After wrestling in the CWA, Hellwig and Borden moved to Bill Watts' Universal Wrestling Federation where they wrestled as the Blade Runners.  Blade Runner Rock (Hellwig) and Blade Runner Sting wrestled in the UWF for several months under the management of "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert.  When Hellwig left for Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling. Sting remained in the UWF, teaming with Rick Steiner to win the UWF Tag Team Championship.

      Eventually the UWF folded but Sting's career was just beginning.  Sting began competing in World Championship Wrestling where he quickly gained fame by disrupting a party held by Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen. Sting's actions earned him a title match against Ric Flair for the NWA Heavyweight Championship.  Sting battled Flair at the first ever Clash of Champions, taking the world champion to a 45 minute draw.  This would be the first of many battles between the two men.

     After his initial battle with Flair, Sting began feuding with the Great Muta.  The two feuded for months over the WCW Television Title and as so happens often, Sting found himself teaming with his old enemy Flair to battle Muta and members of the J-Tex Corporation.  Eventually, Sting was asked by Flair to join a new version of the Four Horsemen.  Since Flair and the Horsemen were wrestling as babyfaces, Sting had no problem with this and he helped the Horsemen battle the J-Tex Corporation.  At one point Sting was injured during a cage match with the J-Tex Corporation but the Horsemen held his spot while he recovered.  However when Sting earned a title match for Ric Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship, his fellow Horsemen were shocked when he actually asked for the match.  The Horsemen confronted Sting in the ring and Ole Anderson told Sting that by requesting the title match, he had relinquished his membership in the Horsemen.  However if he gave up the title match, the Horsemen would let him leave under his own power.  Sting of course refused and the Horsemen attacked him, turning heel in the process.  Sting then began feuding with the Horsemen and campaigned for Flair's title.

    Upon Stings's return he knew that the deck would be stacked against him if he took on Flair and the Horsemen alone.  To even the odds, Sting formed his own stable of babyfaces to counter the Horsemen's interference.  Sting formed the Dudes with Attitude, made up of the Steiner Brothers, Junkyard Dog, El Gigante, and Paul "Mr. Wonderful" Orndrorff,  With the Dudes offsetting the Horsemen's outside interference, Sting was able to wrestle Flair one on one for the belt and at the 1990 Great American Bash, Sting won his first NWA World Heavyweight Title.

    Sting defended the belt against a variety of challengers but fans wondered if Sting could hold off the challenge of Ric Flair.  In the past, Flair had always been able to regain the title (often with the help of the Horsemen).  However fans were shocked when a complete stranger began stalking Sting for his title.  A mysterious masked wrestler appeared in WCW, claiming to be someone from Sting's past.  The wrestler called himself the Black Scorpion and he began a campaign of mind games against Sting.  The Black Scorpion demonstrated feats of illusion on television and perplexed Sting by sending doubles of himself against Sting.  Just when Sting felt he had finally cornered the Black Scorpion in the ring, he would find the real Black Scorpion taunting him from afar. 

    After months of chasing the Black Scorpion, Sting finally cornered the real Black Scorpion in the ring.  Sting unmasked his crafty opponent and he discovered it was the dirtiest player in the game- Ric Flair!  Flair's elaborate ruse proved to be successful when he subsequently defeated Sting for the NWA World belt. 

   After Ric Flair left WCW for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), the WCW World Heavyweight Title was won by Lex Luger when he defeated Barry Windham.  In early 1992, Sting defeated Luger for his second world heavyweight title.  Sting found himself challenged by the 6'5" monster known as Vader.  Sting was worn down by the brutal style of Vader and at the 1992 Great American Bash, Sting dropped the WCW Title to Vader.  In the fall of 1992. 

       Sting had a brief but memorable feud against Jake "The Snake" Roberts.  The two met at the 1992 Halloween Havoc pay-per-view in a "Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal" match.  A special wheel was spun with various matches listed on it.  The two ended up fighting in a Coal Miner's Glove Match with Sting getting the victory.  After the match, Roberts was bit by the snake he brought into the ring.

 For the next year, Sting battled Vader in singles and tag team competition.  When Vader teamed with Sid Vicious as "The Masters of the Power Bomb" Sting allied himself with Davey Boy Smith.  Sting teamed with Smith at the 1993 Beach Blast pay-per-view.  The war with Vader reached its peak at 1993's Fall Brawl pay-per-view when Sting teamed with Smith, Dustin Rhodes, and the Shockmaster to defeat Vader, Vicious, and Harlem Heat in a War Games match. 

In 1994 the landscape of WCW was radically changed when Hulk Hogan jumped ship from the WWF to WCW.  Sting found his role as the number one babyface in WCW challenged by Hogan.  Despite the threat, Sting stayed the course as a babyface and aided Hogan in his battles against the top heels in WCW.  Hulk Hogan's arrival in WCW led some fans and observers to wonder if WCW's two top babyfaces could co-exist or whether Sting would turn on Hogan as so many of his partners had done in the past.  The June 1994 issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated (left) speculated on the possibility.

       Sting found himself teaming with Ric Flair again after Flair pleaded with Sting to team up with him against his former friends Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman (members of the Four Horsemen).  After much soul-searching, Sting decided to team with Flair against Pillman and Anderson.  Before the match, Flair was taken out by his former teammates and Sting had to battle Pillman and Anderson on his own.  When things looked bleak for Sting, Ric Flair rushed to ringside but instead of helping Sting, he attacked him!  The whole thing was an elaborate set-up by Flair to reform the Four Horsemen.

     Outraged by Flair's betrayal, Sting renewed his feud with Flair and the Four Horsemen. Sting was determined to rid the wrestling world of Flair and during a match against Flair on Monday Night Nitro, Sting placed Flair in the scorpion deathlock and refused to let go of the hold.   Only the intervention of Lex Luger prevented Sting from making a mistake he'd never forgive himself for. 

     In the summer of 1996, WCW was threatened by Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, two former WWF wrestlers who now called themselves "The Outsiders".  The Outsiders challenged WCW's top stars to face them and a mystery partner in a six man tag team match at the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view. Rallying to the WCW cause, Sting led the team of Lex Luger and Randy "Macho Man" Savage against the Outsiders. Sting and his teammates were puzzled when they saw the Outsiders' mystery partner was nowhere to be found.  They took advantage of the 3 on 2 matchup until Luger was knocked out of the match making the match an even battle.  The Outsiders rallied back and it looked like the had the match won until the unexpected arrival of Hulk Hogan. Hogan had been away from WCW filming a movie and his arrival was a surprise.  It turned out to be even more of a surprise when Hogan attacked Savage and Sting and was revealed as the third member of the Outsiders. 

     Sting did not let Hogan's betrayal stop him from defending WCW against the New World Order (as Hogan and the Outsiders eventually became known). Sting prepared to team up with Lex Luger and other WCW stars against the New World Order (NWO) at Fall Brawl but the NWO devised a clever plan to knock Sting out of action.  The plan unfolded when Sting was seen with the NWO attacking his WCW partners (or so it seemed).  The real Sting showed up and claimed that this Sting was an imposter.  However Sting's allies were not so sure and with some of his fans doubting him, Sting had a crisis of confidence and ended up abandoning WCW.  Fans were not sure if Sting was ever going to return to WCW.  Over the next few months, Sting began appearing in the rafters at WCW shows with a different look.  Sting now had black hair and white makeup that made him resemble the title character from the movie "The Crow".  As months passed, Sting would sometimes descend from the rafters with a baseball bat to fight off the NWO.  After over a year of absence from the ring, Sting finally returned to take on "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan at Starcade '97.  There, Sting defeated Hogan for the WCW Title.  However a cloud of controversy hovered over Sting's win and his win was not officially recognized until he defeated Hogan at 1998's Uncensored pay-per-view.   After losing the WCW title to Randy Savage, Sting teamed with the Giant to take on the Outsiders for the WCW Tag Team titles.  At the Slamboree pay-per-view, Sting and the Giant won the belts from the Outsiders. 

       When the NWO split into two factions, Sting joined the NWO Wolfpac.  After a split with the Giant, Sting battled his former partner over the tag team championship.  After defeating the Giant for the right to name his new tag team partner, Sting chose Kevin Nash.  In 1999, Sting focused on winning the WCW World Title.  On the April 26 edition of Monday Night Nitro, Sting defeated Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW Title only to lose the belt the same night in a four way match.  Sting's campaign for the World Title continued and at the Fall Brawl pay-per-view, he defeated Hulk Hogan for the WCW title.  Sting turned heel during the match but his heel status was short-lived.  At the next months' Halloween Havoc pay-per-view, Sting dropped the WCW Title to Goldberg along with his heel persona. 

        One of Sting's more unusual opponents was Vampiro.   Sting had an intense feud with the wrestler known as Vampiro.  The two grapplers battled in unusual specialty matches such as the House of Pain Match and the Inferno match.  During a first blood bath against Vampiro, numerous gallons of a red substance were dumped on Sting from over the ring, stunning the Stinger.  Vampiro and a swarm of New Blood wrestlers then beat Sting and hung him from the rafters after the match.  The feud with Vampiro ended with an Inferno match with Sting fading from sight for several months. 

       From November 2000 to the last episode of Nitro, Sting was absent from WCW.  On the historic last night of Nitro, Sting battled his long-time foe Ric Flair one last time, defeating the Nature Boy and appearing in WCW for the last time.   Since then, Sting has made several appearances on NWA's Total Nonstop Action (TNA) both as a competitor and as a special referee.  There have been frequent rumors that Sting would join the roster of World Wrestling Entertainment but thus far nothing has panned out. 

      Like several of his contemporaries, Steve Borden has converted to Christianity and he makes special appearances at Christian events.  Sting recently made a movie about his life story including a candid look at the lifestyle that led to his conversion. On January 1, 2006 TNA announced that it had signed Sting to a one year contract and that he would be wrestling in the main event at their Final Resolution pay-per-view.