Sting Vs Lord Steven Regal – Great American Bash 16/06/1996
This is a grudge match of sorts… or something. Not quite sure what Regal did to Sting, mainly because Dusty is the one trying to explain it :P.
Sting is pissed and goes right after Regal, but those forearms and uppercuts (and maybe a thumb to the eye lol) of Regal are too much for even the Stinger. So much so that Sting’s face paint is almost all gone after the first couple of minutes lol.
Regal keeps in control for the most part with his superior wrestling skills, with Sting getting some hope spots in. Love the part where Sting goes for a sunset flip, and Regal starts punching at thin air to keep himself from falling over or something lol. Doesn’t work :P.
More awesomeness from Regal as he does his Lord Steven Regal pose, and kinda dances at the same time, as he waits for Sting to turn around so he can blast his face off with an awesome looking dropkick. He follows this up by striking Sting’s face a bunch of times while insulting America as the camera is in his face.
A lot of this match is Regal stretching Sting on the mat, but it is about as far from boring as Chavo is close to boring (that makes sense, right? 😛 ) thanks to Regal constantly doing something rather than just applying a hold. I’d honestly say that Regal is better at it in this match than I have EVER seen Arn. Yeah. Man is legit fucking awesome throughout the entire match.
Sting’s “superman” hope spot towards the end is really well done too. Regal has a wrist lock applied, and knocks Sting down, only for Sting to kip up and take a bunch of forearm shots to the face and not feel them, and then apply some force of his own to Regal via the wrist lock. Then Regal thumbs him in the eye and goes back to work lol.
The Regal Stretch is finally put on Sting, and Sting doesn’t even attempt to get to the ropes. He just sits there in it, not giving up, and Regal actually lets go of the hold as he is in such disbelief that someone can be in the hold and NOT give up or even attempt to get out! A pissed off Regal sends Sting into the corner and stiffs the fuck out of him, until Sting does his superman schtick again, and locks in the Scorpion Death lock for the win.
Man, Regal was beyond epic in this one. Sting took his entire offence as good as anyone I have seen, and it was amazing to see one of the company’s biggest stars get so dominated by essentially a mid card guy. I really liked how they didn’t just let Regal destroy Sting and have Sting do his superman comeback right at the end; they teased it a few times with Regal cheating his way back into control, before Regal dished out everything he had and still couldn’t put away Sting, giving Sting the perfect opportunity to end the match himself.
Really wanna vote for this one, but it might only end up in my bottom 10.
Rating: ***1/2