Report: AEW Never Asked WWE For Historic Sting Footage

Prior to Sting's entrance at AEW Revolution, a video played showing the 64-year-old sitting alone in a movie theatre as he watched highlights from his long and illustrious career. 

As well as footage from AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, there were also pictures from different eras of his career, including Mid-South and NWA/WCW.

No footage of matches from WWE-owned libraries, which would include Mid-South, NWA/WCW and WWE itself, was included in the montage, however.

According to The Wrestling Observer, that is because AEW never asked WWE for permission to use any of that footage. The site added that there were no guarantees that WWE would have granted Tony Khan's promotion the favour, but that (as of midweek) it had not been asked. 

AEW have in the past allowed WWE to use footage from their promotion, for example in the American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes documentary. AEW have also allowed contracted talent to send video testimonials to use on WWE programming, such as when Bryan Danielson, Mark Henry, and Chris Jericho sent in tributes to John Cena for his 20th WWE anniversary, while Jericho famously appeared on Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions in April 2021. 

For what it's worth, Sting's pre-entrance video also featured no footage of his time in TNA. 

Sting retired following his match at Revolution, which saw him and Darby Allin retain their AEW World Tag Team Titles against The Young Bucks in the show's main event.