Rock Region, Phoenix SubRegion, Second Round: (2) Sting v (15) Jushin Thunder Liger

[NSL]

This is a second round match in the Phoenix SubRegion of The Rock Region. It is a standard one-on-one match. It will take place at the Talking Stick Resort Arena.

(2) "The Icon" Sting

vs.

(15) Jushin Thunder Liger

Polls will be open for three days following a one day period for discussion. Voting will be based on who you feel is the greater of the two competitors. Post your reasons for why your pick should win below. Remember that this is non-spam and the most votes in the poll win. Any ties will be broken by the amount of posts of support for each candidate, with one vote per poster.

Also remember that this is a non-spam forum. If you post a response without giving a reason for your selection, it will be penalized for spam and deleted.​

 

[NSL]

I'm a huge fan of Liger. He's an innovator, and world-renowned for what he brings to the business. But, his popularity, his impact on the business, and I'd dare say his in-ring skill are not bigger or better than Sting's. I know most people think of Sting from the nWo days of WCW, but do you really remember how loud the arenas got in the early days of the company? He carried the company for a long time, and then carried TNA through some dark days as well. He was so impactful, that he's in the WWE Hall of Fame, after spending basically all of his career away from Vince's grasp.

I'm not denying that Liger is great, but he's not Sting.

 

[Khalifa]

You summed it up well NSL. Having only two WWE matches under his belt and still headlined the hall of fame class this year. Carried TNA through its worst and was WCWs most popular guy through its worse and best. I really wish he went to WWE after WCW went down with a fair opportunity (not saying that he wouldn't of got it) because there is no doubt in my mind that his legacy would be huge at this point. If uterlized properly in the E, I don't think there would be any discussion on who is better between him and Taker. He was a great wrestler and could work the mic. I like Liger and I don't mean to disrespect him when I say this, but Sting is just better. Stinger advances.

 

[Tastycles]

Sting is the only guy that TNA ever had that actually made a visible impact on the ratings by his presence, and that includes Kurt Angle who had been a top-5 guy in WWE. What we're saying her that well into his 40s and 50s, Sting was still one of the most appealing wrestlers in the entire world. I'm well aware of the impact Liger had, but he has never been both the star attraction of one franchise and then the only attraction of another. It's a shame, because I feel Liger has shown himself capable of going very far in this tournament, but I don't think so here.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

I was never a huge Sting fan as I missed most of his WCW run, my family tuned into WWF at the time, but I have grown to appreciate what he means to the wrestling business. His battle with the nWo is one of the greatest stories of all time in pro wrestling.

Liger, who proved at Takeover Brooklyn that he can still go at 50, was an innovator and a great junior weight champ.

Sting carried two companies for periods of time though, companies that Liger was a role player in. Sting advances.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

Sting had 2 primes, both very different from each other. He carried WCW through the 90s and was one of the most recognizable stars of the company. Liger is an innovator and pretty much a bondafide megastar in his own right. But as NighShift said, he ain't no Sting.

Sting here.

 

[SSJPhenom]

Liger was fun to watch and he definitely left his mark on this business, but that mark is a pin prick compared to Sting's canyon sized mark. No matter if you take surfer Sting or crow Sting, Liger is getting beat.

Vote Sting.

 

[NSL]

Liger, who proved at Takeover Brooklyn that he can still go at 50, was an innovator and a great junior weight champ.

I know you voted for Sting, but I'm going to cherry-pick this and let you know how much I disagree. I know Liger can still go at 50, but you're forgetting Sting was 50 in TNA, and as Tasty pointed out, he bumped the ratings and carried the company through a high point and a shitty low point, post-Hogan's arrival.

He may not have the same moveset he did when he was technicolor, but he didn't have that in the mid-late 90's anyway.

 

[X]

I know you voted for Sting, but I'm going to cherry-pick this and let you know how much I disagree. I know Liger can still go at 50, but you're forgetting Sting was 50 in TNA, and as Tasty pointed out, he bumped the ratings and carried the company through a high point and a shitty low point, post-Hogan's arrival.

He may not have the same moveset he did when he was technicolor, but he didn't have that in the mid-late 90's anyway.

When you "bump" the ratings to barely occasionally above a 1.0, that's absolutely nothing to brag about. Impact's best ratings would have been considered embarrassing for an episode of WCW Worldwide in the 90s. And I'm talking the early 90s collapse of the business era, not the boom period of the late 90s.


As much as I want to vote Liger and could make a pretty solid argument for it, including absolutely being a bigger draw than Sting for a few years (though that changed for sure around 97-98), I can't bring myself to do it because I'm a Sting fan at heart and have been since I was a kid. As shit as he became toward the end of his career (though he went out on a good match at least) the man has been involved in some of my favorite feuds and angles in wrestling. I'm sure Liger gets massacred here in the voting since Sting just retired, but he's no pushover and was instrumental in drawing crowds in the 30-60,000 range fairly regularly from 94-97 during the New Japan boom of the mid 90s. He even had his own children's cartoon so he was a crossover star for awhile there too.

I'd have absolutely loved to have seen this match in the early 90s.