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KELLER'S TAKE
KELLER BLOG: An addendum to the top ten omissions on the "Rise and Fall of WCW" DVD Aug 26, 2009 - 12:46:28 AM
I'm sure there are several key omission that didn't jump out at me right away when watching the "Rise & Fall of WCW" DVD. Some omissions were excusable given the relatively limited time to tell the entire story of WCW. Some omissions were understandable given the politics. What was inexcusable to leave out, though, and a blatant omission based on politics, is the absence of Sting's involvement as the centerpiece babyface in the peak run of WCW Nitro. I didn't include that on my Top Ten Omissions list posted yesterday, and it would have easily make the top two or three spots had I thought of it at the time I wrote it.
You'd have thought from watching the DVD - and it almost worked with me - that Goldberg and Dallas Page were the no. 1 and no. 2 babyfaces in the promotion during the peak era of Nitro. The fact is, Sting was the no. 1 babyface of the Nitro era. The Crow gimmick was a key factor in giving fans hope that a power existed that could offset the influence of the NWO. Of course Goldberg was a big factor in that, and Page was the home-grown scrappy underdog (who gets a bit of a bad rap because his push came largely because of his long-time friendship with Eric Bischoff, but he was very good in his role in every way and held his own in a thin babyface division).
Sting has never wrestled for WWE. He is currently the top star with WWE's current top cable TV rival, TNA. Sting, though, has hardly been an anti-Vince McMahon spokesperson. He's just chosen instead to accept incredibly generous guaranteed contract offers with limited dates required over the past two decades from WCW, major international fly-by-night groups, and now TNA. He didn't "snub" WWE. He didn't take a stand against Vince McMahon. He's just gone about his business in getting rich and headlining for two decades without accepting dime-one from WWE.
Apparently that's enough to get him written out of what might be one of the most influential ways future generations learn about the WCW organization. It's another example of why WWE cannot be relied upon to tell its own history accurately. There was no good reason to leave Sting out of the DVD. He was such a big part of WCW, it had to be a difficult task to limit his appearances in the DVD to such a degree that I practically forgot he existed while I was watching it.
WCW fans will notice, and they'll hold it against WWE that they left Sting out. PWTorch reader David D. wrote in about this very subject:
"Maybe I'm in the minority but the thing that got me most excited about WCW's product in the Monday Night Wars was Sting. I tuned in every week just to see what Sting did for the last two minutes of every show. However, his impact on the Monday Night War and WCW's popularity seems to go unnoticed, even in the Monday Night War DVD. It was all my friends and I could talk about. However, these documentaries don't credit the popularity of 'The Crow' angle with the high ratings and popularity. Also, the Starrcade match where Hogan leveraged his way out of a clean and necessary job is a glaring mistake that WCW never seemed to recover from."
While several "turning points" were brought up in the DVD documentary, the fallout from the Hulk Hogan vs. Sting match at Starrcade was a big one. To omit that, but focus as much as they did on the Halloween Havoc PPV going off the air early at the start of Goldberg vs. Dallas Page, shows that historical accuracy was not a priority in this DVD, and does nothing more than rightfully cause any viewer to be skeptical of anything and everything they see and hear on these DVD packages, which unfortunately are as much propaganda as documented history features.
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