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WWE Untold: Sting’s Last Stand
Houston, Tex. at Toyota Center
Streamed on WWE Network
Review by Kevin Praik, Potential PWTorch WWE Network Content Reviewer
The 40-minute special opened with an introduction overviewing the horrid events ending Sting’s career.
At the 2015 Night of Champions (9-25-2015), Seth Rollins was in the main event wrestling two championship matches. Directly following his match with John Cena was a match with someone he idolized.
The first turnbuckle powerbomb on Sting happened, a move Rollins said he has done thousands of times in his career, “and never once has it hurt anybody.”
Sting described how he felt after the move as if “800,000 volts of electricity [was] going through my fingers.” The feeling went down both arms like he was going to shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips. “I literally felt like burning [in his fingers]. That was just like, wow,” Sting said while shaking his hands vigorously.
After a few moments to compose himself, Sting said he “was able to still think normal and the rest of my body seemed to be working okay, so I knew I was good enough to continue the match.”
Sting told the referee he was good to go. The official said okay and radioed back to production via a mic-pack and earpiece that all WWE referees have during any match.
Towards the end of the match, Sting took the second “buckle-bomb.” As Rollins was carrying Sting across the ring to deliver the move, Sting had a casual conversation with himself in his head: “Tuck your chin.”
When Sting hit the turnbuckle, he said he could feel “the power just going out of his legs.”
He collapsed, got up, and collapsed again after running the ropes.
As Sting was being attended to in a corner of the ring, Rollins was on the opposite side trying to stay in character but devastated as a person. “I’m [Rollins] watching someone on the ground that I care about and idolize,” Rollins said. “They’re suffering and they’re scared and that is a terrifying feeling.”
After some time, Sting was able to get more power to his legs with each passing second. Sting said he was praying the whole time. Sting defined his mindset to finish that match as “a little bit of insanity,” almost as if he was phrasing his response as a question.
Seth said: “He doesn’t have to be doing any of this stuff, but the fact that he’s in this situation where he’s terrified for his own health and safety, and the only thing he can think about is finishing the match; [it] is one of the most selfless things I’ve ever seen in a ring in my life.”
“That’s just the way we were bred back then,” said Michael P.S. Hayes, longtime main event wrestler and WWE producer. “You have a reasonability. You make your town. You go out there and you give the crowd all you can do. And you finish your match.”
After the match, Sting was in his dressing room being attended to. Triple H came in and told Sting he needed to go to the hospital. Once he was loaded into an ambulance, Rollins rushed down and met him in the back of the vehicle. Rollins fumbled through his words. He asked Sting if he was alright if he was responsible for this, and how he dressed like him for Halloween all in the same breath.
Sting response was, “Seth, it’s cool; all is well.” This was the only documented time Rollins told Sting how much he meant to him.
After several tests, doctors told Sting he was one wrong head movement away from no movement from the neck down or death.
Sting does not blame Rollins for injuries he suffered in their match saying, “There is absolutely no way that Seth had any wrongdoing,” he said. “No negligence whatsoever.”
(Praik’s Analysis: The coverage of the main event for the WWE Heavyweight Championship was told well. It felt like you were right inside the ring. There are still a couple of questions that were left unanswered. For example, did Sting’s fall through the Spanish announce table significantly contribute to his career-ending injury?)
In the special, Sting talked about his relationship with Vince McMahon. “One of the reasons I never did [come to WWE in the years following WCW’s closure] is because I thought that Vince wanted to undermine WCW more than he wanted me as a talent,” he said.
Seth speculated on McMahon’s mindset when it came to Sting. “I think he wanted to show Sting that there was no bad blood, there weren’t any hard feelings,” he said. “He respected him and everything he had done for the industry and he wanted to do right by him [Sting].”
As Rollins finished talking, Sting picked up exactly where Rollins left off as if Rollins’ words were his own. Sting’s face conveyed utter-amazement while he was searching for words to describe how positive his relationship with McMahon is.
Leading up to Night of Champions, Sting explained how shocked he was when asked by WWE to partake in a WWE Title match against Seth Rollins. He said this over video of him signing a piece of paper presumed to be the contact for the championship match.
A few days after SummerSlam, Rollins was sitting in his home when he got a call from WWE.
Rollins was told about the idea for him to face Sting for the WWE Championship in the main event of Night of Champions. “When I hung up the phone, I remember just taking a few minutes to collect my thoughts,” Rollins said. “I was so excited but also immediately nervous.”
(Praik’s Analysis: This was a great moment. It brought insight into a rarely seen aspect of a wrestler’s lifestyle.)
During the main event of the 2014 Survivor Series, Sting made his debut. Rollins said that only the people in the ring – Dolph Ziggler, Triple H, and himself at the time – knew about the debut.
As Rollins talked about this moment, he started to feel the “goose bumps” from putting himself in that moment. “I remember laying there [on the mat in the ring] just feeling that energy. It was incredible.”
Sting’s actions at Survivor Series set up a match between him and Triple H at WrestleMania 31.
After the match, the special cuts to Sting sitting in a room. He talked about how he could have wrestled his last match.
Rollins talked about the massive impact Sting had on his childhood.
When Rollins first saw Sting, he had a blond flat-top and bright colors on his face and gear. Along with other attributes, Rollins described that version of Sting as “[having] everything that a 4, 5, 6 years old kid would look for.”
When Rollins was a teenager, Sting had transformed into a different character. Rollins explained being connected to the “Stinger” standing alone in the rafters. “As a teenager who felt very isolated. he was someone that I could relate to.”
Rollins was so enamored with Sting’s new character, he actually dressed up as the “Icon” for Halloween.
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