Wrestlemania XXXI Preview: Sting vs. HHH

Let’s get something out of the way first.

For some reason there are people thinking this is going to close out the show. I know Sting is a big deal and I’m looking forward to seeing one of my all time favorites finally getting inside a WWE ring, but don’t kid yourself: this match isn’t closing the show and there’s no logical reason that it should.

This is another match where they really needed to pick a story and stick with it a long time ago but for some reason they can’t decide what to go with. At first it was being presented as WCW vs. WWE in one final round of the Monday Night Wars. I thought that was really stupid but was ready to go with it, even though they’re ignoring the totally logical story (we’ll come back to that in a minute).

But anyway, they seemed to be going with the WCW vs. WWE story, but then Sting said the most logical thing I’ve heard all year: “Of course I’m not fighting for WCW. That would be pretty ridiculous fourteen years after it closed.” Makes perfect sense, so of course Stephanie came out, cut off Sting’s balls, turned it right back into WWE vs. WCW and didn’t let Sting get in any rebuttal because this company is all about making sure Stephanie never looks bad.

See, this is where the story goes off the rails because they had the perfect story when Sting made his debut. After all the months of the Authority using their power to abuse and intimidate everyone, Sting shows up as the Dark Knight: the one man with the power and stature to be immune to the Authority and the only man willing to stand against them because, simply put, THAT’S WHAT STING DOES. He did it in WCW against the NWO and he did it in TNA against their 184 different heel factions. Sting is the guy that stands up to the corrupt bosses and fights the good fight.

But for some reason that’s not what we’re getting. Well, at least not the full on version of it. Instead they’re building it up as a dream match, which you could go with if you’ve run out of other dreams to have I guess. I’ll give them this though: the image of HHH pulling out the hammer but Sting countering with the ball bat is the most naturally perfect image this feud could have had and they nailed it as well as they could have.

Now the match itself is a completely different story. We’ve seen that HHH can still go in the ring with anyone and give a good to very good performance. I have no doubt he’ll be ready to go for Wrestlemania. On the other hand, I haven’t seen Sting look good in a match in a very, very long time. The guy is just getting up there in years and can barely sit back on the Scorpion anymore. However, this is Wrestlemania and I think Sting has one more decent to good match in him.

The question now is who wins. My instinct and every bit of wrestling logic I have says Sting goes over. Why in the world would you bring Sting in and have him lose his WWE debut match? That being said, this is WWE in 2015 where logic and common sense is thrown out the window for the sake of “well why don’t we do this?” and ignoring the response of “because it’s really stupid.” HHH doesn’t need to win another match as long as he lives though, so I’ll go with Sting since HHH does seem to have mellowed a bit in recent years as his last win was at Wrestlemania XXIX. The one before that? TLC 2011.

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