Sting vs Vader: Establishing the Mastodon in WCW

These days when one thinks of the Man Called Sting and iconic feuds, most will inevitably venture their thoughts to ‘Crow’ Sting against Hollywood Hogan and the New World Order. But before the Hogan heel turn, or Hall and Nash showing up on Nitro and shaking up the wrestling world and driving him into the darkness and arena rafters across the country, Sting was a completely different being who made his name thanks to his feuds with two of the most legendary figures in the sport of professional wrestling. Everyone knows that Sting did not truly become a household name until his epic time-limit draw with Ric Flair at the inaugural Clash Of The Champions. Love him or hate him, Ric Flair was instrumental in establishing Sting as a force to be reckoned with. Sting’s battles with Flair and the Four Horsemen made him World Champion material. But what would happen when Sting would be tasked with helping establish a new championship-caliber monster in one of wrestling’s greatest rivalries? 

Enter Big Van Vader

After tearing it up overseas, particularly in Japan, where he became the first Gaijin to become the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, a Championship he would go on to hold a total of three times, Vader would make his way back to the United States as a member of the World Championship Wrestling roster. His initial run would be nothing to write home about with several start and stop pushes. Part of this could be attributed to his admittedly rough in-ring style. In his initial training, Vader was brought up in Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association (AWA). Verne always preferred a more realistic style for his wrestlers and with Vader then heading over to New Japan Pro Wrestling, he was thoroughly brought up on what is now known as ‘strong-style.’ Many people would complain about Vader’s stiffness in the ring, but when Bill Watts took over the wrestling side of WCW, Vader was a perfect option for a big hoss champion. The company just needed to pair him with the proper talent to work him into the American style of pro wrestling. This is where Sting comes in.

In addition to pairing Vader with Harley Race in order to help Vader with how to handle himself in both the locker room and out of it, Sting was the perfect contender to help Vader alleviate his more strong style tactics to a lighter, arguably more entertaining style of wrestling. The first meeting between the two would occur on April 12, 1992. Sting was the WCW World Champion and coming off the heels of his feud with Ravishing Rick Rude and The Dangerous Alliance, which had resulted in arguably the greatest War Games match in history. Sting was riding high at this time, but their first battle would not end well for the Stinger. Sting would come out of the match victorious, but a devastating Vader Bomb would leave Sting with two cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen. Sting would essentially be out of action for the following months while Vader ran roughshod over all of the competition leading into 1992’s Great American Bash. It’s a generally forgotten show due to the fact that the entire card was a tournament for the vacant WCW World Tag Team Championships with one exception, that being a WCW World Championship rematch between Sting and Vader. 

A relatively brutal match that would go back and forth, at one point even seeing Vader lock in his own version of the Scorpion Deathlock (or Sharpshooter for us Bret Hart fans). The two men were absolute experts at telling the David vs. Goliath story with both men knowing and excelling in their particular roles. With Vader facing the corner, Sting would go for a big Stinger Splash in the corner but overshot it and nailed his head on the steel support connecting the ring post and turnbuckle, leaving him dazed and bloodied. Still giving it his all, Sting would keep trying to throw rights and lefts at the future Mastodon who easily avoided the blows, before hitting a huge and stiff-looking powerbomb to become the WCW World Champion. Interestingly one of the babyfaces who would come to check on Sting in the ring would be Ron Simmons. Due to a legitimate knee injury that needed surgery, Vader would need to drop the title relatively quickly. Vader was scheduled to defend the title against Sting a few weeks later, but Sting would be attacked by Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, who was recently debuted in WCW. Due to this, Bill Watts decided to hold a raffle to determine a new number one contender, which was won by Ron Simmons. Simmons would go on to defeat Vader, making him the first recognized African American WCW World Champion.

Fast forward a few months later and we would see Vader’s return in time for Halloween Havoc 1992. The build to that year’s Starrcade would see a tournament for the King Of Cable with the finals being held at the big event. And who would be the two final contenders in the tournament? None other than Big Van Vader and Sting. The two would once again engage in a hard-hitting 15+ minute battle, this time with Sting emerging victorious. Earlier in the night Sting was presented with the Battle Bowl ring for winning the previous year while Vader had already competed in a tag match as part of that year’s Battle Bowl alongside Dustin Rhodes. The two men drove one another to the limit but Vader’s own hubris would be his undoing as he went for a big splash from the top only to be caught into a big slam from Sting on his way down.

Two days after Starrcade, Vader would regain the WCW World Championship by defeating Ron Simmons at a house show and would move on from Simmons to continue his feud with Sting heading into SuperBrawl III in February of 1993. This match has become infamous for two reasons. The first is that it would be built to by WCW creating the first in a series of ridiculous mini-movies which saw Sting take a helicopter trip deep into the Rockies where he would meet the WCW Champion Vader in his ‘White Castle of Fear’ where we would see some over the top acting from Sting, Vader and especially Vader’s manager Harley Race. The much better reason the match is remembered is that the White Castle of Fear Strap Match is one of, if not the, best strap matches in mainstream wrestling history. As was par for the course for the two men, they would work a brutally realistic and stiff match that the fans easily became completely invested in. Arguably the best match between the two men, which says a lot considering the quality of their matches. Dave Meltzer would give the Strap match a rating of 4.25 stars, slightly below the 4.5 stars that their Starrcade 1992 match received. As the match would conclude Vader would drag Sting across the ring as blood covered his face, tagging each of the turnbuckles until Sting would hold onto the ropes in an effort to prevent the final turnbuckle being tagged, but in kicking Vader away, the champion would fall into the final turnbuckle to win the match.

This would mark the end of the two men’s main feud in terms of singles matches, with the exception of a March 11, 1993 house show at the Wembley Arena in London, England where Sting would capture the title, only to drop it back to Vader on March 17th in Dublin, Ireland. Vader would go on to defend the Championship against the recently debuted British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith at the 1993 Slamboree, before we would get a few more mini-movies building the new tag team, the Masters of the Powerbomb, consisting of Vader and Sid Vicious, against Sting and Davey Boy. 

The Aftermath

While the two would periodically battle throughout 1994 and 1995 before Vader’s departure for the World Wrestling Federation, it would never quite reach the heights of the battles they previously had. When watching some old wrestling, there are times where the matches are clearly a product of their time, but the battles between Sting and Vader still hold up to this day, brutal and realistic, Sting can absolutely be considered responsible for helping make Big Van Vader the monster World Champion that he became.