WWE: Sting Return Is Too Little, Too Late For Superstar And Network


The Sting return at Survivor Series 2014 was major cause for celebration to the entire WWE Universe.

With the icon appearing just in the nick of time to bring justice to Dolph Ziggler’s incredible performance, many Monday morning bookers were stirring with the possibilities for what might come next.

WWE even conducted a poll on the five superstars that fans most wanted to see the Stinger face. (Bray Wyatt was winning at the time of this post, by the way.)

Unfortunately, there won’t be much come of this.

The Sting return is flawed in a couple of major ways. For starters, there is the fact the WWE chose this moment deliberately in order to boost WWE Network subscriptions. Bringing in the one superstar, who never stepped foot in a WWE ring, may sound like a good idea on the surface, but the company chose to do this in the worst possible way — by giving it away for free.

Yes, the WWE Network wasn’t charging new subscribers for Survivor Series 2014, and those of us who did pay the $9.99 for it weren’t enough to make the network profitable — at least not without more cuts.

Beyond that, there’s nothing to keep the new subscribers in the fold, and the people who dropped out of their WWE Network subscriptions are now pirating the pay-per-views because of how hit-or-miss Creative is with its booking.

That’s at least the experience I had with a friend of mine.

He canceled his subscription a few months back. When I told him how incredible that Survivor Series main event was, he said he would “grab a file from the internet” instead of doing what I’d hoped he would do and renew his subscription.

Furthermore, the best part of this Sting return, we’ve already seen. The guy is now 55 years old. He’s noticeably older and rustier with his in-ring movements. The surprise reveal on Sunday night was as good as the WWE Universe will get from him, and yes, that includes the WrestleMania 31 match he will presumably have with Triple H.

If Sting had joined WWE when Vince McMahon bought WCW, or if he would have signed on around the time he instead picked TNA, this might have been something special.

As is, we’re going to get a few months of scattered appearances, limited in-ring work, and a match in March where Triple H has to do most of the heavy lifting.

Maybe I’m wrong. What do you think, readers? Is the Sting return enough to make WWE Network successful?

[Image via WWE]

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