If I Could Be Serious For A Minute

In the summer of 2000 Lance Storm left Extreme Championship Wrestling for greater exposure with World Championship Wrestling. Storm never won the top championship in ECW but he had formed a highly successful tag team with Justin Credible (though they had split prior to joining WCW).

Looking back at Storm’s run in WCW has left me with a poor taste in my mouth. Actually, the same could be said for his run in the WWE. In this column, I’ll be taking a look at some of his memorable moments and poor booking decisions in both companies.

Storm made a splash in WCW in a short time where he would win the WCW Untied States, Crusierweight and Hardcore Championships. For some reason, I specifically remember when Storm bat Big Vito on Nitro in the summer of 2000. I’m not sure why that sticks out so much in my mind, but it does. Obviously, Vito didn’t ever get a big push, but I think at the time I bought into Vito being a tough guy and seeing Storm make him tap out was memorable. I’m probably the only one who thought that, though.

You would think that Storm would then go on to challenge for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. To the best of my memory I can remember him wrestling for the championship only one time and that was on Nitro against Booker T. It was actually a good match, but the camera kept on going to Mike Awesome and a fat chick to promote a match between Awesome and Storm at New Blood Rising. WCW sure knows how to mess up good things, right?

They did that with Lance Storm. I bought New Blood Rising in August of 2000 after begging my Dad to let me get it. I guess I thought the show was strong since there was a ladder match, triple threat involving three of the bigger stars in WCW and the Booker/Jarrett stuff was good. At the show Lance Storm wrestled Mike Awesome and it was a decent match, but it should have been great. The match could have made both guys into stars for WCW. Instead, they had Storm lose the match several times only for Jacques Rougeau, the special referee, to restart the match over and over. Storm eventually won, but the damage was done. Losing a match several times never does anyone good.

Storm’s stock in WCW continued to fall. He would feud with General Rection (Hugh Morrus) over the WCW United States Championship. They traded the championship a few times with Morrus getting the better of the feud. Storm finished off the year getting in feuds with the Cat and the Filthy Animals.

It took less than two months for Storm to be de-pushed and lose steam. The guy should have been feuding with Booker T, Sting and other top faces. He had the talent and promo skills. He was just another wasted talent in WCW. Perhaps when he went to WWF he would get a better end of the stick?

Storm was given a little push at the start of the Invasion angle when he won the WWF Intercontinental Championship by beating Albert. The reign lasted less than a month as he lost the belt to Edge at SummerSlam 2001. The next night on RAW, Storm had a match with the Rock, which he lost. The worst part of it, was that a midget dressed up as Booker T would get some offense on Lance Storm after the match.

The rest of the Invasion time period saw Lance Storm tag with the Hurricane, but they failed to ever win tag team gold while together. When the Alliance lost at Survivor Series 2001, Storm was out of a job for about a month. He got his job back by beating the Rock with help from Test in December 2001.

Along with Test, Christian, and William Regal, Storm would form the Un-Americans. The name of the group should be clear. They didn’t like America. Storm and Christian got a big victory over Hulk Hogan and Edge at Vengeance 2002 where they would win the WWE World Tag Team Championships. They would hold the belts for two months before losing the titles to Hurricane and Kane on 9/23.

The group Un-Americans would breakup the next week. Well, about a month later Storm and Regal started to team on a regular basis. They kicked off 2003 by beating Booker T and Goldust to win the WWE World Tag Team Championships. The Dudley Boyz won the titles at the Royal Rumble but needed to return the titles the next night. D-Von hit Storm with brass knuckles and the cheating overturned the victory.

William Regal would suffer from medical issues, thus Chief Morley (Val Venis) became Storm’s partner. They loss the titles the night after WrestleMania 19 in a triple threat tag team match.

Storm’s career in the WWE would be forever damaged on June 16th, 2003. Storm had a match with Garrison Cade when Steve Austin decided to come out and call Storm boring. Austin went so far as to sleep on the ramp way and snore. Talk about completely killing a wrestler.

Goldust ended up teaching Lance Storm how to get some charisma and turned him into a babyface. Storm teamed with Val Venis briefly but that didn’t last long. Storm turned on the fans saying being a dancing fool wasn’t worth it. He lost to Rhyno on RAW in 2004 after the Draft Lottery and wouldn’t appear on RAW again.

I’ve always considered Lance Storm to be one of the guys who never got a big push or a run at the top. As I’m writing this, I can’t believe that WCW dropped the ball with Storm so badly. He was so over in WCW when he came in, he could have easily had a top program with Booker T for several months.

Storm has to be considered underrated. Yes, he might not be screaming with charisma, but for him that didn’t seem to hinder with his ability to get over as a heel. Fans hated him because he was so serious and spoke down to them while pushing his Canadian is superior belief. For Storm, that worked and it shouldn’t have been tampered with.

When he went to the WWF and was part of the Invasion angle, I felt like he could have played a much bigger role rather than being stuck in an oddball tag team with the Hurricane. But, the WWF was naturally afraid or simply didn’t want to push anyone not a “WWF guy.” I guess they didn’t realize that everyone was in the WWF and they all needed some momentum for the fans to care.

I probably will have a second installment of this to give some ideas as to how Storm could have been pushed as a stronger character in both companies. In the meantime, feel free to share your opinions on Storm and suggest any ideas on how you would have promoted Lance Storm better.

Thanks for reading.