I thought the nWo and DX stuff was fun even if didn’t make sense, and I didn’t like Triple H winning either but it was still a fun overbooked mess imo.
100% this. Can’t say it no better.Not really comparable situations. Triple H was Sting's first WWE opponent, and not his retirement match.
People hated that shit because Sting had come in as basically the last guy of note who was never associated with WWE, debuted with a bunch of fanfare and then got beat by a notorious politicker who had nothing to gain at this point in a match that was basically all about re-exerting WWE's dominance over WCW. And the whole premise of the nWo being Sting's backup was pretty senseless too.
Match just kinda sucked as a whole and of course Triple H of all people beating him didn't help with the blowback.
No one except Young Buck haters would have really minded them winning. Most people expected them to win, and it woulda been completely reasonable.
I'm sure the call to have Sting win came down sheerly to the fact that Sting is such an unselfish legend, The Bucks are made no matter what, and TK just wanted to show his gratitude to him.
To the first point: fair enough for the most part. Could have at least went with Wolfpac colors for the occasion though. I know most people watching that Mania probably wouldn't have cared about the differentiation but still. I know the match was meant for nostalgia and shit, it is what it is. In an ideal scenario for me though, Sting's backup woulda been some guys who were more true blue WCW which brings me to the second point... I don't think nWo defending WCW's honor really tracks since they were always in opposition to WCW. If anything you'd think they love the opportunity to bury WCW further and for Hall and Nash to help their buddy Trips in doing so.The nWo part made sense for two reasons.
Sting had joined the Wolfpac in 1998 and was even a tag team champion with Nash. Sting, Nash and EY also reformed an nWo type group in TNA in their last year they’re trying to stop Bischoff from rising to power. So Sting kinda became a part of the legacy at that point.
Secondly, the story of the match became WCW versus WWF even though Sting originally didn’t want to represent WCW, but Triple’s character refused to let it go and brought back his DX teammates to once again chase WCW away like they did in 1998. So the WCW equivalent of DX, the nWo, came to Sting’s aid in return. Hogan also couldn’t stand Hunter in kayfabe. Dating back to their 2002 feud.
It would require a full-length book to decipher the dichotomy of the kayfabe relationships between The Kliq/nWo/DX/WWE/WCW/TNAAnother layer I just thought of is the nWo tried to recruit Hunter to the nWo in 2002 and instead it died. That’s a bad friend.