#16 – 31 Panini WCW/nWo Superstars Photocards [1998]

The continuation of my crusade to fully upload these Panini photocards. Loved being able to get a hold of all these promo shots in such a great quality, shame that the WWE doesn’t do something similar nowadays.

These cards are particularly interesting due to the ridiculous re-touching on all of the Sting cards. At this point, Steve Borden had moved on from the white/black Crow motif and started painting his face with a red base to reflect his membership within the nWo Wolfpac. Instead of doing new photo sessions with Sting, WCW just repainted his face red in all of his existing promo photos:

wcw0031a
Original Sting photo shoot vs Retouched Tomato-Face Sting WCW Panini card

WCW even went a step further with the same photos and retouched the lines on his makeup to make them sharper for merchandise usage in early 1999:

wcw0031aa
Back of Toy Biz Sting Smash ‘N’ Slam Figure [1999]
The more you know.

By Bryan Barrera

40-year-old World Championship Wrestling fanatic/collector/hoarder. Safety officer by day, scanner of wrestling magazine by night. He's got posters on the wall, his favorite rock group's KISS.