WWE Hall of Famer The Undertaker discussed on his Six Feet Under podcast why a “dream match” between Sting and the WWE never materialized, revealing that Vince McMahon was opposed to the idea.
“It just didn’t work out. He had a short run in WWE and Vince didn’t want it. For whatever reason, I don’t know what it was. He didn’t feel it. Everybody else was clamoring for this match for quite a few years. A year or two into that character change, I mean, people were already sending me artwork with the billboard or the poster. It just never worked out. The match would have been good, but I don’t think it would have lived up to the expectations that people have for it. People always think about things in a certain sense. I think they thought in their mind of Undertaker, 2007 or 2008 versus Sting. It was later on than that. I can say I was way on the backside of what I was going to do when he got there.”
“The smart thing that he did was he was booked judiciously. He wasn’t put into situations where he might have got exposed and not be able to maybe keep up with the younger talent. It was probably him, I would imagine, because you have to understand your limitations. A lot of times, people will get caught up in the moment. ‘Oh, well let’s put Sting in the ring with such and such.’ I’m just talking about the AEW. There would have been tons of single matches for him. He took Darby Allin. There was a little bit of chemistry there. Sting was kind of that big brother type role. It’s a very smart move (to put him in a tag team with Darby Allin) because you don’t get exposed.”
“I feel like I can speak on this and I’m not trying to say anything disparaging about Sting. I mean, it is what it is. In my heart and my mind, if I could, I would still be in the ring but I had to come to the cold hard facts that like, what my mind’s eye and my heart feels, my body wants no part of it and it doesn’t allow me to do the things I want to do. Could I go out there on my sweat equity on what I’ve done? Hell yea, I could. I’m not patting myself on the back, but I don’t think there’s anybody in the business that could throw a punch like I can throw a punch. I could chokeslam. I might mess up my brand new knees with a Tombstone, but I could walk out there and I could shuck and jive and smoke and mirror it and make people feel like they saw something, but that’s just not right. People pay too much money to be entertained properly.”
On WWE acknowledging Sting’s retirement:
“I mean, yeah, we’re in competition with a different company. I get it, but Sting’s legacy is so much bigger than AEW or any of that. I mean, he deserved that. I’m happy that as a company that they acknowledged it because it’s only right.”
You can check out the complete show below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
