??♀? A MAN CALLED STING ??

ERWIN 2024 - 10th Edition

March 10

-

I got to be a part of history last Sunday.?

Thanks to my friend and pastor, Neal Jones (really Mandy Jones, who bought us the tickets), and my best friend Hunter Bell, I had the time of my life celebrating the legacy of my childhood hero.

His name is Steve Borden. Borden has been a performer for longer than I’ve been alive, but has been a fixture of my life ever since my early childhood. That’s because I was raised like many other children of my generation in the mid-Atlantic region — on professional wrestling. And Borden just happens to be one of the greatest professional wrestlers who ever lived.

He’s the man called Sting.

-

On March 3, 2024, over 16,000 fans descended upon the Greensboro Coliseum to pay homage to the career of one of the region’s greats — a Southern California native that captured the hearts and imaginations of wrestling fans worldwide with his booming charisma, excellent athleticism, fierce intensity, and later on, his captivating mystique. Greensboro would be the final stop in Sting’s illustrious career. He had publicized for months that the March 3 show would feature his retirement match.

-

For nearly 40 years, Sting was a fixture of the pro wrestling scene. Widely regarded as one of the top stars for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Sting became a sensation for the generation prior to mine. My family had spent many years attending wrestling shows (and as my grandfather likes to point out, always rooting for the bad guys — ever the rebels we Erwins have been!). As it so happens, arguably the greatest “heel” (wrestling term for “bad guy” characters) of all time made his home in Charlotte, NC: The “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.?

Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race, and Ricky Steamboat among them, legends were built on the backs of going step for step in 45- to 60-minute marathon matches with Ric Flair in “Flair Country” (central Piedmont North Carolina). Perhaps the greatest star that Flair ever helped make was Sting. Throughout the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Flair and a young, enigmatic, neon-clad Sting put on classic matches in city after city, cementing Sting’s place among the top performers in the industry.

-

Indulge in my childhood with me, if you will.

My earliest vivid memories are from around age 4 or 5. At that time, the professional wrestling scene had been recently turned on its head by the most shocking “heel turn” ever — the American hero, Hulk Hogan, the man at the pinnacle of all things wrestling, had betrayed his worldwide legion of fans to join renegades Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and form the most menacing faction in wrestling history — the New World Order (nWo).?

From my perspective, the newly christened “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan, leader of the nWo, was the most despicable, conniving, and downright evil scumbag on the planet.?

Hogan and his nWo henchmen disposed of all of the best babyface (“good guy”) wrestlers one by one, poisoned the well of my favorite wrestling show, WCW, and desecrated the crown jewel — the World Heavyweight Championship belt — by spray painting the letters “nWo” across the center gold plate. The nWo had even claimed to convince Sting to join the dark side.

Sting, however, denied the nWo’s courtship and lamented the fact that WCW’s greatest defenders (including his best friend, Lex Luger) and fans had lost faith in Sting. They had conceded that Sting was no longer loyal to the company or to virtue itself. So Sting decided to hide away. He became eerily silent. His vibrant colors transformed into a black and white palette (the trademark colors of the nWo, which was not lost on me at the time). Sting refrained from wrestling matches for over a year, which was unthinkable.?

As time went on, though, it became apparent that Sting was actually in mourning. He was devastated with what the nWo had done to WCW and wrestling fans, causing many wrestlers and fans to fall into a sense of hopelessness or, worse, to join the nWo bandwagon themselves. The nWo’s influence had spread like a terminal cancer, which would surely lead to WCW’s ultimate demise…

… Unless, perhaps, WCW’s greatest defender would return to the ring and stand up to the nWo parasite.

It was then that Sting came to the rescue.

-

Sting had decided that he had enough of the nWo. The black and white pariah returned in the most stealthy of ways to torment the nWo’s goons and picked them apart piece by piece. He stoked fear in the hearts of Hogan, Hall, and Nash, week after week to the point that wrestling fans around the world eagerly anticipated the inevitable showdown between Sting and Hogan — wrestling’s ultimate “good versus evil” climax.

I would consider Starrcade 1997, a WCW pay-per-view event that took place on December 28, 1997, a pivotal point in my childhood. It was the culmination of a year’s worth of fantasy — finally, the evildoers of the nWo would get their comeuppance, courtesy of Sting. As a 5-year old, I was hooked. Wrestling had become part of my very identity. The upcoming match meant everything to me.

When Sting ultimately triumphed at the end of Starrcade ’97 and held up the World Heavyweight Championship amidst a sea of his WCW allies, it was settled. Sting was my guy. The conquerer of evil. The triumphant warrior. The Icon.?

My hero.

-

Now, after nearly 30 years of wrestling fandom, I got to witness my hero’s final performance in person.?

Throughout my adulthood, one of the ways that I have processed grief and depression has been by reverting to nostalgic memories and traditions of my childhood past. Wrestling has played a big hand in that. It has been a constant (much like baseball) in my life and an escape from life’s circumstances, where I can “suspend my belief” (a term used to describe the abandonment of reality and embrace of the scripted or otherwise fictional realm of art and theatre — which pro wrestling absolutely falls into). If my life was in shambles, at least I could block it out for a few hours of the week.

I’ve had my share of favorite performers throughout the years, but nothing has nor will ever compare to Sting.

-

I don’t believe that Steve Borden will ever read this blog post. If he does, though, here’s what I would like to say to him:

Thank you so much.

Thank you for giving me someone to believe in as a child — a role model who stands up and fights for what is good and just.?

Thank you for the sacrifices you’ve made across the many years that you have dedicated to entertaining your fans around the world.

Above all else, thank you for being an amazing role model of a human being as a real person, not just in character.?

Lastly, thank you for one last amazing night with my friends in Greensboro to watch my hero perform. You tore the house down and gave this fan a moment of a lifetime.

In my heart, I will always be a little Stinger. ??

-

Happy Sunday, my friends! ?? ??

p.s. As an adult, I now also enjoy rooting for the bad guys! It’s in my blood, I guess.