What if Sting vs Hogan had gone off like expected

[wildojinx]

After watching the A&E documentary on the nwo, it made me wonder, if Hogan had decided to play ball and do a clean job to Sting, would WCW still had been able to succeed? Would the NWO finally disband? Would Sting have a longer title reign?

[fg]

The organization would still go out of business due to the fact that the people running it knew nothing about it. Also, since WWE inadvertently benefited greatly from this, WWE would also go out of business. Of course, nobody knew any of this at the time.

[Spider2024]

Most likely not. The popular midcard acts would've still been fed up with being pigeonholed and itching to leave to greener WWF.

As for the immediate storyline path, I've been wondering when they first had plans to split the nWo into Wolfpack & Hollywood. Remember, that happened fairly early in 1998. Maybe they could have spun Sting's win into being the catalyst for that. Like Sting didn't even have to win cleanly, just definitively. Like with a ton of interference would've been fine, just nothing where he had to forfeit the title.

The nWo original didn't have to end that night of Starrcade 97, even with a loss. Hogan could've absolutely come out the next night on Nitro and screamed "This ain't over, brother! Not by a long shot!" or something to that effect. Then Sting wins the rematch at Superbrawl, nWo members start blaming each other for losing the best, badabing badaboom they go from there with the Wolfpack split.

[H-Virus]

Honestly, even if Hogan and Patrick hadn’t f***ed up the ending, the match itself was still terrible. Sting got almost no offense as Hogan beat him from pillar to post before hitting the legdrop. This was after an entire year of Hogan being scared to death of Sting, running for the hills the moment Sting got within ten feet of him, and now he’s fearlessly kicking his ass and making him look like a complete jobber? Bullshit.

The whole Bret and Montreal thing was the worst thing that could have happened at the time, because if it hadn’t been for that and Bischoff’s great idea to have it play into the climax of the storyline that he’d already been building for a year and a half, then the match likely would have been much different. No false finish, no match restart, just Sting beating Hogan like he was meant to.

[Milkman Norm]

Sting never was a draw as champion. The chase drew. So even if he had won clean I'd see him having at most a six month reign.

[wildojinx]

Plus, maybe we would have actually gotten Bret vs Sting when both were hot, by the time we got Bret vs Sting at Halloween Havoc, both had cooled down significantly (though that was likely due to the rise of Goldberg, who was now the hottest thing in WCW by that time).

[tafkaga]

The only thing that could have saved WCW was if it had been better positioned for the sale, so that it would have been worth something to someone who was actually interested in doing something with the IP. Even if Starrcade '97 had been everything we hoped it would be, there was no long term future for WCW on Turner networks, and the future for WCW was dicey even given best case scenario.

[HeyYo]

Ideally, Sting beats Hogan in a 10 minute squash. WCW celebrates like they did, but Sting grabs the mic and finally speaks. Something really simple and basic. I'm guessing more people were watching that PPV than the first episode of Thunder.

Bret debuts on Nitro the next day and teases that Hogan dropped the ball and that he would be a better nWo leader. He's a tweener that for months teases he could be a better leader and Hall and Nash debate about bringing him in with Hogan getting pissed. In the big picture, Bret's a face that just wants to cause dissention and push buttons in the nWo.

Sting drops the belt back to Hogan after a couple months. Goldberg beats Hogan on Nitro like he did. Nash and Hall do the Wolfpak from there and split from Hogan.

Bret feuds with Hogan. After a loss to Bret, Hogan "finds himself" again, the nWo dissolves and he does the red and yellow face turn. Many options from there like Bret turning heel and Hogan can get a win back.

I know Hogan probably wouldn't go for something like this. As for if WCW would have lasted, that's a great what-if question.

[eJm]

Feb 22, 2023 12:37:10 GMT -5 Milkman Norm said:

Sting never was a draw as champion. The chase drew. So even if he had won clean I'd see him having at most a six month reign.

I mean, for this period, he never drew because his credibility as champion was gone by the Thursday when the rematch happened on Nitro, the winner was never shown on TV and the belt got stripped on Thunder and it'd be another month before a champion was crowned.

Like, we talk about Starrcade but holy shit, that time after was a gigantic cluster that makes the Daniel Bryan/Randy Orton saga look like the year long Hogan/Savage feud.

[Mozenrath]

WCW would still die. It would have probably helped stave off some, but not all or maybe even most of the problems.

nWo probably still doesn't end, in part if Goldberg's rise still happens, he's maybe an even more natural opponent for them than Sting was.

Bret probably still gets turned heel in a dubious fashion sooner rather than later, which contributes to problems, since Eric just seemed to not really know what he wanted to do with Bret.

Nash's rise is still inevitable, too, which would likely undermine Sting sooner or later.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

I think it's a shame that every good idea WCW could have done at the time after a Sting victory at Starrcade was dependant on hoping Hogan wouldn't through a childish suck attack about it.

[Mozenrath]

Feb 23, 2023 7:20:00 GMT -5 EvenBaldobombHasAJob said:

I think it's a shame that every good idea WCW could have done at the time after a Sting victory at Starrcade was dependant on hoping Hogan wouldn't through a childish suck attack about it.

It honestly makes me wonder if anything would have satisfied him.

If it were my booking decision, I'd have told him that if he lost clean here, I'd have Nash take out Hogan in a few weeks on Nitro, and Hogan would get a bit of time off and then a face turn out of it in the coming months, since I feel like that's probably the only thing he'd have even entertained as an option that didn't just mean him with the belt again as soon as possible. This approach, too, would probably have problems, not the least of which being that Nash was going to wind up a popular face whether booking wanted it or not, his smartass act was increasingly accepted as cooler than many of the square faces in WCW, but maybe as top heel it could be put off for a bit longer.

The issue is, unless he trusted that promise, he still would have had the power to completely throw everything into disarray like he did.

[tafkaga]

Feb 23, 2023 6:52:55 GMT -5 HeyYo said:

Ideally, Sting beats Hogan in a 10 minute squash. WCW celebrates like they did, but Sting grabs the mic and finally speaks. Something really simple and basic. I'm guessing more people were watching that PPV than the first episode of Thunder.

Bret debuts on Nitro the next day and teases that Hogan dropped the ball and that he would be a better nWo leader. He's a tweener that for months teases he could be a better leader and Hall and Nash debate about bringing him in with Hogan getting pissed. In the big picture, Bret's a face that just wants to cause dissention and push buttons in the nWo.

Sting drops the belt back to Hogan after a couple months. Goldberg beats Hogan on Nitro like he did. Nash and Hall do the Wolfpak from there and split from Hogan.

Bret feuds with Hogan. After a loss to Bret, Hogan "finds himself" again, the nWo dissolves and he does the red and yellow face turn. Many options from there like Bret turning heel and Hogan can get a win back.

I know Hogan probably wouldn't go for something like this. As for if WCW would have lasted, that's a great what-if question.

This is an interesting scenario that I've not heard before.  I like it until the part where Hogan goes back to the red and yellow.  I think he could have turned babyface and still been an edgy Hogan, e.g. FUNB Hogan, and been received much better than the red & yellow version.

[lucas_lee]

Feb 22, 2023 11:19:46 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

After watching the A&E documentary on the nwo, it made me wonder, if Hogan had decided to play ball and do a clean job to Sting, would WCW still had been able to succeed? Would the NWO finally disband? Would Sting have a longer title reign?

It still wouldve went out of business the only thing to stop them from closing would be for Ted Turner to remain in charge.

[HeyYo]

Feb 23, 2023 9:04:29 GMT -5 tafkaga said:

Feb 23, 2023 6:52:55 GMT -5 HeyYo said:

Ideally, Sting beats Hogan in a 10 minute squash. WCW celebrates like they did, but Sting grabs the mic and finally speaks. Something really simple and basic. I'm guessing more people were watching that PPV than the first episode of Thunder.

Bret debuts on Nitro the next day and teases that Hogan dropped the ball and that he would be a better nWo leader. He's a tweener that for months teases he could be a better leader and Hall and Nash debate about bringing him in with Hogan getting pissed. In the big picture, Bret's a face that just wants to cause dissention and push buttons in the nWo.

Sting drops the belt back to Hogan after a couple months. Goldberg beats Hogan on Nitro like he did. Nash and Hall do the Wolfpak from there and split from Hogan.

Bret feuds with Hogan. After a loss to Bret, Hogan "finds himself" again, the nWo dissolves and he does the red and yellow face turn. Many options from there like Bret turning heel and Hogan can get a win back.

I know Hogan probably wouldn't go for something like this. As for if WCW would have lasted, that's a great what-if question.

This is an interesting scenario that I've not heard before.  I like it until the part where Hogan goes back to the red and yellow.  I think he could have turned babyface and still been an edgy Hogan, e.g. FUNB Hogan, and been received much better than the red & yellow version.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from and how that would work better.

[thecrusherwi]

That finish was terrible, but I think it's also one of the most overblown things ever. Almost every WCW PPV main event ended in a mess back then. At the time, it hardly even stood out as a convoluted finish. It was silly for Hogan to even care enough about the finish to even want to mess with, but I don't think the way it happened ruined Sting or anything like that. I think had Sting gone over Hogan clean, 1998 would've played out largely the same way. And certainly the company doesn't fare any better over the long term.

[eJm]

Feb 23, 2023 9:45:52 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

That finish was terrible, but I think it's also one of the most overblown things ever. Almost every WCW PPV main event ended in a mess back then. At the time, it hardly even stood out as a convoluted finish. It was silly for Hogan to even care enough about the finish to even want to mess with, but I don't think the way it happened ruined Sting or anything like that. I think had Sting gone over Hogan clean, 1998 would've played out largely the same way. And certainly the company doesn't fare any better over the long term.

The match itself might be overblown but the fact it lead to a kayfabe story about a screwjob and having to justify it when there wasn't a screwjob, a rematch which lead to another regularly counted finish and the title being held up until February? If Sting just won, none of that happens. Because they had to justify everything that went wrong for what was their biggest match at the time.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Sting wins clean.

NWO moves down the card a bit to have their civil war storyline.

Bret debuts on Nitro and gooses Sting's celebration by reminding everyone that he never legitimately lost the WWE championship, and Sting can't claim to be the best in the world without beating him.

[thecrusherwi]

Feb 23, 2023 9:52:05 GMT -5 eJm said:

Feb 23, 2023 9:45:52 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

That finish was terrible, but I think it's also one of the most overblown things ever. Almost every WCW PPV main event ended in a mess back then. At the time, it hardly even stood out as a convoluted finish. It was silly for Hogan to even care enough about the finish to even want to mess with, but I don't think the way it happened ruined Sting or anything like that. I think had Sting gone over Hogan clean, 1998 would've played out largely the same way. And certainly the company doesn't fare any better over the long term.

The match itself might be overblown but the fact it lead to a kayfabe story about a screwjob and having to justify it when there wasn't a screwjob, a rematch which lead to another regularly counted finish and the title being held up until February? If Sting just won, none of that happens. Because they had to justify everything that went wrong for what was their biggest match at the time.

But I guess I'm saying I don't think it hurt business at all. Sure it changes the storyline going into SuperBrawl, but that was still going to be Sting/Hogan II. And it should have been. SuperBrawl VIII did a huge buyrate - their second biggest ever at the time behind Starrcade. And that likely was going to end in some sort of screwjob as well, because they wanted to do Hogan vs Savage again. Which sounds dumb, but Hogan vs Savage at Uncensored also did a monster buyrate. I don't think history changes at all if they do a different Starrcade finish. I don't think it would have hurt Hogan at all to lose clean, but I also don't think if Sting won clean he would've gotten any bigger than he was. If you look at the buyrates of 1998, Hogan is clearly their biggest draw until Goldberg gets going in the last part of the year. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think finish at Starrcade changes anything for WCW business wise. It might have changed TV in the winter months of 1998, but that's about it.

[TOK Hehe'd Around & Found Out]

Does Sting actually get into decent shape and semi-sober in this hypothetical? Or is he still "not tan" which was possibly the nicest euphemism that Eric Bischoff ever used for a dude who looked like he was getting 75% of his calories from beer