Dan The Wrestling Fan.

#269: Sting vs. Triple H, WWE WrestleMania 31 (3/29/2015).

This is a No Disqualification Match.

At the 2014 Survivor Series, the seemingly impossible happened: Sting debuted in WWE. He appeared during the main event, and attacked Triple H, costing his team the Elimination Match and ousting him from power in WWE. This only lasted a month, as Triple H returned to take control of the company at the end of December, however the mission from Sting to eliminate The Game from WWE had not. That’s how this storyline began.

Unfortunately, it quickly devolved into Sting being the last remaining guard of WCW, and thus, this was turned into a finale of sorts of the Monday Night Wars...14 years after they ended in 2001. Sting was representing WCW, while Triple H was standing up for the WWE.

Sting had a Japanese themed entrance, with people on the stage playing metal instruments and drums, while Triple H had a Terminator themed entrance, which included a cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Neither made much sense for their characters, but were nonetheless pretty cool. Also, this match took place when the sun was still out and about during WrestleMania 31, so visually, this match had a unique feel to it.

The bell sounds, and here we go! Big staredown to start things off, as the crowd chant ā€œThis is awesome.ā€ They lock up, and Sting takes the side headlock, before quickly tackling The Game down. He pounds his chest, which gets a pop. They lock up again, and Triple H takes control of the back, before executing a side headlock takedown. Triple H with a shoulder tackle of his own, followed by a DX crotch chop. Sting responds with a hip toss and a drop kick. Jerry Lawler on commentary seems perplexed that Sting can do the most basic of moves.

They lock up once again, and Triple H takes a cheap shot to the head, and one to the midsection. The Game with a facebuster to Sting, who walks it off like it’s nothing. Sting trips him and tries for the Scorpion Deathlock, and Triple H slides out of the ring. After a moment, he returns and they lock up again. Triple H forces Sting into the corner with strikes, and Sting reverses an irish whip, sending Triple H careening over the turnbuckle and to the outside.

Sting goes for the Stinger Splash, and ends up hitting the barricade instead. Triple H tosses him into the steel steps, as JBL ponders on how tonight is where Sting proves if he was ever that good. Yes, because Sting’s entire career hinges on this one match. Triple H with a vertical suplex from the apron into the ring. He drops a knee across the face, and Sting kicks out. Triple H tops him, and unleashes a series of right hands.

Hard irish whip into the corner by Triple H. He repeats it, as commentary talks about how Sting only made it in the D leagues, and that this is a different tale. Triple H applies a chin lock, as the crowd wills the Stinger on. Sting escapes, but walks into a Spinebuster. Sting is able to kick out of that pin attempt. Triple H goes back to the chin lock. I’m already tired of listening to commentary talk about the Monday Night Wars.

Sting is back to his feet, punching his way free. Triple H goes to dive off the middle rope, and Sting catches him. He locks him in the Scorpion Deathlock, but here comes D-Generation X – Billy Gunn, Road Dogg and X-Pac. Sting sends them all to the floor immediately, and then counters the Pedigree by sending Triple H to the floor. Sting goes to the top rope, and hits a Plancha on Triple H and DX. Sting rolls Triple H into the ring, and pops Billy Gunn with a punch. Triple H takes advantage of the distraction to hit a Pedigree out of nowhere. He covers, and Sting is able to kick out. Triple H goes to the floor to grab the sledgehammer. As he’s about to hit Sting, here comes the New World Order – Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. As much as I cannot stand JBL, I can appreciate that he asks who the nWo are coming to attack. At least he knows his WCW history.

Michael Cole says the Monday Night Wars have come to WrestleMania, and it’s only 14 years late. Triple H is distracted, and Sting hits the Scorpion Deathdrop. He covers, and Triple H kicks out. Sting tries for the Scorpion Deathlock. Triple H crawls for the sledgehammer, but Hogan pulls it out of the ring. X-Pac takes Hogan out, Nash takes out X-Pac, and Gunn takes out Nash. Road Dogg and Hall go at it as well.

Sting leans back farther on the submission, but Triple H is fighting it off. He makes it to the ropes. Sting tries for it again, but here’s Shawn Michaels out of nowhere with Sweet Chin Music. Before this match, the only interaction Sting and Shawn Michaels had was on a Christian show in the early 2000s. Triple H crawls for the cover, and Sting kicks out. Gunn hands Triple H the hammer, as all of DX wills him on. The nWo wills Sting on, which is just a stupid fucking sentence to write.

Scott Hall hands Sting the baseball bat, and now we have a stand off. Sting with a bat shot to the midsection, and he breaks the hammer in two. Triple H tries to beg off, as Sting tosses the bat aside. He kicks Triple H in the corner with kicks and punches. Stinger Splash connects, and as he goes for it again, Triple H is able to hit him with the sledgehammer out of nowhere, and that’s enough for the 3 and the win. How fucking anti-climatic. Triple H has ended the Monday Night Wars 14 years after they ended in 2001.

Post match, both sides embrace, and Triple H and Sting shake hands. Michael Cole on commentary ponders if the war has finally been put to bed.

Good lord, I hate this fucking match. This fucking sucks. I hated it when it happened nearly 10 years ago, and I still hate it today. The match itself is fine. I had low expectations for it coming due to age and limitations, and it basically met them. The work was basic, but it wasn’t bad. The visual of Sting wrestling at WrestleMania was good enough to give this a pass. Where this match completely turns into a shit show for me is when DX comes out.

I’m sure the crowd that night loved all of this, as nostalgia sells. Hell, if I attended this event, I probably would’ve enjoyed it, too. I mean, when Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley beat the hell out of the League of Nations at WrestleMania 32, I loved the hell out of it simply because I was there. But man, watching this at home live, I fucking hated the interference spots. It’s hard to get invested in this storyline because the Monday Night Wars had been over for over a decade at this point. This just felt like a pointless excuse for Vince McMahon to be like ā€œhey, if you guys forgot, we put WCW out of business!ā€ But, that’s not the worst part of this match. Oh no, the worst part is….

IN WHAT UNIVERSE DOES THE CORE THREE OF THE NWO – HOGAN, HALL AND NASH – NOT ONLY COME OUT TO DEFEND THE HONOR OF WCW, BUT ALSO DEFEND STING?! I mean, for fuck’s sake, Sting hid in the rafters for over a year, stalking Hogan, and became his greatest foe in the company. The nWo were always presented as an invading threat, who didn’t give a shit about WCW. Why the hell would they care about standing up for the brand here?

Oh, that’s right, because Vince McMahon is a fucking moron who doesn’t understand why certain things worked in other companies. When DX came out, I had this bad feeling that they were going to join the fray, and when they did, I got irrationally angry. It was almost comparable to when Daniel Bryan was eliminated in the 2015 Royal Rumble – almost. DX and the nWo fighting at ringside might have some nostalgia for fans, and that’s totally fine. If you saw that and marked out, good on you. It’s not difficult to see why fans in attendance that night loved it.

Adding to my not-so-positive feelings on this match, but the ending was fucking atrocious as well. It happened so suddenly and out of nowhere, and you’re left kind of scratching your head like ā€œthat’s it?ā€ Bleh. Fuck this match, and fuck whoever fed commentary all that shit about how Sting is in the big leagues, and all his work prior meant nothing. Like, I get it, it’s entertainment, and you’re trying to tell a story, yada yada. It’s so easy to just praise Sting for what he’s done, and talk about how awesome it is that someone of his caliber is at WrestleMania, instead of being like ā€œHey, let’s see if Sting fucking sucks or not.ā€

Oh, and you know what else was super easy? Just booking Sting to wrestle The Undertaker instead of this shit.