WWE News: The Reason Why Sting’s Voice Was Altered On RAW

If you were confused as to why WWE altered Sting’s voice during his pre-taped promo on last night’s RAW, well, you’re not alone, as thousands of WWE fans on WWE’s YouTube page were confused as well. Well — according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer— the WWE creative team wanted Sting’s voice to reflect The Black Scorpion, who was a brief WCW character in 1990.

“The Sting thing was completely mind-boggling. It was supposed to be ‘The Black Scorpion’ Sting, from 1990 — 25 years ago. I asked people in the company, and that’s what it was supposed to be. I asked ‘what is this?’ and they said ‘The Black Scorpion Sting,’ and I said ‘The Black Scorpion was Sting’s rival, Sting was never The Black Scorpion.'”

If you’re unfamiliar with who exactly The Black Scorpion was — in August of 1990, WCW began running vignettes of a man in a hooded robe who was warning Sting that he was going to be coming after him. In the original vignettes, The Black Scorpion’s voice was done by Ole Anderson, but — like in Sting’s promo on Monday’s RAW— his voice was heavily distorted, so his identity could be kept a secret.

The Black Scorpion made his WCW in-ring debut in September of 1990, and at that time he was being played by Al Perez, who quit the company soon thereafter. The point of the storyline was to have Sting unmask The Black Scorpion at some point, but after Perez quit, The Black Scorpion character went on hiatus, only to return to face Sting at Starrcade later that year, where Sting defeated him, and revealed the character’s true identity. At that time, the character was being played by WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair, and The Black Scorpion character was never seen again.

It’s possible that some of the writers in WWE believe that The Black Scorpion was one of Sting’s early gimmicks, as most of the WWE writers aren’t exactly wrestling historians. Furthermore, WWE is afraid to have Sting talk in front of the live audience because they believe that his promo skills are as bad as they were when he first burst onto the scene in WCW. However, if you followed Sting’s run in TNA over the last several years, you know that he’s not only become a great promo, but that he’s probably a better promo than the majority of the WWE roster.

Sting likely won’t appear in-person until the March 23 RAW in Los Angeles, California, which is the final RAW before WrestleMania.

[Image via WWE]