Jim Cornette On Sting’s Retirement Promo: “I felt I Had To Watch This Out Of Respect”

In a recent episode of the Drive-Thru, Jim Cornette discussed Sting’s retirement promo on last week’s AEW Dynamite, where he announced that he’ll be wrestling his last match at AEW Revolution 2024.

Cornette, to say the least, was not pleased with the promo. He began,

“Now I know why we never let him talk too long. I actually knew that beforehand, but it was driven home here. The people love him; he’s an icon. This was brutal; it was a news-making thing, to say the least. Sting has been a wrestler since 1985, that would be 39 years in 2024. He’s one of the biggest stars in the history of the modern business. He’s going to retire.”

Cornette admitted that he did watch the segment out of respect, and that transferred into his words as he did not exactly verbally annihilate the subject of the conversation. Continuing on, he said,

 “I felt I had to watch this out of respect, but Jiminy Christmas! The wandering around… Sting has never had a great promo voice. You know, to lay down the law, or to swear revenge; when he was young, and he had the body, and the hair, and the howl, and ‘It’s showtime!’ and the energy – that carried it. But having to give a long or detailed explanation? Having to have something flow, kind of naturally and/or logically? Going a long period of time in his own particular monologue? These are not and have never been Sting’s strengths.”

As for how Sting ended the promo, Cornette said,

“He mentioned the word retirement that he wasn’t going to mention about 500 times, and his go-home line was potentially as flat a home line as I’ve ever heard. Because he had made a point in his promo of saying what he said in his Hall of Fame and his previous retirement or whatever; ‘the one thing for sure about Sting is nothing’s for sure.’ And his go-home line here was, ‘The one thing for sure about Sting’s retirement is it’s for sure.’ It was a 10-minute segment and it felt like 30 minutes.”