Sting's AEW farewell match met his vision, family moment stands out

Sting said his farewell match in All Elite Wrestling unfolded exactly as he had imagined, and that one moment from the March bout stands out as the pinnacle of his four-decade career. Speaking at WrestleVerse Fest in Chattanooga on August 30, the veteran wrestler and current convention headliner described his retirement entrance at AEW Revolution 2024, when his sons Garrett and Steven Borden joined him in face paint and even intervened in the match, as a dreamlike high point. "It was exactly as I envisioned it being. It was like a dream, a surreal kind of a situation to actually witness it," Sting told The Wrestling Classic. "It's probably the highlight of 40 years for me."

Sting officially retired from in-ring competition at AEW Revolution on March 3, 2024, where he and Darby Allin retained the AEW World Tag Team Championships against The Young Bucks. Reports occasionally have misidentified other AEW events in coverage of his farewell, but most accounts and Sting's own comments point to Revolution as his final match. During that night Garrett and Steven appeared in makeup representing Sting's Wolfpac and Surfer eras, and Garrett delivered Stinger Splashes to The Young Bucks, a...