Lance Storm on WWE’s Slump, Training NXT Talent and UFC 167

Fred: I have on the line a true wrestling great and one of the best trainers in the business today, Mr. Lance Storm. Lance, thanks so much for joining us. How are you today?

Lance Storm: I’m doing fantastic. My pleasure.

Fred: The last three months have not been the best wrestling for either WWE or TNA. Survivor Series is coming up in just a few days, and quite frankly, I feel like the card is lackluster at best. What’s your assessment of WWE since SummerSlam?

Lance Storm: Disappointing would be an interesting word, and again, I have very specific tastes in what I like in wrestling. For quite a few years now, the focus has gone more and more toward television stories rather than pro wrestling matches, and as long as that trend continues, interest in pay-per-views and buy rates will continue to decline. There’s so much product out there that unless you make specific matches mean something, the five, six or seven hours a week you get for free fulfill your need, and there isn’t enough unique about pay-per-views to make that many people cough up 50 bucks.

Fred: There have been some positives, like the emergence of Big E Langston, a guy you’re a fan of, who was the NXT champion, and the reemergence of Cody Rhodes and Goldust in the tag team division. But I feel like a lot of people outside of John Cena are far less over than they were in the summer.

Lance Storm: Even if you think people are more over, whether it’s the Shield or Punk or whoever else, I know it’s their intent to make it about personalities, and they’re succeeding to an extent, but I think it’s detrimental to a portion of the business. If you just like Big E Langston, I can see him two or three times a week for free, so over four weeks, I see him eight to 12 times for free. Why do I pay for the 13th? Unless you make the outcome of a specific match the focus, I don’t know what the appeal of pay-per-view is anymore. The desire to see the resolution of a conflict is why I’d pay for pay-per-view, and when they make it less about that, I think it hurts. Over the last three months, the primary conflict has been over becoming WWE champion, and any fan who hung in there for three or four months hoping Daniel Bryan would deliver didn’t get it. In a society that wants instant gratification, where we microwave our food so it’s ready in a minute, want our glasses in an hour, want lightning-speed internet and video on demand, having to wait three or four months for the payday is tough. Society’s attention spans are shortening too much.

Fred: You’ve made a great point a number of times on Figure Four Online and on Twitter: When Daniel Bryan comes out, you want to see him back with a vengeance and kick some ass, not chant “Yes! Yes! Yes!” after getting screwed over God knows how many times.

Lance Storm: In my opinion, it’s the one-dimensionalization of him, where he’s just the “yes” guy with a beard. You want a little more meat on the bone. I was glad they ditched the “five” thing with Big E Langston from NXT, because everyone would chant “five” when he came out, since he wanted the five count like Bundy, but that became all he did. As much as we liked hearing Steve Austin say he was going to open a can of whoop-ass, he said more than that. He had more substance. Daniel Bryan can deliver that. It just doesn’t seem to be what they’re focusing on. I like three-dimensional characters.

Fred: No matter the outcome at Survivor Series, I don’t see the product changing from stale and kind of unwatchable. What’s next in the main event scene after Survivor Series, besides more of the same?

Lance Storm: I’m afraid I’m assuming more of the same. TLC is coming, so I’m assuming we’ll have more of the same with a gimmick stipulation, which is why I think Survivor Series will draw a fairly poor buy rate. By disappointing, I mean the outcome, not the performances. I expect fans to be disappointed that Randy Orton manages to prevail due to some degree of shenanigans again, for the fourth straight pay-per-view, or the fifth if you count SummerSlam. Unless they have somebody new for John Cena, which I don’t think they do, and Del Rio has done the table gimmick a couple of times, so I’m assuming that’s where they’re going. Survivor Series is just a step to the next pay-per-view rather than a real belief that a resolution is coming, and that’s part of the problem with designated pay-per-views and designated gimmick matches on a timetable. I don’t want to sound like the bitter old-timer, but back in my day, if you paid to see Ric Flair challenge Sting for the title and didn’t get the resolution you hoped for, the stipulation they came up with next made sense, because now what happened last time couldn’t happen again. Fans believe the resolution is right around the corner, so they hang in. They carried it with Flair for several pay-per-views, but today, with so much TV and the product moving so fast, you’ve got to resolve it sooner. When you know ahead of time that December is TLC, with a ladder match, a chairs match and a tables match, it starts to seem too transparent.

Fred: You mentioned one-dimensional characters. I’m a fan of the NXT show, as are you, but a lot of the characters there are quite one-dimensional, and I don’t think those gimmicks do a lot of them any favors, whether it’s Tyler Breeze, who you trained and is a good worker, taking pictures with his cell phone, CJ Parker as a hippie or Bo Dallas thinking people are chanting “Bo” instead of “No.” What’s the reason for so many one-dimensional gimmicks?

Lance Storm: I see what you mean, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a flaw if they would just give them a bit more freedom. You have to give these guys time to come into their own so they can fill out those second and third dimensions. If you want Tyler Breeze to be a model who’s in love with himself, that’s great, but give him that and then give him the freedom to figure out what else. In ECW, Paul Heyman basically wanted me to do the Bret Hart pro-Canada, anti-U.S. thing, and I didn’t want to, because that’s what Bret was doing, so I said, “I’ll just be the Calgary guy.” I changed it a little, got comfortable with myself and became a bit of an obnoxious ass, but it wasn’t just going to be Calgary and Calgary alone. It took me a while, but I found who I was. If they give guys more freedom instead of micromanaging and telling them every hold and move to make, like, “You have to take three selfies per match,” they’ll let him find out how to turn himself into Tyler Breeze and give himself a third and fourth dimension. But if you’re just the guy who sings, the guy who takes selfies or the guy who acts stoned, then you’re into one-dimensional characters without a lot of substance.

Fred: You told me at the beginning that you’re doing well. Are you confident you’ll feel the same way after watching TNA Turning Point tonight?

Lance Storm: With the exception of the main angle with Dixie, which doesn’t make any sense to me, I’ve mostly enjoyed the show. Last week’s show was pretty decent. The submission match between Kurt and Aries was a good match, and they built it throughout the show with interviews where each guy talked about the difference in a submission match, like Kurt pointing out that he can get his submission from anywhere, while Aries has to get the guy in a specific position. That made the match seem important and explained how it might play out. The Gail Kim challenge put a new face in a match, which is perfectly fine. I just don’t understand why the main story is that Dixie doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing, she’s running the company like a fool, and TNA sucks so bad that AJ doesn’t want to be there. That confuses the hell out of me. But the week before was the ladder match with Jeff Hardy and Chris Sabin, so they’ve at least been delivering good, solid main events, and whenever Bully Ray gets to talk, I’m a fan. Since they don’t have many pay-per-views anymore, they can move a little slower and don’t have as hard a sell, like, “Why did you give me this great match for free on TV and a lesser one on pay-per-view?” As long as the show is entertaining and gives me a good main event, I’m left with a good taste in my mouth.

Fred: Do you press mute when Dixie gets on the mic?

Lance Storm: I don’t, because I’m amused by the absurdity of it. Because we don’t time-shift Spike TV in Canada, I get it at 7 at night, so I watch while I’m doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. Even if the show’s not particularly good, it’s not time wasted, because I’m doing something else anyway. I usually shake my head at a lot of what they’re doing, but at least they’ve been giving me good main events.

Fred: Let’s hope we get more than 10 seconds of AJ Styles match highlights, especially since they’ve been flying him around the world.

Lance Storm: The thing I don’t understand is that the Friends of AJ are paying for and airing these segments. Why? AJ doesn’t want to be there. If he wanted to be in TNA, he could be. He left. So I don’t understand how airing clips of his matches helps AJ, or why his friends are paying for it.

Fred: If TNA needs the money, they’re not going to say no. Who did you have winning the UFC 167 main event, Hendricks or GSP?

Lance Storm: Going into the finish, I thought Hendricks won, but I even tweeted before the decision came out that there was a good chance GSP could win, because it came down to Round 1. I don’t think there was anything controversial whatsoever about the decision if you understand the 10-point must system. All three judges, and I believe everybody on press row, thought Hendricks won Rounds 2 and 4 and GSP won Rounds 3 and 5, so it came down to the first round. If you look at the FightMetric stats, Hendricks landed one more punch, GSP landed one more significant strike, and they both had a takedown. That round was close enough to go either way, and there have certainly been more lopsided rounds judged the other way. I wasn’t surprised in the least, but watching the fight, I thought Hendricks did win.

Fred: Judging by your Twitter feed, you weren’t a fan of Dana White’s postfight reaction, either.

Lance Storm: I’m not a fan of a lot of Dana White’s knee-jerk reactions. He should understand the scoring and have realized that was a possibility, so he shouldn’t have been hot when it happened. This comes back to the absurdity of TNA running an angle where Dixie doesn’t know what she’s doing, or WWE running an angle where Stephanie and Hunter are tyrants and WWE is a horrible place to work. Dana White doing a promo about how Nevada is ruining the sport of MMA, well, if the sport’s ruined, why am I following it? There are a lot of upcoming UFC events in Vegas. Should I avoid buying those because the judging is going to be so bad? If it’s going to be a garbage show with bogus results, I should just stop paying. It doesn’t seem like smart promotion to me. If you want to say they’re damaging the sport and you want to protect your industry, great, but saying it’s being ruined implies it’s terrible.

Fred: We took some fan questions the last couple of days, and one I’ve been getting a lot is about one of your star pupils, Dolph Ziggler. He had a ton of momentum in WrestleMania season. He lost at WrestleMania, but the next night he came off like a huge star when he cashed in on Del Rio, and I thought the double turn with Del Rio at Payback was well done, maybe a little too soon. Ever since, he’s been close to irrelevant. Curtis Axel, Big E Langston and all the women are on this pay-per-view, but not Dolph Ziggler. What do you attribute his downfall to?

Lance Storm: I don’t really know. My guess is he did something the office didn’t like. The industry has done that a lot, and I always disagree with it, because to me, business always comes first. If you want to punish somebody, find a way that doesn’t punish the product or the fans. Cut his pay or fine him, but don’t take his push away to teach him a lesson, if that’s in fact what they’re doing. He had momentum, and when you’re looking for better shows, the guy delivers good matches. He’s a fantastic performer. If you follow him on Twitter, he says things that I read and think, “That’s going to get you heat.” He’s outspoken, and that may be the reason. A lot of WWE guys on Twitter are toeing the company line, and then there are the guys who voice their opinions, and that might come back to get you.

Fred: Someone asks for your thoughts on Randy Orton.

Lance Storm: I’m a big fan of Randy Orton. I know a lot of critics think he’s boring, but I think he’s a fantastic wrestler and performer. My schedule’s busy on weekends, I’ve got kids and I seldom watch SmackDown, so I missed a lot of the long stretch where he was the guy on SmackDown and his program with Christian. Randy’s a lot fresher to me than he is to others, and I really like in-ring performance. But being a second-fiddle heel to the Authority hurts him a bit.

Fred: He’s almost become a coward. As a babyface, he’s a badass nobody can stop, and as soon as he turns heel, he’s hiding behind the Shield and running away from Big Show.

Lance Storm: If he’s a badass who doesn’t back down, fans will keep cheering him, so you have to find that fine line. Jim Cornette said it once: “We don’t cheat because we have to. We do because it’s easier.” You find the line where you’re not running away because you’re scared. You’re just looking for the easiest way to accomplish what you want, so you’re not just the chicken heel. If he stands up to everybody and is still champ at the end of the pay-per-view, it’s going to be pretty hard to keep any heat in today’s day and age.

Fred: I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Jim Cornette, and you worked with him. I’ve also interviewed your good friend Les Thatcher. Those guys have a wealth of wrestling knowledge and, like you, know what they’re talking about. Is it a crime that a major wrestling organization isn’t employing them right now?

Lance Storm: I think so, but at the moment, the major companies aren’t trying to book a wrestling show. They’re doing sports entertainment, and they want writers, and that’s not where the strengths of Jim Cornette, Jim Ross, Les Thatcher and people like them lie. I hope it comes back around to more of a pro wrestling feel, because a lot of fans would like that. When they do traditional pro wrestling segments with a little real heat and a real feel, those seem to be the segments and pay-per-views that do better, like when Brock Lesnar comes back as more of a physical threat instead of comedy or shenanigans. The wrestling business tends to bob and weave, so if they decide Hollywood writers are running their course, a guy like Jim Cornette or Jim Ross would certainly be a wealth of knowledge.

Fred: You’ve worked with and trained a lot of guys and gals in NXT. Is there anyone, student or not, who stands out as ready for the main roster now or in a month or two?

Lance Storm: At this point, I hope nobody gets called up in the next month or two, because you’re getting into the Road to WrestleMania swing, and they’d get lost in the shuffle. But I’m a big fan of Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn. I’m still adjusting to the Tyler Breeze name. They need to figure out what they’re doing with him, and he needs to get more comfortable in that role, but as a performer, I think he could be quite good. They also have a ton of great women down there. Not just Paige, who everybody knows about, but a real glut of girls who I think are equal to most and head and shoulders above many of the Divas on the current roster. If they gave the girls more to do than “Total Divas” and musical chairs, a lot of the girls in NXT could really open people’s eyes.

Fred: Tyler Breeze hasn’t had the freedom to find himself yet, but he has a following. I’ve spotted Tyler Breeze signs at SmackDown.

Lance Storm: I was listening to Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer talk about Tyler Breeze, and there are a lot of similarities between him and Dolph Ziggler as good athletes who can really move and deliver. I think Dave said he’s nowhere near Dolph Ziggler yet, and I said, “No, but he’s ahead of where Nicky of the Spirit Squad was when he first got called up.” If you called up Tyler Breeze today, he wouldn’t be on par with Dolph Ziggler now, but he’s certainly on par with where Dolph was when he first got brought up, or when he was the guy backstage introducing himself a thousand times. You’ve got to give these guys a chance. I wish they’d do more with Kofi Kingston on the main roster, too. I’ve been a big fan of Kofi’s for a while.

Fred: SmackDown is usually second banana to Raw anyway. No disrespect to Del Rio, but we’ve seen Del Rio and Cena a thousand times. Why not put a guy like Kofi Kingston or Damien Sandow in the title picture?

Lance Storm: I’d certainly be all for it. When Damien cashed in the briefcase and had that really long match with Cena, it felt much fresher and was really good, and even in his loss, I thought it stepped up his credibility. Perhaps they could elevate Sandow a bit more.

Fred: How much did you cringe during the musical chairs segment on Raw?

Lance Storm: Thankfully, it was really short, so I didn’t have time to cringe too much. I found it amusing. When it started, Natalya looked like she wasn’t even going to try. The music stopped, there were no chairs, and she was like, “All right, I’m out,” and didn’t seem too upset about it. There was no reason to do it and no outcome from it. It was like, “We need to come up with something to have 12 girls stand here.” Can’t you do better than that?

Fred: I read in Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that one of your students, Sylvester Lefort, one of my personal favorites, recently suffered another knee injury. Do you have any update?

Lance Storm: I’ve texted and Facebooked with him a couple of times this week, and he hasn’t mentioned anything, so that’s news to me. I’d personally like to see him in the ring more, too. I think the reason we haven’t is that he had the original knee injury and was out for a year. I think his ACL was completely torn and had to be replaced, so to do something with him even though he wasn’t cleared, they made him a manager. They like him in that role, because he has that wacky wardrobe and a personality, so I think he’s been pigeonholed as a manager. You’ll notice that with people on the main roster, too. When it comes time to write the show, it’s, “Oh, we can just have him do that thing again.” Look at 3MB, with a wacky gimmick for whatever city they’re in. If you do a backstage interview someone thought was funny, you’ll do backstage interviews all the time. He could end up spending the next two or three years as a manager.

Fred: As long as he’s on my TV, entertaining and talking about money and going to Sizzler, I’m happy. Lance, when did you start the Storm Wrestling Academy, and when did you realize you could make a living as a wrestling trainer?

Lance Storm: I officially started the academy in September 2005. I was trained by the Harts in 1990, and as absurd as it was for somebody as green as me, I actually taught the two classes following mine in ’91 and ’92, so I started training people quite early. When I got off the main roster in 2004, WWE asked me to teach in the developmental program, and I did that for a year and a half. They wanted me to move permanently to Louisville or Atlanta at the time, and I didn’t want to move my family, so I decided to look into running my own school, hoping I’d be able to make a living. Thankfully, as soon as I launched the website and started promoting the academy, I got a lot of good response, and classes have been nearly full or overfull pretty much all the time. I’ve been doing it for eight years, and I’ve got almost all of 2014 booked. Right now, I’ve got Emma, Sylvester Lefort and Tyler Breeze on NXT television, Taya Valkyrie working full time in Mexico for AAA and another female student who’s been in Japan for the last year, so hopefully more students will get signed by WWE as we move forward. I enjoy being home, and I enjoy teaching.

Fred: You’ve wrestled quite a bit this year. Is this the most you’ve wrestled since you retired from full-time competition?

Lance Storm: It is, the busiest I’ve been since 2004. Just today, I got news of my last booking of the year. On Dec. 21, I’ll be in Hanover, Germany, for Danny Collins’ retirement match. He was an old rival of mine from my CWA days in 1995. With Dec. 15 in Mississauga against Chris Hero and Dec. 21 against Danny Collins, I think that’ll be match No. 8 or 9 this year, and I think the most I’d done in a year since retiring full time was four or five. It wasn’t really a conscious plan. Jerry Lynn was doing his retirement tour and asked me to do one more, and I couldn’t say no. I did the two Tommy Dreamer shows, because it’s hard to say no to Tommy, I love him, and they involved Terry Funk, who I have the utmost respect and admiration for. Then Chris Hero, Kassius Ohno, got released, and the opportunity came to work with him, so I thought that would be fun. And Danny Collins specifically asked me to do his retirement match.

Fred: How’s your body holding up?

Lance Storm: Really good. There are days with aches and pains, but on the whole, my body’s been feeling great. The lower back issue that led to me getting off the road the first time has been good for a while. Usually, when I do one or two matches a year, I’m feeling it the next day, but this year, I haven’t had any problems after each match, which is why I’ve been more receptive when the phone rings. But I’m not looking to do this on a regular basis. If a bunch of promoters are hoping to book lots of 2014 matches with me, I’m still going to be extremely picky.

Fred: Our mutual friend Paul Lazenby, a former pro wrestler and MMA fighter and a current actor and Hollywood stuntman, asks: “How come he never talks about the time I totally pinned him in Winkler, Manitoba?”

Lance Storm: To be honest, I have no recollection of this, but I certainly don’t dispute that it perhaps happened. I believe it was me working under a hood in a gimmick match. I don’t think Lance Storm ever wrestled Paul Lazenby. I know I wrestled him in Calgary under a hood, in a bodysuit and mask, for one show where they needed a heel, and perhaps I did wrestle him in Winkler for Tony Condello, but it would have been me under a mask for some other reason. So I believe he’s still yet to pin Lance Storm, which is the important part. I actually trained Paul in ’91 or ’92. He went through one of the camps after me in Calgary, so he’s putting out false information there.

Fred: He’s also asking you to plug his book, “When We Were Bouncers,” which you were featured in.

Lance Storm: A lot of pro wrestlers back in the day did bouncer work part time while they were breaking in. Jericho and I bounced at a bar here in Calgary when we first broke in. I was probably bouncing when I first met Paul, and he’s obviously logged some time working the door, too. When he wanted to do the celebrity bouncer stories, he contacted me, and I shared a couple of the more amusing stories from my days working the bar.

Fred: Terry asks: “Did you invent the Maple Leaf submission, the half Boston crab?”

Lance Storm: No. Pretty much every hold was invented before I ever came along, although since Chris Jericho claims to have invented everything, I’ll credit it to him. If nothing else, he was using the full Boston crab before I started adapting the half, although I like to joke that I accomplish with half what he takes the full for, so in some ways my hold must be twice as good.

Fred: Since you mentor a lot of young and aspiring wrestlers, what’s the best piece of advice you’d give any aspiring wrestler watching right now?

Lance Storm: Don’t try to copy what you see on TV. Find yourself and be yourself. It’s the old advice, and Austin talks about it on his podcast a lot: Think shoot, but do work. Don’t try to imitate spots you see in pro wrestling or sports entertainment on TV. Go out there and really try to make people believe what you’re doing is real. I know fans know it’s not, but it’s the same advice as with actors. I’ve heard it a million times, interviewers telling Robert De Niro, “It’s amazing. You don’t even look like you’re acting.” He’s not supposed to look like he’s acting. If you’re trying to act, you’re going to look like a bad actor. If you just try to be the character and feel the character’s emotions, that’s when it looks its best. If a guy in a movie looks like he’s acting, it’s a crappy movie, and if a wrestling match looks like the guy’s trying to do sports entertainment, it’s not going to be a good match.

Fred: Well said, sir. Fans can find more information about you and SWA at StormWrestling.com and follow you on Twitter. Anything I missed?

Lance Storm: That should do it. If you can’t find it on my Twitter or at StormWrestling.com, there’s probably not much else to find.