Is MJF To AEW What Sting Was To WCW?

Suppose you lived in the South in the late 80s to early 90s, and your acumen for everything WCW spans beyond Ted Turner & Monday Night Nitro and goes into the Georgia Championship Wrestling of it all. Names like Gordan Sully and Jim Crockett probably mean nothing to the NWO-era fan of WCW, but there is no WCW without these men and, of course, NWA. Without the history lesson, there is a long, rich history from the territory days and into the Monday Night Wars, but for many, the introduction to WCW happened on Saturdays (early evening to late afternoon), with TBS airing episodes of pre-taped matches at Disney MGM Studios in an era known as the “Disney Tapings.”

For many, that was their first exposure to WCW, and the first significant memory of that promotion was seeing this familiar-looking wrestler with bright paint on his face and a ‘California flat-top.’ This wrestler was Sting. As WCW grew into second place in the TV ratings, and then first most watched wrestling program in the nation, it did it off the back of mostly former WWE (then WWF) guys. In fact, the landing of Hulk Hogan and the subsequent signing of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash years later helped launch WCW as a legitimate competitor to WWE.

However, Sting, with all his charisma and spot-on branding for the era, was never a WWE guy and was one of the very few true-blue WCW guys. Unlike the other WCW guys, Sting had real staying power as a potential future megastar. Fast-forward to the present, WCW only exists in the form of terrific documentaries and podcasts, where the feature players point their fingers at who they believe was to blame for its demise. Yet, the impact it had on the business will last forever whether you’re talking about the Bullet Club and its NWO-esc branding or the very nature of AEW and how it exists as a spawn of WCW—they’ve also been known to lean heavily on the fact that they replaced WCW as the ‘premier’ wrestling program on the Turner Broadcasting networks.

But that is not the only familiarity.

Today, the argument could be made that AEW exists as that same renegade company doing things differently than the competition, and they have their own ‘Sting’ in the form of Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF)— a wrestler who does not have the benefit of the WWE rub. Aside from the famous Samoa Joe clip that probably did more harm than good early on in his career, MJF has been forced to put the company on his back in the name of ‘ratings war.’

Sting/MJF—Same Energy

The Loyalty of Sting

The talking points surrounding Sting’s lasting impression in WCW will likely revolve around his ability to adapt and evolve his character. It would also be worth noting that he was able to stay true to his ‘good guy’ character even in an era where nothing was cooler than being the ‘bad guy’ (an era of heels acting like faces). The in-ring work from Sting is terrific and memorable, and he is the only man worthy of using the Sharpshooter during the Bret Hart era, but his loyalty and refusal to engage in the toxicity of locker room politics has just as much to do with the respect and appreciation for him as anything to do with his in-ring work.

In an era where wrestlers going across the street to the ‘other promotion’ could mean a total revitalization and growth that is staggard in their current company, it is worth pointing out that guys like Sting, Undertaker, Booker T, and Shawn Michaels stayed true to WCW and WWE/F, respectively. However, looking at Sting specifically, you see a man who stayed loyal to a fault. Within the lore of that pre-Nitro era of WCW exists a moment where Sting committed to the company and vice versa. Sting made it clear early on that he was a WCW guy.

So, when he had the opportunity to leave the company to join the big leagues of WWF, he stayed, and his loyalty and belief in the company were rewarded for 83 weeks. Yet, Sting’s character was stabbed in the back by the very company he was loyal to in WCW.

The Sting of Loyalty

The point could be made that Sting’s commitment to the company was matched by the company’s commitment to making Sting the premiere ‘face’ of the hottest run in WCW’s lore—the NWO era. It is now common knowledge that the original third member of the infamous ‘invasion angle’ that started with Nash and Hall’s jump to WCW from WWF was NOT Hulk Hogan. Everyone who lived through that era remembers the scene: Hogan drops the leg on Randy Savage, and then shortly after, you hear the infamous words, “You can call this the NEW WORLD ORDER of Wrestling, brother!” along with trash flying around the ring like a landfill in the middle of Chicago.

The original plan was Sting, and it took Eric Bischoff two weeks of pleading to get Sting to agree. That is an important factoid because it simultaneously shows Sting’s desire for his character to remain face and seen as a loyalist to WCW while also highlighting his willingness to do ‘what’s best for business.’

Sting, not being the third founding member of the NWO, worked well for all, including Sting, but he knew he could not remain as the bright and colorful face, so he adopted a darker version of his character in one of the best long-term storytelling programs in wrestling history. As over as the NWO was, Sting was just as over when he started descending from the rafters in his trench coat and with the black bat in hand. The hint of Sting joining NWO, the doubt that the WCW locker room placed on him and his loyalty, the Bogus Sting, and all of it was just incredible storytelling and booking.

Yet, it was all flushed down the toilet at Starcade ’96 when Hogan decided that booking a clean finish win for Sting was ‘not good with me, Brother.’ Eighteen months of booking reduced to a disappointing finish in line with “Game of Thrones.”

What If… Sting Was Loyal To Himself

Sting could have gone to WWF and opted out of that, but what would that timeline look like? That decision could have had reverberating consequences for many other superstars.

If Sting went to WWF, what would his future be like today when you consider how desperate the company was post-Hogan? The Ultimate Warrior was poised to be one of the biggest superstars ever, and he was, but the self-imposed limitations prevented an even bigger impact for him and the sport. Everything that prevented Warrior from living up to those lofty expectations was a strength of Sting. Would Sting have been the fully realized version of the Ultimate Warrior?

Playing the “what if” game does not help gauge realistic conditions, but it is certainly worth considering the possibilities of Sting’s success without his willingness to remain a company guy. The kind of exposure he could have received in an era of the WWF that greatly needed him could have launched him into another stratosphere. Sting never left the company to take advantage of the change of scenery pop, and unlike Jericho, Big Show, and Hall and Nash – examples of superstars who were only able to fully evolve after leaving their promotion – the Stinger was able to make the same kind of evolutionary impact on his character, and he did not have to leave WCW.

But what kind of commercial impact could have been made with a change in ‘attitude?’

When you hear Sting talk about those times, you can hear his passion for the company, and it was like a non-violent war for him. He took the beef with WWE personally—so much so that he refused the WWE contract for years before eventually joining the outfit in a run every Sting fan wishes never happened. Sting went from that colorful babyface to the ‘Brandon Lee Crow’ Sting—an idea attributed to Scott Hall for Sting—and then he started tormenting the NWO.

Sting could’ve been selfish and used the NWO rub, but he stayed a face because it was what WCW needed. He could’ve been greedy and thought only of his career, but he kept the company one of his top professional priorities. This type of selflessness directly contrasts the most selfish member of that WCW locker room, Hulk Hogan.

MJF Beyond Elite…

There are direct distinctions between the characters and performances of MJF and Sting, which is obvious, but the loyalty they’ve both displayed in this business is unique enough to make the comparison quite easily.

MJF could have signed with WWE twice by now, but he has stuck with AEW every step of the way. AEW has done all it can to keep MJF, and unlike most superstars, MJF believes they’re not just paying him to personify the MJF character, but they’re also paying him—the man; the kind of man that puts loyalty above most things professionally. Even with so much turmoil within the walls of AEW, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about their future, but they need a wrestler with the kind of shoulders to handle the weight of a company. That means performing at the top-level week in and week out, but it also means being a locker room leader—someone the ‘boys’ can trust, respect, and stand behind.

Sting was that guy, and MJF could be that guy for AEW. Instead of leaving the mess behind, despite never being directly tied to the backstage nonsense, MJF doubled down with an AEW tattoo that will always reflect his allegiance to the company (even when he inevitably leaves AEW, the tattoo will be an instantly classic MEME and a reminder of his loyalty when it is ‘accidentally’ shown on WWE airwaves).

Yet, MJF has also avoided politicking and just continues to be the best in the company and one of the best in the world. He is easily the most valuable piece within the AEW chess set because his current value is not his ceiling, not even close. MJF has real power, but he also has the potential for growth beyond the boundaries of wrestling. There isn’t another wrestler in AEW who is projecting in the same way.

MJF has decided to double down on the ‘war’ for AEW, and this war is not against WWE or CM Punk, for that matter, but it is against the doubters—his and AEW’s. He is loyal to AEW because that’s who he is, but AEW has also stayed loyal to him. The night MJF cut his ‘loyalty promo,’ it highlighted the direct contrast to AEW’s ‘old future’ in CM Punk. This was not a pipe bomb against his own company, even if he took digs at Tony Khan and the Young Bucks, but a ‘loyalty bomb’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

There will inevitably come a day when MJF enters WWE’s locker room doors. It just seems logical, but it is easy to predict when that day comes, they will not try to change his character name (or character at all), they won’t send him to NXT, and he will immediately be placed in a high-profile feud with a high-profile superstar. The legacy MJF is working on transcends promotions, and no company (including WWE) can put a mask on him and call him El Generico without the entire audience chanting MJF.

When Sting finally signed with WWE, they did not try to change him (they probably could not wait to run him through the marketing machine as is). Nobody suggested a name change or ‘losing the paint’ because they (the company) and we (the fans) wanted the Sting that was in WCW and TNA. We did not want a watered-down version of Sting, and WWE knew well enough to outfit him with more expensive props and entrance effects, but they sent him out through the curtain each night without any notes on the iconic character he created.

This is the path MJF is on, and his loyalty to AEW will be the driving force for why WWE wants him and, simultaneously, cannot land him. This loyalty is scarce in wrestling, and just sharing this trait is enough to compare Sting and MJF, but the lack of Vince McMahon is a contrast for MJF, which offers hope for that day, a day far down the road.

Mario Mungia

Mario Mungia Jr. has a decade worth of experience as a combat sports journalist and correspondent which began with ThaBoxingVoice (TBV) as a podcast co-host, writer and editor-in-chief. Aside from his online resume, Mario spent a fair portion of his early career working for Spanish/English magazine Premier Round and the Mexican website Izquierdo. Mario has also contributed to NYFights while simultaneously working for MIC Sports Network as part of the broadcast crew covering local high school sports. Since then, he has launched his own podcast/live stream (Infighting/Work In Progress) and is covering pro wrestling for FightsATW.

See author's posts