At AEW Revolution, Sting officially retired from professional wrestling and put a neat bow on his near-40 year career. His name has carried over multiple companies, including WCW, NJPW, TNA, AEW, and Pro Wrestling NOAH. Although he’s hanging up the boots, he does have children, including two sons Steven and Garrett, who are basically copy and pasted versions of their dad. The Borden brothers had the opportunity to participate in their father’s retirement match when they dressed up as past iterations of the Sting character, Wolfpac and Surfer Sting. The likeness was so uncanny that it left many wondering if the two had interest in wrestling and that was only exacerbated when they left fans stunned at their textbook Stinger Splashes, particularly Steven’s.
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Comicbook.com’s Haley Miller recently had the opportunity to sit down with Steven to discuss the experience and his dad’s retirement and he answered the question on everybody’s mind since that show.
Steven made it clear that even if wrestling were something that he decided to participate in, he isn’t looking for any handouts just because of who he’s related to. “The first thing I would caveat with is as much as, you know, my dad is Sting. He’s an icon, he’s a legend, he is somebody. I am at this point, nobody. He put so much work in to get into the industry and the guys that are currently on the AEW roster put a lot of work in to get where they are,” Steven said. “So whenever I answer the question of whether or not I would, I’m answering whether or not I would attempt it. I think it’s super presumptuous to say, ‘yeah, you know, I’ll decide whether or not to grace whoever with my presence.’ Because I have not earned anything at this point, not the approval of the fans and not a spot at AEW. So regardless of who my dad is, I would say I’m very similar to anybody else who wants to get into AEW.”
But in terms of actually getting in the ring? It’s something that he has always played off as his “dad’s thing.” In interviews, Darby Allin has said that they have no interest in it. However, at least for Steven, that has begun shifting. “Now, to answer your actual question, the answer for my whole life, the reason why you would have heard that from Darby is because that has been the answer since I was a kid. I think it was probably a question that I’ve been asked more than anything in my entire life, ‘When are you going to get into wrestling?’ I just always liked leaving it as my dad’s thing. I never really had much interest in stepping into his world. I thought that was his thing. I would say it’s mostly still similar, but that said, maybe in the last six months to a year that answer has gotten a little bit more murky. Part of that is probably because I’m not ready to let him walk away or watch him walk away. I think somebody tweeted at me something like, ‘the hardest part about being a Sting fan is that he couldn’t stay young forever.’ And that actually hit me a little bit.”
Steven continued, “I think for most of my life, people have said, ‘Oh, you remind me of your dad.’ Of course, I’m his son, there’s going to be similarities. He has quite some strong genes at this point. What I mentioned earlier was that part of me has wondered recently whether or not I’ll regret never finding out how strong those genes really are. You know, I think he’s a superstar. He has some level of charisma and electricity that’s very rare. I think the only way to find out whether or not that electricity passed down in true fashion is to sort of put yourself out there and put yourself in the arena and everyone will decide for themselves whether or not I’m his son or just a “Sting from home” kind of a situation.”
“Let me just clear that up too. I would never be Sting two. There’s only one Sting so it’s more just the similarities and all of that. But yeah, so I think maybe the answer has gotten a little bit less clear. Recently, I’m just, this is a very transparent answer that I’m giving. All of this is very new, so it’s all something that’s happening in real time. Some of it might just be because there’s a lot of emotion around the ending of a 38ย year career, and maybe I’m just not ready to let it go yet.”
