Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett - WCW Halloween Havoc (2000)
Jarrett and Sting have had a long running history together not just in TNA but also in WCW. And while Sting was still the cornerstone and backbone of WCW after all the NWO business settled and WCW was running out of steam, Jeff Jarrett, who was always jumping ship sort of just rose to the top in 2000 - now all the sudden was WCW's "Chosen One". Jarrett's main eventing status at this time may have merely been do in part by the lack of talent, talent that WWF and its impending Monday Night War victory was picking up by the truck loads. Don't get me wrong, Jeff Jarrett is one of the greatest heels in professional wrestling, but it took him forever to get over and when he did, he didn't even have to do anything for it. I mean, now that I think about it, did Jeff Jarrett really ever get anything in his career by actually earning it? And yet here he is in 2000; the king of the mountain while Sting is at the bottom of the barrel trying to earn US title shots and doing gimmick matches with Vampiro.
So what better way to honor Sting and his amazing commitment to a company that was once on top of the world and now on its way out the door faster than a Flair blade job? By making him face impostors of himself from better times than 2000. Yep, instead of wrestling Jeff Jarrett in this match which would have been decent at best, Sting really ends up fighting five guys who dressed up like him during different points of his career.
The first Stinger we see is a light green pants-ed late 90's Sting (Tenay says he's the sting from Halloween Havoc 1989 but Sting wore black that year) who gets a Scorpion Death Drop delivered to him on the entrance way. The next Sting is the 1990 World Heavyweight Champion Sting in bright pink who also receives the Scorpion Death Drop on the entrance way. After that we get Wolfpac Sting with red face-paint who, yep, gets Scorpion Death Dropped on the entrance way (I'm guessing to dispose of them faster?), and then when we think that all the Stings are gone, we get Crow Sting, maybe circa '97, who cuts his way through the mat and drags Sting down into the hole to "hell". Luckily our hero, the real Sting, makes short work of this black and white Sting as he throws him out of the ring to get back to Jarrett. But wait! Here comes another black and white Sting - this time it's rafter-repelling Sting who gets his wig taken off to reveal that he is actually "Sting from the year 2525"; 70 year old Sting is then Scorpion Death Dropped on the announce table.
"Where's the Black Scorpion, we need him now!" - Mark Madden
Taking out what Sting thought was the last of his mirror-image impostors was not the end of the match, however. Sting tries to go back in to finish Double J off with the Scorpion Deathlock, but the Sting from under the ring reappears and smashes a guitar over real Sting's real head. Luckily though, Sting no-sells the guitar shot and Scorpion Death Drops the fourth Sting, who now has blood all over his face. Sting putting away bloody Stinger gives Jeff Jarrett time to find another guitar to use on Sting. Jarrett succeeds in smashing the guitar over Sting's head, all the while, the ref (Slick Johnson, of course) is off somewhere looking for more Stings and doesn't notice the shards of wood in the ring as he returns to give Jarrett the three count.
So yeah, this was a clusterfuck. A big heaping pile of Vince Russo shit clusterfuck.
The best - I say best because it's funny to me - part of this whole bad idea gimmick is that Jeff Jarrett, whose grudge with Sting was a combination of Sting losing his heart (a classic feud saying which means nothing at all except to bring in heat), refusing to retire, and not being as good as he was in his hey-day, is the fact that Jeff Jarrett would do this again in TNA (when Sting was returning to action in 2006) with Eric Young as 90's Sting (he also portrayed The Great Muta against Mr. Anderson Sting 5 years after), knock-knock who's there? Braden Walker (Chris Harris) as the black and white Sting with James Storm (a man who would eventually be champion of the company 6 years later) in a chicken suit as The Crow, Sting's mascot, and last but definitely not least, Monty Brown as the black daddy Sting with a little Stinger baby. Boy oh boy, do I love when history repeats itself...
A bonus to the 2006 TNA Sting impersonation gag was that Chris Harris, who portrayed a very spot-on black and white Sting, was also one of the impostor Stings in the match above. I'm not sure exactly which Sting he played but I'm almost positive it was bloody black and white Sting.
That's all I got.
