The Icon Sting recently spoke with The K&C Masterpiece about a wide range of topics, which included the Stinger reflecting on his infamous world title matchup against Hulk Hogan from WCW’s 1997 Starrcade pay-per-view, an event that had built up a match between the two for an entire year, but then underdelivered for fans.
One reason the match came off wrong was the botched ending, where referee Nick Patrick was supposed to do a fast count, as he was in Hogan’s nWo faction. However, Patrick counted the pin regularly and it appeared that Sting was just defeated by Hogan. Afterwards Bret Hart made the save, demanded the match be restarted, and Sting would submit Hogan to become WCW world champion. He touched on that moment, as well as his overall thoughts on the match, in the highlights below.
Says the storyline all year was built well, but the match did not deliver:
To be honest, I think it was a package deal. We had a great buildup for a good solid year, storyline-wise, and the truth of the matter is, we did not follow the buildup. Hogan and I did not deliver in that match.
Says the finish was being discussed all day, but he has no idea what happened with Patrick’s fast count:
I just know there were a lot of changes that were happening that very day, and we didn’t know for sure how we were going to handle the deal, how we were going to do the finish, until literally when we walked through the curtain. And as far as the count goes, to this day I don’t know what happened.
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)