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Sting Says a WWE Match With The Undertaker Might Have Stopped Him From Moving to AEW

Posted: May 31st 2021 By: Connor Casey - ComicBook.com

WWE Hall of Famer Sting has been a member of the All Elite Wrestling roster since December, appearing on AEW Dynamite almost every week as a mentor to rising star Darby Allin. But "The Icon's" jump from WWE to AEW almost didn't happen, as the WCW legend explained in an interview with Sports Illustrated this week. Sting had been out of action since suffering a career-ending neck injury against Seth Rollins at the 2015 Night of Champions event, despite the fact that fans were still clamoring for a match between Sting and The Undertaker.

Sting repeatedly said in interviews that he'd be able to pull off the match if WWE booked it, but it never came to fruition. He told SI that, had the cinematic match he pitched with "The Phenom" happened, he might have stayed.

"I wanted that to happen," Sting said. "I was very clear publicly, and I was very clear with WWE, as well. I wanted my last hurrah against Taker. For whatever reason, it just never materialized. To this day, I don't know why. Maybe Taker never wanted to work with me. I have no idea. I mean, I've had good conversations with Taker and we've always got along. I don't know why the match never happened, but it should have happened. Because it wasn't going to happen, and I knew it, and that wasn't the only reason why I left WWE, but it's one of the reasons why I left. I wanted that one last match."

Sting competed in his first cinematic match back at Revolution, teaming with Allin to beat Brian Cage and Ricky Starks in a Street Fight. He'll compete in his first live match tonight at Double or Nothing, once again teaming with Allin to face Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky.

While promoting The Last Ride last Summer, the now-retired Undertaker addressed fans via an interview with ComicBook who were still holding out hope for that dream match.

"Well, in this world, you never say never, but I think as great as it sounds on paper... And it does, I mean obviously that is a super marquee match, right?" Undertaker said. "But where I kind of differ from a lot of people is I look past the marquee value and I look on the ability to deliver. So like you said, there's so many people that are clamoring for that match that I just don't know that the match could deliver on the people's expectations. And the only reason I say that, I'll take full [responsibility], I don't have the mobility or the same skill set that I once did that I would need to make that match great. So there's just certain things, it's better left to the theater of the mind to actually put it out there. And then with the expectations being so high and the match not delivering, it would be a bigger disappointment than the match never happening at all. It's different, but in the same sense of like who's the greatest: [Michael] Jordan or LeBron [James]? I mean, you're never going to know because they're never going to have the opportunity to play against each other.

"And it's the same thing," he added. "That's a great match, but 10 years ago I think it could still happen and it could still be a stellar match. I'm just not sure at this point that it could deliver on the hype."