One of the dream matches wrestling fans wanted from Sting in the last few years of his career before he retired in 2016 — which he has since returned from — was a match with Undertaker at WrestleMania. WWE‘s early 2011 promo videos promoting Undertaker’s return were misinterpreted by a large number of fans as better fitting Sting’s aesthetic, which led to the demand building organically.
In a D Magazine piece, Sting explained why the match never took place, but rival TNA Wrestling (now Impact) capitalized by bringing back Sting with a very similar video.
In January 2014, Sting’s TNA contract expired, and he knew he wanted to send off with the Undertaker at WrestleMania. As a text message, he asked Vince McMahon and Paul Levesque, “Have you stopped dealing with Sting yet?” McMahon replied almost immediately, and they reached an agreement within weeks, but Brock Lesnar was already signed for WrestleMania.
This was the only time Sting brought up the Undertaker match idea, which led to him being booked against Triple H for his WrestleMania debut the following year. “It was never going to happen,” Sting said.
Instead, he lost his WWE debut — the Triple H match — and several months later, suffered a neck injury in his lone WWE main event against Seth Rollins at Night of Champions 2015. When he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016, he announced his retirement after the company refused to clear him.
On November 19, Sting and Darby Allin defeated Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal in a no-disqualification match at AEW Full Gear.
