During the second part of Sting’s interview with Jim Ross on The Ross Report, J.R. asked Sting if he ever considered changing his aerial ring entrance in the wake of Owen Hart’s tragic death:
“Oh yeah, I sure did,” Sting admitted. “As a matter of fact, I was boarding a plane to go do another event. We were doing Nitro and I was boarding a plane taking a redeye flight out and I got a phone call to my cell phone and it said, ‘From CNN News, Owen Hart Has Just Been Killed’ and it described how it happened. Of course it was shocking and you just can’t believe what your hearing. Then I landed and I saw some of the guys who were going to help do some of the rigging for my gig and I said ‘We’re not going to be doing this’ and they said, ‘Why?’ and I said, “Owen Hart died.'”
Sting noted that he stopped doing his entrance for months before being approached by Eric Bischoff and WCW officials about doing it again. Sting said that he called Bret Hart to get his approval.
“I talked to Bret and I said, ‘What do you think? I’m not going to do it if you don’t want me to do it and if your family doesn’t want me to do it… I will not do it.’ He ended up talking to his family about it and he called me and said, ‘Steve, we’re all fine with it. Go ahead; it’s not going to hurt.'”
Ross summed up the segment by explaining that Sting’s aerial entrance as his “Crow” persona was an important facet of his character.
