell, I like wrestling first and the promotions and performers second, at least as far as the big two were concerned.
But despite Sting being as awesome as he was in the ring and as entertaining as he was as a character, going from the surfer blond buzz cut to the brooding Crow like character who was WCW's chief defender was an intriguing story and one I liked better to be honest. However, I don't feel that was enough to counteract Steve Austin's popularity and stop Stone Cold from being the WWF's and arguably at least in my opinion wrestling's biggest star of the late 1990s. I just don't feel Sting could have competed with that because Austin's character was such a breath of fresh air and change from what the WWF has built itself on in the 1980s with Hulk Hogan's all American hero persona. It was a time in the late 1990s where people liked anarchy and chaos, anti-establishment if you will. They liked seeing a rebel, and Sting was just not that, despite how brooding he had become as a character. Even though WCW had a rough edge of rebellion, after all two years earlier, you could argue that the nWo inspired the Attitude Era but WWF took it to a whole other level by having the majority of their characters follow suit with the rebellious nature of the overall WWF product. WCW even with the nWo despite how revoluationary and awesome it was, could not compete with the raunch and shock value that won the WWF its prominence back. People loved seeing Steve Austin flip off Vince McMahon every week and beating him up. People were amused by Val Venis' porn star gimmick and the fact he almost got immasculated, D-X's immature and base humor just got everyone into the spirit of the edge that the nWo started.
By counting on Sting as the flagship star you couldn't get that and Bill Goldberg's quick rise would not have worked well with attempts to try to have Sting compete with Austin on a draw level. It just wasn't meant to happen, while WCW had the nWo and great innovations like the Cruiserweight division (which I feel never got justice in WWF/E), things lost momentum and they got beat by the more aggressive company that was willing to obviously take new risks. Plus as much as there were perpetual favorites like Roddy Piper, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage in the fold, there were only so many times you could recycle the feuds these men had in the WWF. Granted, Hogan's feud with Piper had an interest because the heel and face roles had always been different in WWF where we know Hogan was the hero and Piper the villain. As far as Hogan's rivalry with Flair, it only got teased in WWF and realized in WCW. It worked the first couple years but there was no way that was going to draw more viewers than The Rock Vs Austin when that epic match finally happened, considering Rock vs Austin was something new. These guys still contributed but and drew numbers but not to the way the WWF did with all the new stars and different mindset McMahon had in promoting the company. That's not to say WCW was inept like some posters would say, they just didn't offer anything interesting enough to get more fans than WWF, but they still had an audience and those that stayed loyal I am sure were big Sting fans, since he never left the company, but that doesn't mean that he's necessarily going to be THE flagship of the company. Look at today with the Undertaker, he is probably my FAVORITE performer in WWE, but he is not THE TOP GUY and never was to be honest, he was one of many, but he was never a Hogan or Austin. And neither is Sting, but that does not make them any less a wrestling star and legend, they're just not on that level like Hogan and Austin were. And I do like Sting more, but I can't let my personal bias and liking towards Sting affect how I think he compares to Austin in terms of star power, he just doesn't. I don't care how many PWI awards for most popular wrestler Sting ever got, that applies only to wrestling fans, to people who are not fans of wrestling, Sting is not going to be an instant hit on the radar to a non-wrestling fan. But the names Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin are.
And when you compare the two products to the timeframe you are talking about WWF was ready to regain its role as THE wrestling promotion. And they had all the right stuff to make it happen, while WCW stayed in a comfort zone. So yeah it took me long enough to say it, but I don't think Sting could have surpassed Austin and I gave you my opinion which is separate from how I feel about the performers myself, something you will find very hard to actually have on internet forums.
By the way to reference what you were discussing about the Hogan and Sting match I feel your point you made about Hogan making Sting look weak that's a farce, I think you are saying this because Nick Patrick actually counted a normal count instead of a fast count, then Bret Hart came in and rolled Hogan back into the ring after the match was supposedly over and Sting ended up winning when the match got restarted by Bret's decree? First of all, that is speculation and it has no merit, because after all unless you were part of the planning process of the match and had first hand knowledge of what was going on. But if you weren't there you are only guessing, if we are thinking about the same reason why Sting did not win "cleanly", I have heard stupid rumors in the past like Hogan paid Nick Patrick off behind the scenes to botch the match on purpose. The thing I think is, that Nick Patrick just screwed his cue up, and granted it may happen from time to time in a match but it happened at the worst possible place a major pay per view like Starrcade, but if that is the case it's not Hogan's fault and you are devaluing your question by saying that Hogan was the reason for this. By using the words "We all know..." shows you're expecting us to agree with you on something you probably weren't even there to witness, I know I sure wasn't so I am so not going to try to convince people otherwise like you have. But if what I am thinking is the case and Patrick was supposed to count a fast count for Hogan, I still don't think it would have taken away from Steve Austin's rise, I think Sting would still be looked as the same legendary figure he is looked at now in wrestling. Again in my view, someone messed up their part in the Starrcade match and blaming Hogan (even if he is an egomaniac in real life, but hell aren't most celebrities?) is just all too convenient and just plain stupid, and is more internet speculation, it's definitely getting old! And as far as the "bothced" ending of Starrcade 97 goes in leading to WCW's end that in my view is another crock of shit because I read the ratings charts and have looked at WCW's numbers following that incident, sure Nitro was not getting the same viewers but even towards the end the company was still pulling 2s and even the occasional 3s in the Nielsen's. Which still meant people were watching, in fact in September 2000 in the much reviled Russo era of WCW, the company pulled a 3.6 rating which was only slightly behind WWF. This most recent edition of RAW wasn't even that high this week. Yeah this might be for another thread but you started it by having to bring up the end of the Hogan-Sting Match and being so quick to think that it was the reason WCW was going to subsequently end. So while WCW had seen better days as a company, there were still viewers, in my opinion and I say this only because of what I have seen and not what I have heard, was that Ted Turner losing his influence on his own company because of all these mergers over the years is what cost WCW everything they had as a company. After all when the AOL Time Warner merger happened, the president of programming for Turner Networks did not want WCW on their channels even though it still had some days where it wasn't far behind WWF still. I think that theory holds more weight than just talking about a match finish that Hogan supposedly ruined on purpose. Get real dude, you had a good question started and then you bring up your personal bias towards a performer like Hogan, granted well past his prime at this point and yeah a big star with big clout but give us some proof instead of regurgitating the same old biased BS, definitely not very inspiring on your part my good man.
