Sting Revealed He Nearly Suffered the Same Tragic Fate as Owen Hart
It took close to three decades for professional wrestling legend Sting to finally work for Vince McMahon. For years, for one reason or another, the man born Steve Borden stayed away from WWE. While others left, he remained loyal to WCW until Vince bought them out in 2001. He then spent more than a decade in TNA before finally arriving in WWE in 2014, battling the likes of Triple H and Seth Rollins before retiring during his Hall of Fame induction in 2016.
But as it turns out, his years in TNA and WWE almost never happened as Sting nearly didnāt make it out of WCW. The 13-time world champion once revealed that he nearly suffered the same fate as the legendary Owen Hart during one of the rappelling stunts that became synonymous with his character.
Rappelling from the rafters became a huge part of the Sting character
After years of wearing the bright-colored face paint and sporting bleach-blonde hair, Sting underwent a massive character change in 1996, switching to dark hair, dark attire, and face paint resembling that of Brandon Leeās character in TheĀ Crow.
During Stingās longtime feud with Hulk Hogan, he began rappelling from the rafters to surprise Hogan and the other members of the nWo and his aerial entrance wound up becoming an important facet to his character. But following the tragic death of Owen Hart in 1999, Sting refused to do it again until he had the blessing of the Hart family.
He stopped doing his signature entrance for a while following the tragic death of Owen Hart
In September 1998, Owen Hart revived the Blue Blazer character that heād debuted in WWE nearly a decade earlier and was set to battle The Godfather for the Intercontinental Championship at WWEās āOver the Edgeā pay-per-view on May 23, 1999. In a stunt that many feel was to mock Sting, who obviously wrestled for rival WCW, Hart fell some 80 feet while attempting a very similar entrance, crashing into the ring below. Hart died a short time later due to internal bleeding.
Sting heard of the tragic accident as he was boarding a plane to head to WCWās weekly āMonday Nitroā show, where he was actually scheduled to perform his signature entrance. He obviously refused to do it that night and wouldnāt do it again until he received the blessing of the Hart family, namely Owenās brother, Bret. Sting once told the story on how he heard of Owenās death to Jim Ross (h/t Still Real to Us), who had the unfortunate task of announcing Hartās death to the world.
āI was boarding a plane to go do another eventā¦we were doing Nitro and I was boarding a plane taking a redeye flight outā¦and I got a phone call to my cell phone and it said, āFrom CNN News, Owen Hart Has Just Been Killedā and it described how it happened. Of course it was shocking and you just canāt believe what youāre hearing. Then I landed and I saw some of the guys who were going to help do some of the rigging for my gig and I said āWeāre not going to be doing thisā and they said, āWhy?ā and I said, āOwen Hart died.ā
āSo I didnāt do it and it was months until finally Eric (Bischoff) and (WCW) company people kept asking me to do it and I called and I talked to Bret and I said, āWhat do you think? Iām not going to do it if you donāt want me to do it and if your family doesnāt want me to do itā¦I will not do it.āā¦He ended up talking to his family about it and he called me and said, āSteve, weāre all fine with it. Go ahead; itās not going to hurt.āā
Sting on the Owen Hart tragedy
Whatās crazy is that Sting nearly suffered the same fate as Owen Hart.
Sting says he nearly suffered the same fate as Owen Hart
Sting obviously knows how frightening it is to be in Owen Hartās position and he once said (h/t ProWrestlingStories.com) that he nearly suffered the same tragic fate the very first time he attempted the stunt on live television. WCW was at Chicagoās United Center and the Stinger was nearly 140 feet in the air and ready to drop down to the ring when he suddenly noticed that something was wrong.
āSo, it was high and I was having a tough time with it. It wasnāt working very well. I came back to Eric [Bischoff] and said, āI canāt do this.ā He says, āWhat dāyou mean?ā I said, āI tried it four times and itās just not working very good.ā I was spinning; I kept spinning real bad. And the stunt guy kept assuring me that the reason why was because I wasnāt just sliding fast enough down the rope. I was sort of, you know, crimping with my hand, because, you know, it was scary, man.
āThe only other chance I had to try it again would be live [on TV]. And I knew that it was make or break ā I knew that if I ended up spinning, I knew that that was going to be the end of the career ā you know, the laughing stock ā and it wouldāve been over.
āAnd when I stepped over, we realized we had the thing set up backward ā so while I was standing on the edge we had to flip the rope around and then reweave it throughā¦
āIām telling you if Iād stepped over and done it, the same thing that happened to Owen would have happened to me.ā
Sting
Sting and the technicians obviously caught the mistake in time and everything went off as planned. Itās unfortunate that the same canāt be said for Owen Hart, who will hopefully someday take his rightful place alongside Sting in the WWE Hall of Fame.