AEW Makeup Artist Dani Dinino Discusses Last Minute Painting Of Sting, Darby Allin, And CM Punk

At AEW Dynamite Holiday Bash, Sting teamed with CM Punk & Darby Allin to take on FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) & MJF. 

Punk, Sting, & Allin showed unity before the match when they came out sporting face paint that paid tribute to their teammates. 

Punk had Sting face paint using Chicago colors, Allin had his half face paint looking like Sting, and Sting had Punk references in his face paint. 

Speaking on A2theK Wrestling Show, AEW makeup artist Dani Dinino explained how last-minute the idea was. 

“Those guys literally came to me like 30 minutes before they were going out on stage. Sting always does his own paint. Sting is the only wrestler, going into working this job, he’s the only wrestler who I knew about. When he’s come for paint, especially in the beginning, that one made me nervous. That’s the only one I’ve been super nervous to do. That’s the thing with Sting, because he usually does his own looks, it’s always very…I’ve done him a few times and it’s been very last minute. ‘If Dani has time, let me jump in the chair and we’ll have her do this.’ He’s kind of the type where, if not, he’ll do it himself. They came in, it was maybe an hour before the match, and he was like, ‘I want this’ and he brought me in a printout of the fist and lightning bolt. ‘I want this and I want you to put it on my forehead.’ I looked at him like, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah, this is what I want.’ I was so nervous on that one. He is very particular about his looks,” she said.

Dani continued by saying, “I’ve learned with him, let me hand him the mirror and have him check it as I’m going. When you do yourself that often, they get very used to how they like their stuff, and I get that. On that one, I literally cut it out and taped it to his face first so he could see where I was going to do it, and had him ‘okay’ it. Then, I just went for it. Everyone loves that one, which I didn’t know if it was going to be a hit or a miss, but everyone loved it and they turned it into a toy. Punk’s look, he came in and had the photo of Sting that he wanted me to copy and then wanted me to do the Chicago colors. Both of them are such icons that it was very nerve-racking to do their paint. The guys don’t like to sit there long, either. I get it, I’m not one who likes to stay and get stuff done either, but they are very much like, ‘Okay, this is good enough, we’re going to go,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I need to fix this.’ They are extremely popular and going to be on TV and if it’s messed up, it’s my fault. It was nerve-racking, but a lot of people liked that look a lot, so I’m glad I got good reviews.”

AEW released a shirt immortalizing the war paint worn by all three and Diamond Select toys released a two-pack of Sting and Punk with the paint.

Punk, Allin, and Sting were all present on AEW television on Wednesday with Sting helping Allin in his coffin match and Punk returning at the end of the show. If you missed anything from AEW Dynamite, check out Fightful’s full report on the show by clicking here. 

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