The HHH Sting build for their Wrestlemania 31 match has been confusing and confounding to say the least. The feud seems like it should be a simple enough affair. HHH has been abusing his power for far too long and Sting has seen enough. Yet, WWE keeps mudding the waters and twisting the perception. In the end we have a story that seems to be like a puzzle missing it's last few pieces.
The whole thing started when Sting appeared at Survivor Series and helped Team Cena triumph over Team Authority. HHH was blatantly helping his team to win and Sting appeared to save the day. Many fans expected Sting to appear the next night and explain his actions, but we did not see him for months.
HHH would get his job back and upon his return he would start building a perception that Sting wanted revenge for HHH being largely responsible for putting WCW out of business (a hilarious notion). HHH presented Sting as a sore loser of the Monday Night Wars. It seemed like the logical next step would be for Sting to return and answer the accusations.
Sting finally returned by debuting on Raw…to distract the Authority in an important match against Cena. He didn’t enter the ring or get physical. He simply appeared and the Authority appeared to lose their minds. Ok, so Sting would appear the next week and explain his actions….nope. HHH continued to build his perception that Sting was there because of sour grapes over WCW and he was basically retired for 14 years.
The WWE would never acknowledge TNA, but to suggest that Sting left the business was pretty ridiculous. Have they ever heard of google? Any fan that didn't know Sting probably looked him up and saw he was in TNA, so why not embrace that. HHH could claim that Sting wasn't up to the competition in WWE. Sting could claim that HHH's backstag polotics were what kept him away, but nothing was every spoken about TNA.
The angle was starting to get silly. WWE decided that Sting’s next appearance would be at their Fastlane PPV where HHH would call him out. This seemed to be the place where fans would finally get their Sting promo. HHH appeared in his biker look. His continuing personality disorder reared its ugly head yet again. Sting appeared, but didn’t grab a mic and didn’t explain himself. After a brief exchange they seemed to agree on a match for WM31.
Sting never spoke and fans were all left to wonder is Sting really looking for revenge for WCW. Was HHH really the reason that WCW failed? It was beyond silly. Sting did not appear on Raw the next week or the week after that to clarify. Instead WWE rang an extremely strange promo that did not even sound like Sting speaking explaining he was here to get HHH for his abusive behavior and it wasn’t about WCW.
The promo ended with Sting declaring he had waited 14 years to get his hands on HHH and when he said that it supported the perception that HHH had been promoting. The lack of appearances and Sting not speaking live really started to take their toll on the excitement for this angle. HHH had made his points and fans didn’t want too or need to hear more from him.
So finally WWE booked Sting to be on Raw again to help Randy Orton fight off the Authority. It was pretty cool to see Sting in the ring performing some moves and being Sting. Yet, before he could grab a mic the show ended, but WWE promised a live Sting interview on the WWE network. The interview was not really an interview or a promo. Just Sting speaking a few meaningless words about being excited to be in WWE. He did nothing to explain himself.
What was worse was that the whole thing was about 3 minutes long. So by the time many fans switched over to network the promo was over and they were back to regular programming. WWE didn’t make the replay available for a few days.
Great angles are where two guys, one good and one bad, feud over something. That something can be a title or a grudge. In this case we have a heel HHH and a baby face in Sting, but we don’t have the reason. It’s been about 5 months since Sting first appeared, but the fans are denied the reason. That’s usually what you use to sell a big match. If WWE wanted to wait to build for a Sting promo to explain it they waited too long if they waited for the last Raw before WM31.
Yet, still when Sting came to the ring to open the final Raw before WM31 many popped for it. When he grabbed a mic and started talking people were sucked in. When Sting exampled that it would be silly if he was there to fight a war that was long since over. The crowd popped huge for that. Sting began to example that he was there to end HHH’s reign of terror, but before we could get more Stephanie’s music hit.
Fans waited five months for this moment, but WWE took it away in just a few minutes so Stephanie could add absolutely zero heat to the whole affair. When Steph went to slap Sting and he caught her arm HHH played it off like you don’t touch my wife. It was all just utter silliness.
Why didn’t WWE let Sting expound on how HHH was why Sting was really there? Then have HHH come out and claim that Sting is jealous and if he’s there just to take out HHH because he had a great run the last 14 years then so be it. That would only add fuel to the fire, but instead WWE went the way they did and the whole thing just seems flat.
The saddest part of all this is perhaps HHH himself. HHH is the guy that loves to let everyone know that he’s the guy behind the red hot NXT. One would think that HHH understands what it takes to build a match and how to get the crowd and fans hot for it. He had to know that the way they handled this angle the last few weeks was pretty silly. He’s a smart enough guy to know that Sting needed to stoke the fire with a good promo and this needed to be about Sting stopping HHH from being well,....HHH.
Yet, HHH just went along with the script. HHH will be the first to tell fans that Vince calls all the shots on Raw. He dodges the responsibility, but it’s almost impossible to believe that HHH couldn’t pull Vince aside and suggest that perhaps they do this all in a way that makes people more excited the angle. It’s probably likely that HHH wants to keep this angle chilled. He never really likes to let anyone get totally over on him. Why build the heat anymore if he's going to lose anyway.
This angle should have been better. The match could still be pretty good, but WWE botched the lead up. That has taken some steam out of things. It didn’t take much to make this what it needed to be, but it follows a pattern this WM31 season of poor booking and bad writing. The hope is that the match and show can somehow rise above it all.