Steve Borden is a 62 year old man, and one of my favorite wrestlers of all time.
To those of you who do not know, Steve Borden is STING. One of the best to ever step inside the squared circle.
This post is an alert to people who might not routinely follow AEW. Lapsed fans from the 90s are the main target of AEW, and who better to bring those people back than the Icon?
Those people, along with all of us lucky fans, get to watch STING wrestle his first match on TNT since World Championship Wrestling went under in 2001. That’s right…STING is wrestling on AEW Dynamite this Wednesday.
This makes me so happy! When he first debuted back in December, I didn’t expect him to be wrestling on random episodes of Dynamite. I expected the legend to be saved for cinematic matches, the occasional protected spot, and the rare match against the perfect workers to protect the man. His first match in AEW was a Cinematic match against Brian Cage and Ricky Starks at Revolution, and it was a perfect way to start his AEW career. The match was fun, a nice little movie style match with STING picking up the victory over Ricky Starks. It was cool to watch the Icon do all of the classic moves on his way to the Scorpion Death Drop and the pinfall.
Since I already talked about it…let’s just all relive one of the coolest surprise debuts AEW has had.
Everything about this was perfect. Team Taz was beating up Darby Allin and Cody, and the lights go out. I absolutely LOVE when the lights go out for a surprise. One could complain that AEW might do this a little much, but I am not one of those people. Give me all of the lights out surprises!
Not many people knew about his debut, and having a decent crowd reaction just added to the shock return.
Having Sting on your roster is a pretty cool addition, regardless of the capacity he appears. Remember, the man is 62 years of age, and the last time he wrestled he badly injured his neck. I think AEW has used him perfectly. In his debut, he clearly sized up Darby Allin, and they told a quality story to join them together as a team against the forces of Team Taz.
After being victorious in STING’s debut with AEW, the fans were given an unnecessary treat: STING wrestling live and in person at Double or Nothing in May.
So. Freaking. Cool.
STING no sold a suplex on the metal ramp, and proceeded to jump off said ramp ten feet down onto Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page. This was the best part of the match, but it really showcased what he could be for AEW. Most of the time, he’s going to help younger talent (probably Darby for the foreseeable future), and get his own hands dirty a few times a year. Can we just appreciate how cool it is to see STING being STING in 2021?!
The man clearly understands what makes AEW the best promotion around. The new talent needs the interactions with legends to raise their own stock. Throughout wrestling history, there have been a lot of examples of Established stars refusing to help younger people in the company they share. STING is not one of those guys. He understands the business and his awesome role in it.
For example, watch this interaction between STING and Orange Cassidy from a few weeks back:
This hilarious segment was the talk of this match between Darby Allin and Wheeler Yuta. While the match itself was fantastic, I was laughing for ten minutes after this thirty second interaction. Orange Cassidy is absolutely one of the most popular people in all of AEW, and STING is one of the most recognizable faces ever in wrestling. If they were in the same area, why wouldn’t they size each other up? Instead of just staring each other down, STING shows he respects him by doing O.C’s “Lazy kicks,” and the crowd (also me) goes wild.
This shows to be that he understands what makes Cassidy so cool. OC is a larger than life character in a modern wrestling business that is sorely lacking those types of people.
All STING has done since showing up, is been the perfect legend of wrestling you could ask for. He elevates others, gives the fans what they want, and just does what he’s done best….wrestle. By god, the man still can do that too. We get to see STING wrestling live on TNT for the first time in 20 years.
2021 is wild.