When Sting originally joined All Elite Wrestling, he wasn’t so sure about wrestling matches in front of fans again. What changed his mind was a comment from a former AEW star during the filming of his debut cinematic match.
The Icon was part of the post-show media scrum for Revolution (via Fightful). He admitted that while joining AEW in 2020, he had no intention of wrestling live matches again. Sting had shared this sentiment with Tony Khan. The change of mindset happened when Cody Rhodes praised his kinetic energy:
“I talked to Tony and I said, ‘I’m not really sure what I have to offer,’ because I’m not going to have these long 20’“30-minute matches against these young guys. ‘What do you have in mind?’ He said, ‘How about cinematic matches?’ ‘Yeah, I think I could do that.’
We got halfway through the filming of that one and Cody Rhodes, followed by Tony, was like, ‘Your kinetic energy is still really crazy. You can still go and have a real match.’ That’s where it all started.”
The match Sting is talking about took place on the Revolution PPV in 2021. It saw the WCW legend team up with Darby Allin to face Brian Cage and Ricky Starks in a cinematic Street Fight. He has since wrestled 7 more matches.
