Fedor Emelianenko and Sting: Parallel Careers

Another fine Fanpost promoted to the front page.

Fedor possibly retiring brought to mind another parallel with the world of pro wrestling. Fedor and Sting have essentially played out the exact same career. Sting wrestled and made his career, becoming a huge star, in WCW. He rose to the very top of the wrestling business and at one point, in 1997, he had merchandise sales on par with Stone Cold Steve Austin in his best years. In the wrestling world the WWE is king and it always has been. That's where all the top guys go. Everybody who has ever been anybody has been with the WWE at one time or another. They are the number 1 promotion and they have always had the best talent in the world. Everyone else had WWE castoffs. Except Sting.

He was far and away the greatest wrestler to never go into business with them. He had a huge run from 1996-2000. He won titles, sold out arenas and brought in a whole lot of revenue on merchandise and pay-per-view buys. But after a while WCW wilted under the pressure of performing consistently against the monster that is the WWE and they were eventually bought out by Vince McMahon himself. The speculation was immediate that finally Sting might make his way to a WWE ring. No doubt, Vince had wanted him for years and made a strong play for him. He never could close the deal though and Sting to this day has not stepped foot in a WWE ring.

Instead he went to a much smaller and lesser known promotion in TNA. In recent storylines he has been pondering retirement and even broke kayfabe on an episode of Impact where he explained to the audience that he wasn't sure how much longer he would be around. I found an interview that someone, not sure who, did with Sting in which they asked him why he never signed on with WWE. His explanation was that he met Vince McMahon and thought he was a nice guy but he was very unsure of the way WWE did business. He had previously worked with some guys in WCW that went over to WWE and didn't like the way some of them had been treated. He said that he didn't know how he would be used and felt like he couldn't trust Vince.

Updated - Below is the video of Sting explaining his decision to not go to WWE.

When thinking about this it was just insane to me how alike these two stories are. I figured I had to throw it up here and share it with you guys. I've always been a pretty big mark for wrestling. The similarities are such that I thought it needed a write up.