Declaring he would visit "from time to time", Sting threw the microphone down and left the ring. Days after the infamous promo, he was booked for shows in New Japan Pro Wrestling, to take part in the Japan/U.S. Superstars Tournament, where he defeated Masahiro Chono in the first round, but was eliminated in the second round by Shiro Koshinaka. His last match of 1996 took place on September 23 at the Yokohama Arena, where he and Lex Luger teamed up to defeat Arn Anderson and Steven Regal. It would end up being his last tour of Japan. On the October 21, 1996, edition of Nitro, Sting returned for the first time since the night after Fall Brawl. In a match where the impostor Sting was wrestling Mr. JL, Sting emerged wearing a trench coat and white face paint with black marks around his eyes. He went in the ring and attacked nWo Sting (who was still imitating Sting's old mannerisms at this point) with his new finisher, the Scorpion Death Drop inverted DDT, two jumping elbow drops, a Stinger Splash and a Scorpion Deathlock while the rest of the nWo came to ringside. Rather than intervene, they simply stood by and watched. After Sting was done, Ted DiBiase and Kevin Nash came into the ring and made Sting an offer to join the nWo and get back at WCW for betraying him. Sting, after a pause, first called out the nWo Sting as a "cheap imitation," before telling the nWo, "the real Sting may or may not be in your price range," and then concluded by saying "the only thing that's for sure about Sting is that nothing's for sure". With that, Sting left the ring and would not speak (on mic) on WCW programming again for over a year. After this a silent, almost ghostly Sting, carrying a baseball bat as a weapon, began appearing in the rafters at WCW events and began painting his entire face with black and white corpse paint. Sting's new gimmick was inspired by the 1994 film The Crow. In retaliation, nWo Sting, who was still imitating Borden, began painting his face this way as well. While appearing on a WCW/nWo merchandise special on QVC Sports in late 1999, Borden admitted that Scott Hall had initially suggested the idea of painting his face like the character of Eric Draven from The Crow. Sting maintains aspects of his "Crow" persona to date, occasionally with different designs and use of color of the face paint.
Sting Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family
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