Top-Down Smackdown: The Vigilante Stinks

Following a pretty solid Summerslam, I guess WWE figured they didn’t need to worry about storylines making sense any more. I suppose I should be saying “at least they HAVE a storyline”?

Because I don’t see any way that the Sting-Seth Rollins match scheduled for Night of Champions can possibly be good for anybody.

Let’s look at the potential outcomes:

Scenario #1 – Sting beats Rollins and wins the world title.

Great. A guy who couldn’t beat the semi-retired COO of the company in a match where all his friends interfered is suddenly capable of beating the world champion? Bye bye, months of giving Rollins credibility. And Sting, if he becomes champion, will be just as absent in defending it as Brock Lesnar was.

Scenario #2 – Rollins beats Sting, either cleanly or by cheating.

Rollins gains some credibility if he looks good in the ring with an icon, but Sting will now be 0-2 in WWE, making him an unlikely threat to anybody any more.

Scenario #3 – Somebody interferes to set up a new feud for Sting.

Maybe it’s the Undertaker. Maybe it’s John Cena wanting to prove he’s better than Ric Flair. Whatever the case, you’ve just wasted a world title match.

Scenario #4 – Triple H turns on Seth Rollins, helps Sting win the match and dubs Sting the new Chosen One.

This could just about work, but it will never happen. Sting wants to go out a good guy, and the fans want to cheer him. I think a Rollins face turn is inevitable, but it needs to play out a little bit longer.

Now, I should of course note that there is a tradition of Sting getting title shots he hasn’t earned – when he first adopted the Crow gimmick, he got a title match after having not wrestled for a year. But that was a Sting still in his prime – the current model, sucking in his stomach and trying to hide his thinning hair with Tommy Wiseau-black dye, hasn’t looked great in the ring in a while. I don’t doubt he and Rollins can make a decent technical match, but you can’t make a guy look terrible on the large national stage of WrestleMania and then expect him to be taken super-seriously the next time he shows up.

I guess at least we know this time Hulk Hogan won’t be stopping by to bail him out.