By Derek Burgan, Torch Media Guy

Torch DVD Review
Sting: Moment of Truth


Earlier this month I made the trek down to Revere, MA to check out Jushin Liger’s appearance in Ring of Honor. While there both Torch ROH News Guy Sean Radican and myself spent an absurd amount of money at the world famous ROH gimmick table. One of the items Sean bought was the Sting: Moment of Truth DVD. Now I had heard a little bit about this movie but figured I would never see it because it was bound to be done on the cheap. Don’t get me wrong about religious stuff, I am a big fan of the Left Behind books, but almost wanted to puke when I saw the Kirk Cameron movie adaptations of those books. There are many talented people in entertainment who happen to be Born Again Christian, but apparently none work in the film industry. So when Sean sat down next to me and pulled out the Sting DVD I almost had a heart attack. I was definitely going to be able to review this movie as long as I kept bothering Sean to send it to me.

When Jeremy Borash is the first "star" in your movie, you know you are in big trouble. Indeed!

Immediately after the show I began my assault, emailing Sean daily to see if he had watched the movie so he could send it up. I should have gotten a warning when Sean said, “it’s bad…real bad,” but nothing was going to stop me once I had my heart set on seeing this disc. It certainly didn’t help my case when I saw the back of the box and read “special appearances by: Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Jeff Jarrett, Ric Flair.” In my mind I had envisioned this incredible movie that had all these guys in acting parts.

Well, I was wrong.

Dead wrong.

First of all, I feel the billing of wrestlers constitutes a version of fraud considering they only appear in quick flashbacks to matches Sting was in while in WCW. I have absolutely no idea how Sting convinced the WWE to let him use footage from WCW Clash of the Champions and PPVs, but he did it.

On to the movie~!

Sting: Moment of Truth actually started out with a bit a creativity, mixing in flashbacks of two kids watching Old School wrestling intermixed with a hand painting black strokes onto a white canvas. Eventually the canvas “morphed” into Sting’s face and this was a pretty neat shot. Little would I know this would be the highlight of the film. Sting is met in his dressing room by a guy who actually says, “I’m with the newspaper.” He’s wearing a suit and tie along with a baseball cap. Whoever was in charge of costumes for this movie should be blackballed from ever working again. Just to show you what type of movie this was, I think a key scene happens early as the reporter drops his pencil and it rolled under Sting’s chair. The reporter looked at Sting and realized Sting wasn’t going to go get it so the reporter went down and was about to go under Sting’s chair when Sting said, “Here, use this” and handed the reporter a pen. WHAT THE F--- IS GOING ON HERE? I’m 8 minutes into the movie and it feels like two hours. Anyhoo, the interplay between the Sting and the reporter was groan inducing but it was all a set up for Sting to talk about his past.

We are then introduced to a really young Sting (who had an verbally abusive dad…I think) which quickly segued to a young adult Sting in a scene very reminiscent of Disney’s Tarzan and The Lion King. As in you see the young Sting running and it segues into an older Sting running. Sting fell in love with the world of bodybuilding and moved out to Southern California as we got to see every piece of free stock footage the director could get a hold of in a montage. Out of nowhere, and I rewound this part like 10 times to make sure I heard it right, Sting said, “California used to be the land of opportunity before taxes took over.”

Who wrote the script to this movie? Arnold Schwarzenegger?!

Sting talking to a "reporter"

Man, my head is still spinning on that one. Sting ended up co-running a gym with a friend and was one day approached by a guy named Rick Bassman along with a bunch of juiced up muscleheads. Bassman wanted Sting to be the fourth member of a wrestling team he was putting together called Power Team USA. Eventually Sting agreed and this is where he met Jim Hellwig (a/k/a the Ultimate Warrior). We got to see a little of Sting’s training with the Rick Bassman character (who reminded me a little of the Martin Landau character in Ready to Rumble, except about 300 pounds bigger) but this was just as bad as anything on that Wrestling’s Secrets Exposed special several years back.

Sting got a call from “Mr. Jarrett” and headed down to Memphis along with Jim Hellwig. Time for another bad song and horrible montage which actually included a scene of the boys getting pulled over and getting what I presume was a speeding ticket. During this time Sting was saying he was living on no money (shown by him living on shakes made out of tuna fish and…ORANGE JUICE?!) and making a reputation as a wrestler who hurts his opponents in the ring. Somewhere Nathan Jones is screaming, “gimmick infringement!" Around this point in his life Sting also met the love of his life, Sue, and quickly got married. To put it bluntly, Sue was not prepared to live the life of an poorly paid Indy wrestler. Sting talked about renting out a room in their house to a wrestler named “Angel of Death” who was actually Ron or Don Harris, one of those goofs. In a moment of desperation, Sting prayed to God for some success, something he claims to have never done before.

Success came as the fast food chain Hardee’s paid Sting to appear at several of their store openings. This reminded me of that great Simpsons episode when Homer becomes a Krusty the Clown to appear at Krusty Burger openings. Basically, like Sting, Homer painted himself up to do meet and greets at various restaurants. They also used this scene to take another shot at wrestling fans as one of the guys who asks Sting for his autograph is one of those guys who believe wrestling is "real." I don’t understand this DVD at all. Sting also went to WCW around this time and it was quite the shock to all of a sudden see footage from a Clash of the Champions (I think) with Sting facing off against Ric Flair with Paul Orndorff, Junkfood Dog and the Steiner Brothers outside the ring. Man, Jim Ross sounded so different back then! After the match, in an unintentionally hilarious scene, Sting meets some people in the lobby of his hotel who say they are friends of Ted Dibiase. When Sting says he is late for his flight one of the guys actually says to him, “If that plane goes down, do you know where you’ll spend eternity?” Sting did a group praying session with the guys but vowed to punch Dibiase in the mouth the next time he saw him.

For you TNA fans, Sting then had a match against ABYSS~! This was taped with no fans in the building (maybe it was an FIP show?) and it was cut with crowd shots from different wrestling shows. Quite surreal to see a match with two guys obviously on an empty set mixed with crowd shots from various TNA and WCW shows over the years. This was straight out of And God Spoke… or Spinal Tap. Jeremy Borash announced Sting was the WCW World Heavyweight Champion of the world so maybe Abyss was taking the place of Loch Ness or something.

Sting turning to pills

Sting then hit the bottle. Both the pills and the drinking variety. I personally wanted to slit my wrists at this point as well, so I know how he felt. We then went to some more WCW stuff that seemed like it was edited by a kid with A.D.D. Randy Savage, DDP, Kevin Nash and Goldberg were all involved and somehow Sting won. This was absolutely the worst way to get over how exciting wrestling was at this period in time. Sting was still portraying himself as a guy who didn’t party with the others (and I guess the association with ring rats) but had a pivotal scene in which he found a letter from his wife Sue in his gear bag. The letter basically told Sting that they need help or that she would leave him. This wasn’t really followed up on much because we then went to a Steel Cage handicap match between Sting and America’s Most Wanted. Don't ask me, I didn't write the damn thing. In this match AMW was putting the boots to Sting in one corner when a cloud of smoke came up and Sting appeared behind them. I must have missed that match. Sting then beat both guys who backstage sources report were “boo boo facing” after the match.

The DVD then went to a section that dealt with Sting and the whole “dropping from the ceiling” thing. We meet another outrageous character who tells Sting, “They (WCW) must think you’re pretty hot stuff to pay me the fee that I demanded in order to teach you how to fly.” Do people actually talk like this? Cue: montage of Sting's drops over the years in WCW. Sting made it clear that while he was making all the money in the world at this time he was still “MISERABLE!” Out of nowhere Sting then went to a 40,000 person Promise Keeper convention but immediately went back on the road wrestling. This is crazy. Even worse was yet another nonsensical montage of wrestling that was more confusing than exiting.

Sting got a call from his wife Sue and she wanted to know if he was alone. “WHAT ARE YOU INSINUATING?!” Sting was not happy with this. After countless thousands of movies I knew this would end with Sting hanging up the phone, pause for a second, and then a girl would reveal herself from the covers. Well, it never came. Where did we go next? To a photo shoot from BIZARRO WORLD in which Sting, in a suit no less (AND facepaint), took glamour shots while posing with WCW action figures and other merchandise. Sting collectible plates, Sting kites, action figures and WOW magazine were some of the items featured. God, all I can think of right now is getting a set of Sting collectible plates for my girlfriend as a Christmas present. The look on her face would be the greatest Punk’dEVER. And then we could use the plates to serve Christmas dinner to her parents. It would be like a DOUBLE PUNK’D. ”I’m Ashton Kutcher. I’M AWESOME!”

Another "reporter"

Next up was my favorite segment of the movie when ANOTHER reporter made his way to Sting’s dressing room. This kid even had his face painted like Sting. I can’t tell you how great this was because the reporter acted like that guy in those great NFL apparel commercials that hides in the N.Y. Giants' dirty laundry. Anyhoo, this kid was writing an article “for the internet” and said he heard Sting had “found religion.” Sting wanted to know where he found that out. “The web.” The reporter kept acting like the biggest goof and said there was a girl in his college “who thinks she’s the Undertaker.” THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER. The discussion got around to Sting joining the NWO and he said that while he had a great time, "it was the beginning of the end for WCW.” We even got to see what probably was the real beginning of the end, Hogan vs. Sting from Starrcade, the one in which Bret Hart came in, and was one of the worst executed Big Matches in wrestling history. Even Sting admitted the match didn’t live up to the hype. Why is ANY of this on the DVD?! Sting called this particular Starrcade, “The biggest selling PPV in the history of PPVs…any PPVs.”

I swear to God I didn’t make that last line up.

I take everything back, everyone needs to get this movie just to see this scene. It ends in the funniest way possible as the reporter asks Sting to acknowledge him on the way to the ring and Sting says, “why don’t we become a tag team?” The kid is all excited and Sting said “GET OUT OF HERE!” I love this movie!!!!

Then we got serious.

Sting's "Moment of Truth" or a cut scene from a really bad episode of "E.R."

I guess the “Moment of Truth” came next as it looked like Sting had an acid trip when he was encountering all his vices. He ran into weirdos with money, drugs and alcohol. The credits said that zombies were in this but I didn’t see any of those. STING OF THE DEAD, coming soon. Sting was then trapped on an operating table, in a steel cage, while crazy doctors were about to operate on him. There were several wrestlers standing on the cage watching this and it was clearly the most insane thing I have ever seen in a movie…ever. After this Sting “woke up” in his hotel room and quickly went to the ground and prayed for Jesus (or God, I have no idea) to save his soul. I often pray in front of the TV as well, but usually on Sundays and almost invariably it is for my Fantasy Football Team.

And that was it. A closing title said that Sting and his wife saved their marriage along with other “feel good” bits.

The End.

WTF?

“Worst. Movie. Ever.” – Comic Book Guy

Bonus Features: Trailer of the movie. Director’s commentary. A not so interesting “making of” feature and a much better “behind the scenes” one. It’s worth noting the credits as well because it appears to have personal home movies from Sting’s life running throughout and you get to find out stuff like Ryan Wilson (TNA’s Titus) played a young Ultimate Warrior. It also had Bert Prentice as playing Rick Bassman.

Overall thoughts: While there is a high camp factor for Sting: Moment of Truth, I can’t see anyone except the most hardest of hardcore Sting really wanting this. The songs are bad. The script is bad. The montages are beyond bad. CLICK HERE if you really want it though and who knows, get a couple people together and you could have a great Mystery Science Theatre 3000 experience goofing on it. It’s no Mitchell, but then again, what is?

DVD's closing credits with Sting's home movies

Derek Burgan is currently the ROH DVD Guy. His latest review of The Rise and Fall of ECW is now available. He is counting the days to ROH’s Final Battle 2004. You can write Derek by clicking here! (derek@gumgod.com)

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