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STING: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH (2004)
directed by George King
approximately 1 hour 25 minutes
This is the biographical DVD of pro-wrestler Steve Borden, best known to the world as "Sting". It deals with the difficulties of being a wrestling superstar and is made from an overtly religious angle.
The story starts with young (blonde) Steve in Southern California hitting the gym and bulking up. He accepts an offer to join a group of bodybuilders who are trying to break into the wrestling biz. Whittled out of this group is a tag team consisting of Steve Borden and Jim Hellwig, who later became famous as the Ultimate Warrior. The team starts out in Mid-South Wrestling before splitting up and Steve takes on the Sting persona in his solo career. While still struggling to get by, Steve marries a girl named Sue who stands by him. The Sting character becomes a huge success but with the success comes temptation and responsibility. One scene features heavy-handed symbolism showing Borden stumbling through an alley, with loose women, an alcoholic and a man throwing money all chasing after the superstar. Steve struggles to keep his marriage together and slowly becomes more spiritual by praying and attending Christian gatherings.
The structuring of the movie is weird. For example when Steve first starts telling his story, he is talking to a newspaper reporter. When that interview ends, he continues telling the story. Then later on he is interviewed for the second time by a fanboy internet writer (probably the funniest scene in the movie). This interview is brief and again Sting continues to talk about the story after it is over. Also there are a lot of vingettes that go on for a long time. One that comes to mind is early on where we see memories of good ol sunny California and get the montage of beach bums and people riding their bikes on Venice Beach. Not a bad scene, but I felt like I was watching video from the Southern California Board of Tourism.
Another thing (which I admit is pretty nerdy of me to complain about) is that the wrestling clips are shown in an order that makes no sense. One of the first WCW clips shown is from like 1999 or 2000, later on a clip from 1997 is shown etc. A TNA clip is even shown between some of the WCW clips! There's a different scene where Steve is on the phone with his wife discussing a match he fought in earlier in the night. Wrestling fans will recognize this as Bash at the Beach 96, one of the most famous events in the history of WCW. This segment comes after a scene where Sting is being trained to drop from the rafters which didn't take place until the nWo storyline had taken off. If you aren't a wrestling fan then this stuff probably doesn't make a difference to you, but this DVD is targeted at a wrestling audience.
The real focus here is on Steve Borden's spiritual redemption and non-Christians may not enjoy the DVD for this reason. There are some parts which may be of interest to the more secular wrestling fans, such as the direct questions about Starrcade 97 and the "nWo Wolfpack", which Steve describes as "the beginning of the end for WCW". I do wish that somebody had asked whether Borden ever considered signing with the McMahons though.
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Sting (Steve Borden) captures the imagination of the wrestling world in a way that few have. This wrestling superstar has appeared to more than half a billion people worldwide in live and broadcast events, and his exploits in the ring with fellow wrestling stars like Hulk Hogan, Hall and Nash, Ric Flair, the Horsemen, Lex Luger and many others became legendary in the world of professional wrestling. Now Sting: Moment of Truth takes you into the ring to see, feel and hear the ballet of brute force that is professional wrestling in a dramatic film that tells the life story of this international megastar. Feel the Sting and come to know his ultimate Moment of Truth!
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