Sting on nWo’s Debut, Ric Flair, and His Match at Night of Champions 2015

NBC Elmira held a recent interview with Sting discussing the formation of the nWo, Ric Flair’s importance to his career, and his final WWE match at Night of Champions 2015.

On the topic of the formation of the nWo, Sting stated the formation of the group was in response to the changing times of wrestling during the ’90s. He was a bit worried for his safety when Hogan’s heel turn happened due to the amount of trash being thrown in the ring and not wanting to get hurt as a result.

“Wrestling fans and wrestling was changing, fans wanted to see something a little bit [grittier], a little darker, and a little more mysterious. …One of the defining moments was in Dayton Beach, Luger and me – we’re in the ring – and [Scott] Hall and [Kevin] Nash. Hogan becomes “Hollywood” Hogan and fans trashed the ring, [they] threw trash and I’m in the fetal position, just hoping I don’t get hit. But it started just a crazy time in wrestling. That was a defining moment in wrestling, characters changed.”

On the topic of Ric Flair’s importance to his wrestling career, Sting credited Dusty Rhodes as the reason why his match against Ric Flair at the first ever Clash of Champions occurred. Dusty trusted Sting enough to be Flair’s replacement opponent and Flair made sure their match would become memorable.

“Ric was an established, huge, national – probably international at that time – name and I was just a young kid, a ‘curtain jerker’ kind of wrestler. He had an opponent that got injured and the promoter – Dusty Rhodes, who was promoting and wrestling at the time – said, ‘We got to find somebody for Ric’ and so he put the kid, Sting, in there with Ric Flair at the very first Clash of the Champions.”

While discussing his match against Rollins at Night of Champions 2015, Sting stated he had no regrets about it being his final match in the WWE nor holds any ill will towards Rollins for hurting him.

“I cannot complain. The bottom line is the last match I had, yes, I got injured and it was a bad injury. But I went out wrestling one of the best, Seth Rollins, and it was for the WWE World Title. I mean, what a way to go out. A world title match, I cannot complain, I have no complaints. I did everything I could possibly do in this business it seems, so I’m satisfied.”