Transcript: Interview with Steve Borden
LIFEWAY: We’re talking today with Steve Borden, better known among professional wrestling fans as
Sting, the wrestling superstar who held the world title nine times in world championship wrestling,
including two wins over wrestling legend Hulk Hogan. But despite the fame and fortune he achieved,
Steve’s being on the road for months at a time and his addictions to prescription drugs and alcohol
almost cost him his family. That’s when the pro-wrestler met Christ and his life changed for the good.
He’s here today to talk with us about that transformation. Steve, thanks so much for being with us today.
BORDEN: Hey, thanks for having me.
LIFEWAY: What was the attraction of professional wrestling for you? Why’d you get into it?
BORDEN: You know, that’s a funny question because there was no attraction whatsoever for me when I first
began. I grew up in southern California and I co-owned a health club here, a Gold’s Gym locally in the San
Fernando Valley. Somebody came into the gym one day with these three behemoth guys looking for a fourth
person and they wanted to break into the pro-wrestling world with these four guys and the manager to boot. So
five in all. And they tried to recruit for a few weeks and couldn’t come up with anyone and finally asked me if I
would be interested.
They took me to a wrestling match in L.A., in the sports arena, where we saw people like Hulk Hogan and the
Iron Sheik and the British Bulldogs and Andre the Giant and these fans were at a fevered pitch. I realized this
was huge. So I thought you know, and I was bored at the time and looking for something to do and I agreed to
go through this wrestling camp. And that’s where it started.
LIFEWAY: When someone’s watching wrestling, either on television or in a coliseum somewhere, all
we’re seeing really is the entertainment and that show that’s being put on in the ring. Can you describe
what it’s like in the back? What happens in this profession that we don’t see?
Transcript: Interview with Steve Borden, Sting
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BORDEN: Well, it would take me quite a long time because there are lots of egos back there and lots of
agendas and heavy competition and rivalries among some of the guys and jealousy and it’s very competitive,
very competitive. But you know, for the most part, most of us were friendly and we got along but you have a
group of dysfunctional people that bring all of their brokenness together into one big pile into every arena. And
so it’s just a very broken, broken scene.
LIFEWAY: What are some of the pressures that these wrestlers go through, they are dealing with each
day?
BORDEN: Well I always use the term human superball, and that’s what we are. We are human superballs and
we’re not like football, baseball, or basketball in that we’re not seasonal. We literally perform all year round.
And that includes every holiday from Christmas to Easter and we do two shows a lot of times on those holidays,
or we used to. It has sort of changed now. It’s the wear and tear on the road. It’s the traveling. It’s airports and
hotels and restaurant food and then being pulled in so many different directions by TV people, radio people, you
know the building manager, newspapers, magazines, and then again the human superball, the physical part of it,
just literally the wear and tear on your body to boot and it can be very stressful. And then to walk through the
curtains and face forty thousand people in some arena somewhere and you’re doing this almost every night.
LIFEWAY: Can you tell us how you met Christ? Was there a breaking point for you? Who led you to
Him?
BORDEN: There was a breaking point for me. I had many seeds that God was planting in my life through
people. And even some of the wrestlers, believe it or not, who knew the truth, they had the head knowledge but
God wasn’t really in their heart. And seeds throughout I’d say a real strong two year period in ’96 and ’97 and
into ’98, around that time there God really began to work on my heart. And I realized that everything the world
calls success I had achieved and I was not happy. There was something missing in my life that was really, really
empty and I was loosing control over every part of my life. So many skeletons in the closet from a lifestyle that
I had on the road that was not pleasing to God and was not pleasing to my wife and I made bad choices and I
was dealing with those consequences. As a result, I couldn’t sleep.
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I ultimately turned to pain medication and alcohol in the beginning in order, just to be able to sleep and to
escape. It turned into a full blown, about a two year addiction where everyday I was doing this. I just saw my
life unraveling. It was amazing because I had reached the very top of the professional wrestling world. I had
forty million people a week watching me world wide. I was the number one wrestler in the world and I was just
out of control. And I knew that I couldn’t gain control over it. I couldn’t stop taking the pain medication that I
had promised my wife I would do. In tears I promised her I would do that. And then about a month after I had
confessed about the drugs to my wife she had asked me another question about my lifestyle that I had been
lying about all the years that I was on the road and wrestling and I could no longer lie to her.
I believe the Holy Spirit took over at that point and I confessed my lifestyle to her. It was horrible. But James,
the book of James, says confess your sins one to another. I started right there with my wife. I couldn’t lie to her
anymore and God had somebody he could work with and he gave me what II Corinthians 7:10 calls Godly
remorse, the kind that leads to repentance that leads to your salvation, brings repentance that leads to your
salvation. And I believe that was, literally, my salvation right there and all of the sudden these Scriptures, the
truth will set you free, all of a sudden met something. I realized I didn’t have to be a chameleon anymore. I
didn’t have to wear all these different hats depending on who I was with.
I stopped taking the pain medication and drinking alcohol and the lifestyle, even the language that came out of
my mouth changed literally over night.
LIFEWAY: Let’s talk a little bit about your family. How is it now with your family since you accepted
Christ compared with before? Describe the difference.
BORDEN: It is night and day. The deception was, before I was saved, I had this belief that I was this really,
really good father. And I based it on being good to my children and wanting to spend time with them and be
home with them and to take the first flight home whenever we were done with the big show wherever it was and
take the last flight out when I was going to leave. And I did have a really good relationship with my children but
Sue and I were like two ships passing in the night and the stress levels were very, very high. We knew we were
on our way to separation and divorce. But after, after I found the Lord, about a month later my wife found the
Lord and that’s when God really began to work in our marriage and opened her eyes, gave her the ability and
the strength to be able to at least make the choice to try.
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To try to forgive, try to make things work. And the freedom that we have had, individually and in our marriage
and to watch our kids grow in the Lord, to teach them the things of the Lord, and then to have Gracie come
when we thought that we weren’t going to be able to have anymore kids, at least my wife Sue. She struggled
and thought that her youth had been robbed from me and that she wasn’t going to be able to have children. God
ended up giving us a baby girl, Gracie. She’s now five. But we have experienced blessings and miracles in this
marriage that we just know that God is alive and well, he loves us and wants to reconcile our marriages and
restore us back to fullness and bring us back to him. And that’s what he did and the joy, the peace is just so
amazing in my marriage now. I look at my wife now with eyes that I never knew I could look at her with. And I
know that God has given her the ability to do the same thing. I know now what love is. It’s not a feeling.
LIFEWAY: If you had to sum it up, what’s the main message you want to leave with people you come in
contact with, especially Sting fans?
BORDEN: Wow, there’s two different messages and it’s for two different groups of people. Those that don’t
know the Lord, I want them to know my story. I want them to know that you can go after what the world calls
success and it is empty. If you have an addiction to alcohol, drugs, pornography, or whatever it is, it doesn’t
matter what it is. It doesn’t matter how big it is. It doesn’t matter how awful. That Jesus Christ is bigger than all
of it and he wants to bring you back the fullness. He wants to reconcile your marriage. He wants to reconcile
your relationships with your children and your friends. He wants you to walk in victory but it takes surrendering
your life to Jesus Christ. You can’t make it happen on your own. It takes a full surrender to Jesus Christ.
Then the other one is, this is a mistake that I made. That two year window of time that I told you God was
planting seeds in my life, I was desperate and went forward at a big Promise Keepers event in front of forty
thousand men, raised my hand, said the sinner’s prayer, and I did it one time at a small church with my wife that
my brother was at the time an elder in. We just wanted God to wave the magic wand over our lives and just
make everything great again and just take away, just sort of sweep all the dirt under the carpet. Ours lives just
continued on, my life just continued on the way it did. It actually got worse and worse and worse. And the
mistake that I made was I thought that I was just going to get my fire insurance and make sure that if what these
Christian people are telling me, I don’t have to go to hell, I’ll be in heaven when I die, but I couldn’t, God
couldn’t work in my life because I wasn’t surrendered to Him.
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LifeWay Christian Resources / 615.251.2000 / www.lifeway.com
Transcript: Interview with Steve Borden, Sting
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So it wasn’t until, you know the Bible says every knee will bow, every tongue will confess and that’s what I
did. I mean I literally, I needed something supernatural to happen in my life. I said God you have to do this.
You’ve got to save my marriage, save my life, help me gain control over all these areas because it’s way beyond
me. There’s no money, no doctor, no woman, no drug, no big pay-per-view match that’s going to fix me. It’s
going to take something supernatural. You’ve got to do this. It takes a repentful, you’ve got to repent and
you’ve got to be sorrowful for your sin and realize that you are a sinner. And that’s what happened.
And so it’s two different messages. Don’t walk in mediocrity and just sort of one foot in the world and one foot
sort of I’ll go to church and put the church hat on once a week, I’m saying go for it and watch what happens.
LIFEWAY: Alright, well I’ve got one last question for you and it’s on a lighter note. I got this from a
wrestling fan who wanted me to ask you this. For all your wrestling fans out there, when Christ comes
back and defeats Satan once and for all, what’s the finishing move you think He’ll use? The “stinger
death lock” or the “scorpion death drop?”
BORDEN: (chuckling) Man, it’s going to be the scorpion death drop because He’s going to drop Satan into the
fiery pit never to return again man. It’s going to be awesome.
LIFEWAY: That’s great. Well thanks so much Steve.
BORDEN: Thank you for having me.
LIFEWAY: Steve Borden will be signing copies of his book Sting: Moment of Truth at three different
LifeWay Christian Stores. He’ll be at the LifeWay Store in Birmingham May 14th, the LifeWay in
Monroe, Louisiana, June 3rd, and at the Jackson, Mississippi LifeWay Store June 4th. For more
information you can visit LifeWayStores.com.
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LifeWay Christian Resources / 615.251.2000 / www.lifeway.com