Fourth Round: 3 Stages of Hell - Sting vs. Jushin Thunder Liger

[klunderbunker]

This is a Fourth Round Matchup in the Chicago Region.

Rules: This is a 2/3 Falls match but with gimmicks for each round. The first round will be a standard wrestling match. The second round will be a street fight. The third round will be a cage match where pins, submissions or escape can win.

Location: United Center, Chicago, Illinois

Sting

Vs.

Jushin Thunder Liger

​

Voting is open for 4 days.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

Wow, this is a tough and terrific match-up.

Fall #1 is really the pivotal match-up. I really feel that Sting would win a street Fight, just given his experience in some pretty violent matches. I know Liger is a capable brawler, but the Street Fight match seems to far better benefit Sting.

If Liger cannot win the normal match for fall #1, then the cage match is a moot point, despite being Liger's best chance of winning given his agility and creativity.

Can anyone earn my vote either way by convicing me Liger or Sting would win match #1?

 

[gd]

Fuck if I know here. Seems too close to call, or does it? I'd reckon Liger wins the first fall. Seems like a fast starter, and these things always have to go to the 3rd round. Obviously then, that'd mean Sting wins the second fall to tie it up, cause that's how things go.

Round 3. Steel Cage. I reckon Sting's been in plenty of Steel Cage matches. That was kind of the thing back in the day. Has Liger been in many Steel Cage matches? Probably not as much as Sting. Does any of this matter? Who knows?

I think it comes down to the fact that Sting was is one of the 2 or 3 most popular faces in the history of North American wrestling, which is pretty impressive. I'm leaning towards Stevie here.

 

[Jsaturn14]

I'm with Disarray here. Hell if I know who will win this match-up. I agree that these things will always go to the third round, which means Liger wins fall one, and Sting wins Fall 2, but when it comes to the Steel Cage I have no clue. I reckon both men will be beaten and exhausted at this point, so I think that eliminates Liger's speed and agility advantage, and Sting is more experienced in Steel Cage matches, but does experience really matter in a Three Stages of Hell match? Both guys will be lucky to be moving after the first two falls, especially after the Street Fight which I predict would be a truly bloody and violent affair. Man, this is hard. I am leaning towards the Stinger here simply for the fact that I think his experience will push him over the edge, but I am going to wait to vote. Can anyone make a good case for Liger?

 

[Thriller Ant]

This is really tough. These are the two guys I wanted to push to the end, and of course, they run into each other now.

With that said, I think I might actually vote Liger here. I really have no idea who would win the standard match, but I know I would pay a shitload of money to see these two go in their primes. They are two of the greatest ever and I truly believe that if they wrestled 100 times, each man would win 50 times.

As for the Street Fight, don't be so quick to declare Sting the winner. I give you this match between Liger and The Great Muta where Liger transformed into Kishin Liger in the match.

[youtube]us1GTlbWgIU[/youtube]

He also used this gimmick in a match in 2006, against Bad Boy Hido which Liger won with a Brainbuster on a chair. Liger can go hardcore, and can do it very effectively. Do not sell him short in the Street Fight.

Both men will be worn out after the first two matches, but Liger has the agility and speed advantage, and after winning the Street Fight, will be more fresh and able to escape from the cage.

You can't vote wrong in this match, but don't sell Jushin Liger short here.

 

[LigerBomb]

In my opinion Jushin Thunder Liger is the better in ring competitor hands down. Very rarely does beating your opponent mean overpowering their strengths. More often than not it's discovering and capitalizing on weaknesses that lead to victory. Jushin Liger's true power has always been that he is an amalgamation of strengths without the accompanying weaknesses.
Due to his stature, a reliance on high flying early in his career, and the ever present mask/costume most people would make the faulty assumption that Liger is of the same mold as say a Rey Misterio Jr. or other Lucha star. This is a oversimplification at it's best.
While it's true Liger does share many of Rey's strengths, he also suffers from none of the King of Mystery's weaknesses. For example recently Batista had a quick feud with Rey. Batista, as a well known power guy, knew that all he had to do to defeat Rey was ground him and out muscle him, thus removing Rey's strengths and driving forward Batista's own. It's a sound strategy when your opponent is so one-dimensional. However, while Liger is fast and high flying like Rey, ground him and you'll find he has a more than solid master of technical ground work (even costing Pegasus Kid/Wild Pegasus/Chris Benoit his mask in Japan), hard striking, strength and power. Hence what could perhaps beat men that appear to be similar to Liger wouldn't actually be applicable in the same way.
Early on in Jushin Liger's training at the New Japan Dojo he asked advice of the NJPW veterans and was told that the only way he was going to earn respect from the bigger guys was to become as strong and powerful as they were. Doing as he was told he built his body up to a level almost unseen at the time for a Jr. Heavyweight. In fact when he first debuted shirtless in his alternate Battle Liger gear for the first time (vs. Hashimoto) people were stunned to see just how muscular and strong he was. It didn't hurt that he was able to go toe-to-toe with the 290lb. Hashimoto either.
This physical prowess was on top of the world renowned training he received from around the globe. Even before entering Pro-wrestling Liger competed in amateur wrestling on the national level alongside other eventual Puro greats like Misawa and Kawada. He developed his Lucha-esque high-flying skills in Mexico, then returned to Japan to master the striking/power-maneuver based Japanese "strong style". Finally he trained in Canada, at the famous Hart Dungeon, where he rounded out his style to included a mastery of technical mat work and submissions.
Excluding the obvious outliers of any one-field, Liger has the ability to play an infinite game of rock, paper, scissor with his opponents; he's always able to use the complementary techniques and skills necessary to exploit his opponent's strengths and accompanying weakness(es). Simply put Jushin Liger is pound for pound one of the best wrestlers the world has ever seen. I'm confident Jushin Thunder Liger would be able to best Sting in a standard wrestling match a la round 1's stipulation.

 

[Muffin Top Merkley]

Jushin Liger was scheduled to face off against Christopher Daniels at TNA Lockdown 2006 on April 23, 2006. He had been unaware that the match was to be held in a Steel Cage, something in which he had never participated before. When he heard of this he cancelled the match. One of TNA's bookers Scott D'Amore has speculated that he didn't want to participate in the match due to it being in a new environment, fearing it would have hampered his performance.

Before I make my final decision, can anyone verify this claim for me?

I see Liger taking the first fall, and Sting taking the second. With my limited Liger knowledge, I can't cast a fair vote yet.

After further thought, Just because Liger turned down a match against Daniels, wouldn't mean he would do so against a legend like Sting. Liger would probably accept it because it is against a legend like Sting.

Back to the drawing board.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

Liger meets his kryptonite in the Stinger here. Sting regularly tamed the high fliers because he WAS one in his prime. He was agile, strong, and endured many long matches, and that includes 2 out of 3 fall matches, which are similar to the 3 Stages of Hell matches, only all 3 are regular bouts.

Liger would give Sting a tough time, but Sting wins this in a 3 fall classic after he escapes the cage before Liger does by a split second.

STING!

 

[LigerBomb]

Liger meets his kryptonite in the Stinger here. Sting regularly tamed the high fliers because he WAS one in his prime. He was agile, strong, and endured many long matches, and that includes 2 out of 3 fall matches, which are similar to the 3 Stages of Hell matches, only all 3 are regular bouts.

Liger would give Sting a tough time, but Sting wins this in a 3 fall classic after he escapes the cage before Liger does by a split second.

STING!

Kryptonite? I could totally understand what you're saying if Liger was just an ordinary high flier but as stated above he is so so much more than that, and as such the same tactics used to keep your average small man down wouldn't work nearly as well, if at all, on someone like Jushin Liger. Also since you concede that it could/would come down to a split second escape I fail to see how speed would be on Sting's side as Liger is far faster.
For those unfamiliar here's a tribute vid to Liger:
Yes there are some high flying moves like the Shooting Star Press --which he invented-- but you'll also see his power moves (Ligerbomb, Brainbuster, Crash Thunder Buster, Spinning Back Breaker, German Suplex etc), strikes (Shotei palm thrusts, Rolling Koppu kicks, etc.) and various submissions. Also I would like to point out that Liger routinely performed those power moves on men Sting's size and larger.

 

[LigerBomb]

Ok so match number two: Street Fight...
Basically a Hardcore Match with ring-only pin falls.

While he never competed in the so-called extreme "Death-Matches" of Japan like Mick Foley, Jushin Thunder Liger has been know to compete proficiently in the hardcore environment. After making the case above that a standard match would be in favor of Liger I want to add that the Street Fight setting amplifies this many times over. While another poster mentioned it I'd like to go into a bit more detail with regards to an alternate persona Jushin Thunder Liger has for just such an occasion as the Round 2 Street Fight.
This gimmick or persona is known as "Kishin Liger". Kishin Liger has various translated meanings and has come to stand for a few ideas. The most applicable translation is that of "Demon Beast God", "True/Full Power Beast God", "Crazed Demon" or something similar along the same lines. In kayfabe Jushin Thunder Liger has quasi-demonic powers upon transforming into Kishin Liger. He acquires moves like the Poison Mist, a great resiliency to pain, and becomes much more vicious and sadistic even though he remains a "baby face".
In his match with Hido, Kishin was staple gunned, stabbed with scissors, cut open, beaten with chairs and a barbed wire wrapped baseball bat. In the end all it did was piss him off severely and after he retaliated by slicing Hido open with scissors, punching him with make shift knuckle dusters, and beating him with chairs --even preforming a RVDesque chair enhanced Shotei Palm Thrust-- and baseball bats he amassed a pile of about 10 folding chairs and proceeded to Brainbuster Suplex Hido onto the pile 3 times before going for the cover. Actually before Liger could deliver the Brainbusters Hido was able to regain bit of strength and land a Diamoncutter/RKO atop the pile which Liger immediately shot up from and shrugged off. From this it should be obvious that Liger can absorb great amounts of punishment and dish out equal if not greater amounts of violence.
In his match with The Great Muta, while it's true Kishin eventually lost, Muta, after exhausting all other options, had to use his yellow mist which in Kayfabe instantly paralyzes opponents to shut down Liger's rampage and create an opening and mount any sort of comeback offense. Let me say this again, nothing short of paralysis stopped Liger and had it not been for that maneuver Liger was on his way to destroying Muta --no easy feat in and of itself-- after assaulting him with flying chair shots from the top rope, stabbing at his face with a fork, and pile-driving him onto the exposed concrete arena floor.
With all the above in mind I can't help but believe round 2 will also go to Liger.

 

[D-Man]

This is just another version of a great wrestler versus a greater wrestler. I can understand the gimmick plays a major role here, but the three stages are very generic. I feel that if crazier gimmicks were used, Liger would have a much better shot, since he'd utilize his speed and incredible agility. However, since the match keeps both men grounded, Sting is gonna squeeze it out.

In a close match, Sting will barely win.

 

[Tastycles]

I'm not familiar enough with either man to make an absolutely sound and solid judgement and nobody has given me a cast iron reason to fall either way here, so I have ignored the match, the location and everything else and have just picked the one I have found more entertaining. In this case, that is Liger, and he has my vote.

 

[LigerBomb]

Ok... lemme try the good ol' PWI/WONL route:
In the magazine's top 500 of the PWI years ('79-present) Liger came in at number #12, barely behind legends like Hogan, Flair, Andre The Giant, Hart, Inoki, Misawa etc., etc., etc. In addition, as of 2009, only Liger (and Mutoh) have appeared in every edition of the PWI 500. He's so much more than the simple high flyer people seem to think he is. Oh, and for what it's worth, Sting was #15 in the top 500 of the PWI years.

Wrestling Observer has voted him:

• Best Flying Wrestler (1989–1993)
• Best Technical Wrestler (1989–1992)
• Best Wrestling Maneuver (1987, 1988) Shooting star press
• Match of the Year (1990) vs. Naoki Sano on January 31 in Osaka, Japan
• Most Outstanding Wrestler (1990–1992)
• Rookie of the Year (1984)

Moving on:

...I feel that if crazier gimmicks were used, Liger would have a much better shot, since he'd utilize his speed and incredible agility. However, since the match keeps both men grounded, Sting is gonna squeeze it out.

Which match keeps them grounded? You can fly from the top rope in all 3 matches, and can fly off the ropes to the outside in the first 2 of them, and in the only one you can't, you can jump off the cage instead. There's no way the match selections keep them grounded, though even if it did, Liger won the second half of his career via striking, mat skills, and power moves. Anyway since that's the supposed only way Sting can "squeeze it out", then Liger is going to win.
People are saying Liger has the speed and agility advantage, which I agree with. Sting however, as far as I can tell, has nothing to neutralize these advantages; he's not a better technician, doesn't have much of a power game --certainly not on a level that Liger hasn't dealt with before/countered with his own power arsenal-- and isn't nearly as proficient of a striker. Liger equals Sting in many regards and bests him in others... the only thing I can say is that Sting is taller, weighs more, and wrestled in America far more often.
Heck someone even claimed Sting was the more experienced of the two regardless of the fact that Liger trained and competed in amateur wrestling throughout adolescence and began his pro wrestling career before Borden.

 

[Monkey_Mania]

Real good match here. I just got to say that everyone is pretty right on. No doubt in my mind the first match would be a classic with Liger surprising Sting for the victory. Then Sting would rebound, take the second fall quite easily. The third is the interesting one. Apparently Liger has never been in a cage match. His high flying would definitely be on point in this match, but Sting has been in a cage match before and knows what to expect and what to dish out.

It boils down to this. Liger knows a million ways to put away an opponent. Sting knows a million and one.

Vote Sting.

 

[LigerBomb]

67 to 25 (as of this writing)? That's insulting.

...No doubt in my mind the first match would be a classic with Liger surprising Sting for the victory. Then Sting would rebound, take the second fall quite easily. The third is the interesting one. Apparently Liger has never been in a cage match. His high flying would definitely be on point in this match, but Sting has been in a cage match before and knows what to expect and what to dish out.

It boils down to this. Liger knows a million ways to put away an opponent. Sting knows a million and one...

Technique, skill, speed, agility, power, resilience. These are all strengths Liger possesses (and in some amount far greater than his opponent) . Why would it be surprising for Liger to win?
Liger has competed in brutal street-fight type matches and has a gimmick specifically for those occasions, in which to beat him you have to kayfabe paralyze the guy. Why would Sting win the Street fight? And why would the supposed victory be achieved "quite easily"?
What about a cage match is so mystifying? As a high flier, and an overall athletic human being in general, I'm confident in Liger's ability to raise one foot above the other and climb. If he can get to the top rope with so much vaunted speed and agility, that we all claim he has, why won't he just keep on going to the top of the cage? Up and over isn't a hard concept. Likewise as a member of the civilized world he's adept and experienced at entering and exiting through doorways. The rest boils down to a pro-wrestling match in a pro-wrestling ring, and to be damn sure, he's really good at those too.

At best, Sting proponents are saying he'll just barely win because:

• "Liger knows a million ways to put away an opponent. Sting knows a million and one." Even if I were to agree, What exactly is that one way I wonder? Was Liger absent that day at wrestling school? Why with a million likely possibilities would this be the one match that employs it?
• "...since the match keeps both men grounded, Sting is gonna squeeze it out." Already spoke about how none of the matches ground them.
• "Sting wins this in a 3 fall classic after he escapes the cage before Liger does by a split second." How is it that the acknowledged faster, and more agile man is the one that loses a split second race to the finish?

Can we all at least be upfront and honest and say the majority of people here who voted know little about Liger's career? Or that they voted Sting for no other valid reason than they know him more, or like him more, or God forbid because he's taller, and/or American, and/or wrestled in American promotions? Which by the way is perfectly valid per the rules of this contest and their right to do, but at least say so.
Watch Sting's matches, watch Liger's; In their overall bodies of work there's nothing that supports Sting being so far ahead, let alone winning at all. Not back when they were starting out, not in their primes, and certainly not even today. Borden isn't the better in-ring worker in any measurable way. Arguably he had the bigger career, but he's simple not a better performer in the ring (where this match-up happens to take place). Liger should be going on to face/beat HBK (again).
At least last year Brock had a tremendous power game people could get behind, this year Sting brought nothing to the table Liger hasn't seen before, done better, overpowered, or beaten outright. Ah well, time to look to next year.

 

[Monkey_Mania]

I say Liger "surprises" Sting simply because both men, in my eyes are pretty much equals. It would be fast, hard hitting, and it wouldn't surprise me if either men got beat by a surprise roll-up. Second is Sting's easily.He faced some of the most hardcore men on the planet, and has beaten them all. How about Abdullah the FREAKING BUTCHER? Cactus Jack? I mean come on now. He beat them at their own game because of his resilience. I'm not saying Liger doesnt have experience, you've shown that he does. I just think that Sting would beat him. Same goes for the cage match.

Sting is my all time favorite wrestler. I do however know a little bit about Liger, and now even more so because of you Liger. I just used my knowledge about both men, thoughts on the matches, and a little bit of bias because it is Sting. Thank you though for opening me up more to Liger.

 

[LigerBomb]

I say Liger "surprises" Sting simply because both men, in my eyes are pretty much equals. It would be fast, hard hitting, and it wouldn't surprise me if either men got beat by a surprise roll-up. Second is Sting's easily.He faced some of the most hardcore men on the planet, and has beaten them all. How about Abdullah the FREAKING BUTCHER? Cactus Jack? I mean come on now. He beat them at their own game because of his resilience. I'm not saying Liger doesnt have experience, you've shown that he does. I just think that Sting would beat him. Same goes for the cage match.

So it wouldn't surprise you that they both could be surprised... ok fair enough.
With regards to Sting beating Abby, that's directly irrelevant to proving that Sting would therefor automatically beat Liger. Jushin and Abby have different strengths and weaknesses i.e. how Sting beat Abby (or what caused Abby to lose) is not necessarily relevant to how he would have to try and beat Liger or cause Liger to lose.
Basically, in and of itself, saying A>B therefore A>C is a logic fallacy of the first order and makes no sense. It becomes an even worse argument when you consider there's no way to quantify it as B never interacted with, let alone beat, C nor are they remotely similar.
I mean what if Liger wrestled Abby and beat him? Then what would that mean for your point? It exposes the irrelevancy, and in the process proves it was never valid to begin with. Hell, even if Liger lost to Abby it wouldn't necessarily have relevance to Sting v Liger.
I'm not even going to mention how irrelevant Cactus Jack is.

Sting is my all time favorite wrestler. I do however know a little bit about Liger, and now even more so because of you Liger. I just used my knowledge about both men, thoughts on the matches, and a little bit of bias because it is Sting. Thank you though for opening me up more to Liger.

No problem, I just wish people were more forthcoming about stuff like you were. Good luck to your boy against HBK.