Sting vs Rick Rude (WCW, 5-14-1994)

WCW Worldwide, Orlando, FL

This is a request via Ko-fi. The match was actually taped in February, before Rude suffered what would be a career-ending back injury against Sting in Japan on May 1, so 13 days before this match actually made it to TV. Rude never wrestled again, besides a one-off in an ECW six-man in 1997. And this, along with a Saturday Night match against Mark Starr that also aired on May 14, 1994, would be Rude’s final televised wrestling match. This isn’t on WWE Network but it is on YouTube.

It’s Mayhem Month on Worldwide, so Dusty Rhodes is here. We set up a thing — it’s Sting and Rude. Sting wants I Quit, Rude wants coal miner’s glove, so Dusty draws, and it’s I Quit. Sting makes fun of Rick Rude’s twig legs.

Anyway, the match. Rude is the “international heavyweight champion of the world,” but that’s not on the line. Rude has the ‘stache back again. Sting’s got white and blue face paint and Rick is in basic black tights with black boots, nothing flashy about him in this match.

Rude suckers Sting for a fast start, but Sting comes back, targeting Rude’s back and stomping the fingers, Jesse Ventura pointing out Sting has a mean streak. Ventura never found a guy in WCW to hate the way he hated Hogan on WWF commentary, which may be because he actually hated Hogan. Ventura and Heenan tried to tell everyone for years about that son of a bitch.

Sting with a camel clutch, which Ventura has forgotten the name of or maybe this was an outlawed term on WCW TV by then. Rude goes after Sting’s groin area with the inverted atomic drop, then hits a weak ass DDT. Look I love Rick Rude, I love a lot of guys who do weak ass DDTs. DDTs are like spinebusters, about three people have ever done a good one consistently and Arn Anderson is one in both cases.

Rude does a trapezius hold on Sting, Ventura does one on Schiavone. Rude grabs a sleephold, wrapping his legs around Sting’s midsection and riding him at the start of it. Jesse thinks the idea of Sting being beaten by passing out in the sleephold in an I Quit match is stupid. Keep that in mind.

Sting powers up suddenly, lifting Rude into an electric chair drop. Rude recovers first, out to the apron and going up top, not his usual fare, but he’d perfected jumping into getting hit in the gut for a babyface rally beginning. But Rude cuts it off again, and now he’s going for the coal miner’s glove, which he brought in a bag.

Then Vader’s on the screen — he distracts Rude, with whom he was beginning a heel vs heel feud that might have led to Rude as an antihero, and Rude … gets counted out. In an I Quit match. Outstanding, it’s that good Bischoff WCW.

Rating: 2/5. A lot of guys coasted at these Disney tapings, and this is a good example of that, plus a dumbshit finish, and also I’m salty that we never did get the Rude-Vader feud of ’94, which would’ve killed. I mean this is watchable enough but there’s nothing to it.