>You must not know about the NWA years! Sting was on par with
>Ric

There was never a time when this was true. Never. Not ever. Sting is easily a bottom tier main event or in both promos and ring workers. He's top tier charisma and "it" factor, but despite his considerable strengths, his talking and ring work are absolutely below par.

This was the perception of him at the time, by the way, and there was very little confidence in him to carry things in any program that didn't include Flair.

The years when he
>was silent was a gimmick that played well

Played "well"? As much as you overstate his prior promo work, you understate the "Crow" run. Until the Hogan match at Starcade, it was, and remains, one of the single best executed storylines in the history of the business, all without saying a word.

And yes..I do mean business. As in $$.Sting not talking was not only his best work, it proved vital to extending the heat of the NWO run, which on it's own was rife with issues very soon after its formation.

He was one the one thing that made the NWO visibly, consistently fearful. DDP was running hot, and Crow Sting gave him an additional rub. It gave Luger meaningful screen time.

Sting had


but it was not even
>close to when Sting was killing the verbal wordplay in the
>NWA

Crow Sting objectively, verifiably eclipsed everything he had done prior.

There's nothing on his Captain Crunch resume that can compete with anything beyond warm fuzzy "back on my day" ruminations. Crow lapped drumline Sting in a bad way.

Surf Warrior Sting would have died an awkward, painful death after the NWO game change and everyone with a brain knew it.