Triple H vs Sting (WWE, 3-29-2015)

WWE WrestleMania 31, Santa Clara, CA

I got the itch to watch an “anniversary” match for September 20, and that led me to the Rollins-Sting match at Night of Champions 2015. Which then gave me another itch: rewatching Sting’s first ever WWE match, against Triple H at WrestleMania 31.

The entrances are grand and over the top. Sting’s is first, maybe because it requires a bit less teardown than HHH’s hilarious tie-in with a Terminator movie that nobody cared about. Or because Helmsley is an egomaniac, or because WWE refuses to allow Sting to be seen as someone more important than HHH. Take your pick. It doesn’t matter, really. Either way, HHH’s entrance here is pound-for-pound the most hilarious in WrestleMania history, beating out that time CM Punk had to pretend to know how to hold a gun. “To me, that was about symbolism,” Michael Cole says.

So here’s Sting, freshly 56 years old, 29-and-a-half years after his pro wrestling debut, against Triple H, a few months shy of his 46th birthday, 23 years into his wrestling career.

Cole, Lawler and JBL all take mild shots at the legacy Sting left in WCW, noting that this is WrestleMania, not piddly Starrcade, it’s WWE, not shitty little WCW. 14 years on and Vince still hadn’t quite let go of the grudge. That said, it’s all pretty factual. It’s not like Sting was wrestling in front of a reported 76,976 fans at any other point in his nearly 30-year career. Then they jack off over HHH’s entrance and how it HAS TO HAVE gotten into the head of Sting, an idiot. Even though Sting said the match is not about him defending WCW, that’s clearly what the match is about to the WWE writers and commentators and Vince. So that should’ve told us all the result right away.

This is no DQ, no countout.

Bell sounds and they stare at each other from a distance. C&E, Sting sent off the ropes, he tackles HHH down and pounds his chest and shouts. Then he goes WOOOW. Headlock takeover from HHH. Hunter into the kneeling side headlock. HHH off the ropes, he shoulders Sting down this time and crotch chops. Off the ropes and over Sting, hiptoss from Sting, and a dropkick. HHH retreats to the corner and Sting fires the crowd up. They give him an aggressive “you still got it” chant.

HHH backed to the corner, he throws a right on the break. HHH with another right, Sting down, right hand, Sting down. HHH off the ropes on a reversed whip, he hits the facebuster but Sting is apparently Samoan and it has no effect. Man the crowd is into Sting.

Sting catches the legs and goes for the scorpion deathlock, but Hunter scoots out of the ring. HHH takes his time to come back in, then has a conversation with Charles Robinson. Another C&E, HHH with a knee to the gut and a couple right hands in the corner. Sting sent to the other side, he reverses, HHH re-reverses, Sting re-re-reverses and HHH is sent to the floor. Sting goes for a Stinger Splash outside and HHH moves, so Sting crashes into the barricade. Sting sent into the steps.

At least as the commentary goes on, we get into clear roles. JBL is aggressively anti-Sting; Lawler is fairly neutral, willing to hear everyone out like a coward; and Cole is perfectly open to Sting.

HHH suplexes Sting in from the apron. HHH mounts and punches a few times. Sting sent hard into the corner, hits there and bounces out to the canvas. Another hard whip to the corner, same result. Old man Sting hobbled and trying to grab at HHH’s legs. Another crotch chop from HHH, “the ultimate humiliation,” then a kneedrop for two. Chinlock from HHH.

Sting elbows out, but runs into a spinebuster, a move he’s taken a few times from a much better wrestler. Back to the chinlock. Now they’re rambling about how much WCW sucks and Sting might suck, too.

Sting with some right hands, whip to the corner, boot up from Hunter. HHH off the second rope, but Sting catches him and is going for the scorpion deathlock — he gets it on!

DX music hits and here comes X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws. Sting whacks them all down fast. HHH catches Sting turning around, goes for the pedigree, and Sting backdrops Hunter out to the floor. Sting going up top, looking to do something big even past AARP age, and he dives onto all four members of DX.

Sting’s back welted up pretty good. Gunn tries to come back into it and gets popped, but HHH hits Sting with the pedigree in the ring. Sting kicks at two.

Hunter goes out and finds the sledgehammer. Then the nWo music hits, and here come Hall, Nash, and Hogan. You know, STING’S GREAT FRIENDS. DX meet the nWo in the aisle and everyone fights, old and hobbled. Hogan drops X-Pac, who still can’t cut the mustard.

Sting sneaks on HHH and hits the scorpion death drop for two. Now he goes for the scorpion deathlock again, turns it over, and has it on in the middle of the ring. HHH’s leg just welted and bruised all to hell. HHH gets the hammer, but Hogan sneaks in and takes it away. X-Pac shoves Hogan into the post! HE CAN CUT THE MUSTARD AFTER ALL! Nash drops Pac, Gunn takes down Nash. Hall goes for the Outsider’s Edge on Road Dogg, but Dogg backdrops him on the floor. Bless Hall.

HHH bridges up in the deathlock, and finally gets the ropes. JBL has full-on time warped back to 1998. He’s lost his mind. In the ring, it’s Shawn Michaels, and he hits Sting with the sweet chin music to a chorus of boos. Nice boots, Shawn.

HHH drapes an arm over Sting. 1, 2, Sting gets a shoulder up. Michaels fetches the hammer with Gunn, who hands it off to HHH. Now we wait to see if Big Show comes out in an nWo shirt. All the old men outside are apparently done fighting. HHH has the hammer, approaches slowly, and Hall hands Sting a bat. So they both have weapons.

“This is incredible,” says Cole, which is one word for it.

HHH charges, eats a bat shot to the gut. “Kill him, Sting!” Hogan yells. HHH raises the hammer, and Sting breaks it in half with the bat. Then he drops his bat. Right hand, right hand, kicks, more right hands, backfists, shots to the body, just a full-on assault in the corner.

Hogan going ABSOLUTELY APESHIT for Sting.

Stinger Splash! He sets for another one, and this time HHH comes out with the top half of the hammer and bounces it off Sting’s skull. Cover, two, three. Well that’s a finish, I guess.

DX help HHH up and lead him out. The nWo come in to see to Sting. HHH approaches Sting and the nWo, DX try to hold him back. Instead, HHH extends his hand to Sting, who … accepts. Alright, then. So that finally officially ends the WWE vs WCW war, according to Michael Cole. Sure, why not?

Rating: 2.5/5. LMAO I have no idea what to give this match, because it’s entertaining in its absolute ridiculousness, but it’s not good. So the middle of the road rating will do. The whole thing is just absurd, overbooked beyond belief. HHH and Sting could have had a perfectly competent veteran match with no tricks, but they decided to go for ALL the tricks even remotely possible. That’s fine, I guess — there had to have been worries about how Sting would perform at 56 on the big stage. And the whole thing is probably more memorable, at least in a comedic sense, done this way.