Sting was booked to beat Nick Aldis at Bound for Glory. On the day of the show, Sting changed it, and then told TNA management what to do about it.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Aldis explained that the relationship went back years. In 2009, three months into his TNA run and still working as part of a tag team, Sting asked for him.
“I had a match with Sting in 2009. I’d been in the company like three months because Sting said, give me that guy. Sting had worked with Samoa Joe on a pay-per-view, and I think had won the match, so the next episode of Impact Sting just needed a win.”
“I’m pretty sure that he just said, give me that British kid, I like him.”
Aldis knew he had no business being there.
“There was no reason why I should have been having a singles match with Sting in the main event of Impact at that point in my career. I was 22 or whatever, completely green.”
He said the match did more for him than the result suggested.
“It went quite well, all things considered, because it was just a short TV match where I basically just let Sting do all his greatest hits and flew around for him, and then tapped out to the Scorpion. But that match helped establish me with a lot of the veterans, like Nash and Steiner and stuff. They saw me, and they kind of went, this kid’s starting to get it. Like he’s generous and he bumps around a lot and he knows his role.”
“And Kevin then really started going out of his way to help me because of that.”
Four years later
By the time the two met at Bound for Glory, TNA’s biggest event of the year, the plan was for Sting to win. Aldis says that changed hours before the show.
“All the way leading up to that, it had been, you know, Sting will go over. On the day of the show, Sting said, you know, I think I want to tap out to the cloverleaf tonight. And again, I had no words. So they went okay. Sting made that call.”
Then Sting made a point of it backstage.
“After the match, Sting came back and looked at Dixie and John Gaburick and whomever else was there behind the curtain, and basically pointed at me and said, now make that mean something. Which, in other words, meant put the world title on him.”
Aldis’ summary of it was brief.
“So Sting, you know, don’t know what to say.”
He was warm about the man generally.
“Steve Borden is an absolute class act human being, and for whatever reason, God bless, he took a shine to me and wanted to do a lot for me right from the start.”
The program did not end the way Aldis would have wanted, and he said the finish suffered from the same problem that hurt other TNA main events of the period, with repeated interference.
