Sting Comments on 2011, His Injury and Retirement

[It's Damn Real!]

http://www.prowrestling.net/artman/publish/TNA/article10023197.shtml

On whether or not Dixie Carter's recent tweet about how this could be his last year in the ring was jumping the gun or not: "No, I don't think so. She's listening to what I'm saying to her. I'm saying every year this will probably be the last year and part of it was in the beginning it was kind of like a project. I wanted to see TNA Impact, I wanted to see it succeed like we did with WCW. I hated that being the second rate or second class citizen to the WWF all those years until we launched Nitro and like I said before, everything was history - we became the number one. This has the same feel and I want to be a part of something a little bit like that and I've see us … we've gone from being at the fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee period to being in 120 countries worldwide now and the interest in other countries is enormous."



On his health and his recent injury to his ankle or foot: "Yeah, I tore something. I went to make a move in the ring and I tore something on the bottom of my right foot and I think 'oh no I hope it's not the Achilles' tendon'. If it is, then I'm done. Wrestling is officially over with. And that night, I said a few words to the crowd in London and that was part of it. I said I don't know if I'll be back. I don't know what this injury is. I'm hoping it's not serious. The move I was moving around on it, limping around, I could tell … I didn't think it was the Achilles' tendon. Then I thought there's the fascia down there and maybe I just tore the fascia. And that's exactly what I did. I tore the fascia off." 



On how long he could be sidelined for: "Well the doctors say 4-6 weeks but it's like I'm just going to stay off of it, take care of it and be back in the ring a week from this Sunday."



On whether or not he agrees with Kurt Angle's recent comments that 2011 was a subpar year for TNA: "No, I really don't. I don't think it was a subpar year. I think a lot of the young guys have been elevated, guys like James Storm, Bobby Roode. These guys are now making a name for themselves. They're elevating the company. Everything is moving up. We had a very successful trip to the UK. In my book, that was very successful. Again, getting back to the ratings that we have in other countries, Australia, New Zealand, all over Germany, all over the UK, incredible ratings. We've got stuff going on in India now. So, I just see growth. I don't see how it could be considered subpar."

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In my opinion he's being a little coy about the response to the question regarding 2011 being a sub-par year, because his answer only really deals with the latter half of the year, which granted, was a success, but doesn't account at all for the early failures in the year.

Otherwise I'd say this was a great, really positive interview given by Sting, and whether you're a WWE fan or a TNA fan or just a wrestling fan in general, his comments about wanting to get TNA away from being a "second class citizen" and continuing to succeed should have everyone smiling. Competition, not controversy, creates cash!

Thoughts?

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

I don't think I'm really in a position to be passing judgments on whether the company is successful or not (I don't have access to their financial information), however, I do know that the company lost a lot of steam in terms of people talking about them. The quality of the show has gotten better, but they're still a long way away from being on the WWE's radar, and I think Sting is right when he says he feels like TNA will eventually grow into being legitimate competition to the WWE.

 

[Lowdown]

Hard to say if he was being sincere or not. I'm not calling the man a liar in representing his company. But it seems to me that TNA has progressed in the last few months of 2011. It boils down to how any fan would choose to view it. In hindsight though, the year started off shaky but was overall a success in the long run.

 

[UFOcalling]

It was great to hear Sting say that he will be pushing for a live show in the future. He also made it clear that he wants to see Impact in a different city every week. I think most TNA fans would agree that those are the first major steps TNA needs to take before they can even think about competing with the WWE in the United States. I think Sting definitely has his head screwed on tight.

You're right about Sting's answer to the "subpar 2011" question. Obviously Sting is an extremely positive person, and didn't want to say anything disparaging about TNA (or at least TNA's last year). He focused on the positive aspects of their product during 2011, and (IMHO) that was the "correct" way to answer the question. From a business standpoint, you don't want yet another TNA employee (seeing as how Angle already said so) admitting that their company had a "bad year" (whether they did or didn't, a "good" employee will focus mainly on the positives). Granted, a lot of these "positives" didn't happen until the second half of 2011, but the wheels were probably put in motion a lot earlier in the year...it just took time to get everything moving.

Again, it's great to hear that Sting can see what really needs to be done with TNA in order to create "true" competition with the WWE in the United States (doing a live show from a different city every week). It was also great to hear him say that Hogan knows this stuff too, now they just have to convince management (and possibly some of the wrestlers & other staff) to get off their asses to get these things done! It was definitely worth the ten minutes (or however long it was) to listen to the entire interview. If you've got the time, definitely check it out. Listening to the words straight from Sting's mouth was better than just reading the "highlights" in the WZ (or prowrestling.net) article.

Sting talked about a lot of lofty aspirations he's got for TNA/Impact, and I hope that TNA will get there some day. As far as getting as popular as WCW Nitro was (like Sting mentioned in the interview), I dunno about that. I'd love to see it happen, but I think we all know that it's not gonna happen in the immediate future. At least Sting is pushing for the "right" things TNA needs to do to get there (or at least attempt getting there), and hopefully TNA higher-ups will FINALLY take notice. Run a live show from a different city every week, TNA! Sting told you so....

 

[Kenny Powers]

This is why I admire Sting even more then Angle. Sting really has never said a bad thing about TNA or even WWE for that matter. He continues to bring a positive image for himself and for TNA. None of us really know financial reports from last year, but it seems like TNA has had a good year considering their world tours and being able to take Impact on the road. I seriously thought the Jeff Hardy debacle would have been the death nail, but somehow TNA has come back strong. Jeff Hardy has even had a good return with no issues.

As Sting said they have had great ratings in the UK and have a partnership with Ra Ka King in India. I'm not sure if Sting will ever leave since he says he will leave every year. I'm not sure if TNA will ever be seen as more as a "second class citizen" or will breakthrough like WCW Nitro did. They have come a long way though in 10 years and it is great to see someone like Sting represent TNA.

 

[Suq Madeeq]

I think Sting's perspective is right on, especially to the live shows in different cities. I agree TNA needs to do that. The iMPACT! Zone is getting old already, especially for PPV's. In fact, the Ring Ka King's (TNA India) set is much larger and better looking. I wished iMPACT's set looked that good too.

Going back to going live shows.... I hope that if they do, they do it during their current time slot on Thursdays instead of another Monday Night Wars attempt. It's not necessary to try to compete on that level against the WWE. TNA just needs a solid live show, in different cities and strive for better ratings on their own turf. Competition doesn't actually need to happen on the same night. IMHO there is enough room for two or three successful wrestling companies, reaching different age groups and markets. I want WWE to get better, TNA to thrive and hopefully see Ring of Honor (ROH) come up too. Win/Win if you ask me.