On June 19, Sting appeared in a prerecorded message to the fans and talked about his career and memory in TNA and some of his best matches.
It was one of several moments at the pay-per-view that celebrated the company and its own 20th anniversary.
He started it off by talking about how it gave him a way back into the wrestling industry, and how it started with a series of one offs until he decided to join after Dixie Carter came into the picture.
The timing of his debut came a year after the company started, and he did it as a favor to Jerry Jarrett, who gave him and the Ultimate Warrior their break in pro wrestling
Check out what @Sting had to say about @IMPACTWRESTLING celebrating 20 Years!#Slammiversary pic.twitter.com/gA9arhlAso
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) June 20, 2022
Making his debut
On June 18, 2003, Sting debuted with Jeff Jarrett and defeated AJ Styles and Syxx-Pac at NWA-TNA Weekly PPV.
What’s interesting about him going here instead of the WWE was that he was watching how the WWE treated former WCW talent and he didn’t trust how he was going to be used.
“I talked with Vince McMahon. He was really good to me, but I just got this feeling that he didn’t…put it this way: All the guys from WCW that went to WWE when the acquisition happened, by then to me, there wasn’t a real WCW because WCW was for so many years, it was Hall and Nash, it was Hogan, it was Savage, it was Sting, it was Luger, it was the Steiner brothers, it was a certain package of guys that were gone and the package that he had left had dwindled down to a small group of guys who really, great wrestlers, phenomenal talents, but they weren’t with WCW for all these years. Mainstay kind of names and all that.
“And I was watching what he was doing storyline-wise when he’d have WCW against the WWF in the hostile takeover thing and that whole deal there and I’ll never forget Booker T making his first appearance on their show and he came into the ring and he’s making this big, huge fight and guys are flying all over the place and then The Rock comes into the ring and The Rock is hitting guys, and then they come back to back and he turns around and they look at each other. The Rock looks at Booker T and he says, ‘Who are you?’
“And that one little comment is all it took to just bury somebody in my opinion, and let the world know that you’re a WCW guy and you’re a peon here. It was going to require lots of work for Booker T to try to come back and he did because he’s a talented guy. And after all the years that I’ve put into wrestling up to that point, it just seemed like a gamble to me. I didn’t trust how I was going to be used.” – Sting, Return Of An Icon DVD interview.
This was a valid concern as Vince was intent on making sure the world knew he defeated WCW and where their former talent ranked.
They had to work their way into his good graces, and until then they tended to lose clean and win by cheating.
It’s great that things eventually worked out and Sting was in the WWE for a time and has moved onto a new fanbase in AEW.
The greats always find a way, and seeing Sting humbly and fondly remembering his time with TNA only adds to his legacy.
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