Blog Questions

By Scott Keith on December 4, 2012

Hi, Mr. Keith. I haven't watched wrestling in years, and yet I still

keep up with your blog because of how entertaining your writing is.
I have two unrelated questions:
1) I understand that Sting's in-ring absence throughout 1997 made
perfect sense storyline-wise (and it obviously worked out wonderfully
till Hogan buried him), but was he also injured during this time? Was
this a rare case where WCW found a clever way to keep a top injured
talent in the spotlight? It just seems impossible to imagine that a
wrestling promotion would book one of its top healthy stars to not
work matches for a year just to build up a new version of his
character.
2) In terms of storyline logic, what is the point of even having
matches if WWE's titles don't matter? Why should I care about the
result of a random weekly pairing of, say, Orton vs. Barrett if
winning a title wouldn't really affect the character anyway? What does
the end goal of each character become after the titles have been
reduced to almost nothing? At least with the UFC, you can usually rest
assured that a fight genuinely matters insofar as a guy winning will
generally move him closer to a title shot whereas a guy losing can
mean he disappears from contention for a long time or gets cut. Even
though WWE doesn't represent a real sport, it wouldn't hurt to model
this kind of logic where wins and losses really impact a guy's career.

1. Sting was definitely not injured. Basically his contract was structured like Hogan's where he only had to work a certain amount of dates per year, and WCW burned through them all by September. So instead of wrestling matches, they paid him to sit in the rafters and brood.

2. Really, the only goals worth anything now are Undertaker's streak and the quest to be a main eventer / Hall of Famer. Possibly pointing at a sign, too.

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