Part two of this multiple-part series will be posted this Tuesday. The following is part one written by Glenn Gilbertti, exclusively on WrestleZone.com
*Let me preface this by saying I was a big fan of Storm in WCW. I was on the booking committee at the time and without argument can take a lot of credit for his character development. When he came in he was a babyface, and I was like, “How can anyone like this guy? He has no charisma and does nothing to connect to the audience.” So we came up with the logical conclusion to make a gimmick out of the fact that he was boring and push him down people’s throats. We gave him the mike, and made him the stereotypical Canadian heel, which he did well. We gave him three titles simultaneously, and actually drew a number with him when he wrestled Booker T for the belt on nitro in a time slot that we were getting murdered by the WWF. He set the standard at the time for how to push a new character in WCW, which was actually push him. Most midcarders under the Sullivan regime were just thrown on the show in matches when they debuted and relied on to get over themselves, even though they were jobbing half the time.
I’m not exactly sure what happened with him post WCW, but I think it’s safe to say that when Russo, Ferrara, and myself were booking Lance Storm it was the highlight of his televised wrestling career. Now I see him referenced a lot on the websites, and his commentaries create a lot of controversy. I started reading how he was burying TNA’s booking, so I decided to see for myself. I checked out Stormwrestling.com and boy, oh, boy, does he have A LOT of egg on his face now for some of his comments, specifically about Shark Boy.
Here are some comments from his “TNA: Bi Polar” commentary on Jan. 21.
“If I told someone I was a pro-wrestler and showed them this weekâs regular Impact show as an example, I would be embarrassed and want to put a paper bag over my head and slit my wrists. The Shark Boy stuff over shadowed all the hard work of those who wrestled on the show and TNA has once again regained the crown as the biggest disgrace in wrestling history”
“The Shark Boy segments this week on Impact were stupid, insulting, and perhaps more importantly extremely bad for business.”
“Segments like this have far wider ramifications and no one seems able to get their head out of their @$$ long enough it realize it.”
“Letâs look at the fact that TNA spent approximately 7 minutes of airtime on the Shark Boy skits. The skits were insultingly stupid and undermined the credibility of every person who took part in them.”
“If that isnât bad enough, and this is where the short sightedness of the creative team shows through, by doing this stupid injury angle gimmick with Shark Boy they are sabotaging their own company by wasting potential money drawing angles on this comedy character.”
“How is it that an undercard nobody who canât even get medical clearance is being given what he demands while other top stars are ignored by TNA management? This company makes no sense at all, at least not in this hemisphere.”
Wow! There’s enough comedy to address there but the following week he gave us more. This is from “Shark Boy” on Jan. 28.
“I believe the person (or persons) who are lost here is or are the people who book/write TNA Impact.”
“In ECW way back when. On house shows some of the guys would do WWF gimmick moves for the cheap pop it would garner. I recall one house show when in a tag match Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman worked in a double Scotty 2 Hotty Worm spot to a huge pop from the crowd. Paul Heyman was livid and told the guys never to do stuff like that again, because it made us look second rate and inferior to the WWF.”
***Let me address this one quickly. What on earth was the Blue World Order, then? Now back to more Stormisms.
“In the end Shark Cold will likely not amount to anything more than a short term comedy pop on 2 or 3 Impact shows and then run itâs course and be dropped.”
Uh, Lance, Shark Boy has the highest selling t-shirt in TNA. I could condescend and psychoanalyze the comments Lance made about him, but I think if you brought the argument to a court of law, and Lance Storm presented the case that the TNA booking committee is stupid for what they did with Shark Boy, and I presented the evidence that they took a jobber and made him the highest selling merchandise, a jury would probably find that beyond a reasonable doubt that Lance storm was wrong, and should issue an apology. At least to maintain his credibility.
