The following interview comes from WrestlingEpicenter.com:
Chuck D opens up the show and welcomes Lance Storm. Lance say’s he’s doing fine and that he’s sitting at home in Calgary. James then jokingly poses the question “That’s Calgary, Alberta Canada right?”
-The interview starts off with talk about Lance’s new wrestling school “Storm Wrestling Academy” will be opened September 12th in Calgary. He said it’s been in the back of his mind for a while as he enjoys teaching youngsters how to wrestle, which is something he did working with The Hart family and while he was in OVW. He says he talked with his wife about getting off the road completely and starting his own school and she said it would be a good idea. He’s excited about opening this school up.
-He says that the training with The Harts was really tough, especially when learning how to take bumps. The Hart method of training was based on the Japanese method, and he says it paid off. When asked if he’s going to be tough on his students he says “You have to be tough on them”
-Next question is “How do you get your superkick to look so damn good?” Lance’s answer is simple: “Lots of practice I guess” He also says he got a phone call from somebody who took both his superkick and Shawn Michaels’ and he said that “Yours looks equally as good and is a hell of a lot lighter” Lance then brings up that Jerry Lynn said that Lance couldn’t break an egg with his superkick. He then says the only problem he seems to have is that he doesn’t seem to be able to make the kick as soft on the floor outside the ring. Inside the ring it’s perfect, but for some reason his timing is off when he’s on the floor.
-Lance is then asked about his website and specifically the Internet Wrestling Community. He says that “It is important to embrace all your fans” He says that the fans need to be treated with respect. He also says that some internet fans are heavily critical and feel they know more about the business than those in the business do, but he says that’s there opinion and that’s cool. Lance then says without the fans “those buildings get pretty empty”
- Getting back to the internet fans, Chuck brings up that he and James had a discussion with Francine about this and said that she has a tough time dealing with the Internet fans being so negative. Lance then tells a funny joke about the negativity saying “I have a big enough ego to know better” He’s just learned to block them out, and it’s much more beneficial to focus on the positive ones.
-James then brings up Lance’s Smokey Mountain days and asks him what it was like working for James E. Cornette. Lance says it was fun and that Cornette is entertaining. It was also his first bit of decent TV exposure, so it was good for his career.
-He does that Smokey Mountain was hard because he was used to working a fast paced style and he had to slow down a bit. Chuck then asks him if the major difference between Japan and American styles is the pacing. Lance says the major difference is that Wrestling is like a real sport over in Japan, but in the states it has a lot of entertainment and is thus disregarded by many.
-He is then asked about The Late Great Chris Candido. He says that they were great friends and everything they did just worked because they knew how to take care of each other and had a lot of fun. He also says their ECW feud was great because it was the first time that he got to showcase his personality.
-He says that workers today worry too much about trying to get their stuff in rather than trying to put on a good match. He says the reason for this is because there aren’t as many places to work and there isn’t a whole lot of room for second chances. He says that the way things are today if you don’t get over in a few weeks, your push is over. He says that everything needs time to develop.
-Chuck then asks Lance why it takes technical wrestlers longer to get over as opposed to entertainers. Lance says that “pushing them would do it” and guys like Eddie and Benoit spend too much time putting over the next big thing to really get over. He says that creative teams need to realize that “If you don’t win, you are not going to get over” James then gives Christian as an example. Lance says that Christian is extremely talented, but if they had actually let him beat people, he’d be huge now.
-James brings up “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan’s comments from the interview TII did with him a few months ago. In that interview he said that Lance couldn’t step up on the mike. Lance defends himself by saying that when he was in Team Canada with Duggan, he never had anything important to talk about and wasn’t given the chance to cut a good promo. He then asks the question “Does anyone remember Jim Duggan cutting a good promo?” He then says that Hacksaw was being distracting during those promos and that he didn’t understand his new character. Chuck then says that serious characters like Lance and Benoit could cut story telling promos and it would be fine. Lance takes it a step further and says that there are some guys who don’t even need to cut promos, using RVD as an example.
-When asked about The Impact Players, he says that he and Justin Credible blended real well and complemented each other as well. He says he enjoys tag team matches, and thinks it’s unfortunate that tag team wrestling has gone on the wayside. He says that there needs to be real tag teams rather than taking two main eventers like Benoit and Booker and just throwing them together. He says that back in the old days, squash matches on TV really helped in getting tag teams, singles stars, and angles over. He then says it might be too late to fix it because they have had so many big matches on Raw that the expectations are too high in having steel cage matches and such for free.
-When asked about the current shoot promos in the WWE, he says that it depends on the situation. He said the stuff he did with Candido was fine, but when you start telling people that certain storylines are fake, then it hurts the product. (The recent Lita/Edge/Kane/Matt situation for example)
-The interview then goes to Matt Hardy, and Lance feels it would have been better if he was brought back sooner, but acknowledges that it wasn’t possible either.
-Lance says that he knew that ECW was in trouble when there were so many problems with paychecks. He said he had to worry about his family, and that he had to leave for them. He doesn’t regret leaving, but he says he enjoyed his time in ECW and feels he didn’t hurt them.
-He really enjoyed The Team Canada angle, and says it was the best push he ever received. He then puts over his World title match with Booker T which took place after he had won three titles in a row. He says that even though he never won a World title, there was a five second moment in that match where he had Booker in The Half Crab that the people thought he was going to be the champion.
-Getting back to his mike work, he says that the crowd wanted to kill him after all his promos, and that was the desired reaction.
-He then says that the ridiculous match he had with Mike Awesome was Disco Inferno’s idea. He said that the bookers were in the mindset of booking for the sake of comedy. He also feels that they should have made a bigger deal out of the fact that Bret Hart gave him the nod that night. He also felt it was stupid to have the ending protect Mike Awesome when Awesome’s gimmick was changed into a comedy character in just two weeks.
-When asked about Bret going back to WWE, Lance says that he does not see Bret wrestling anymore. He would like to see him show up at the Hall of Fame and have him come out and cut promos thanking the fans. He says the only problem is that Bret might be worried about hurting his reputation if he came back after the Survivor Series 1997 incident. However, Lance says that Bret and his fans deserve to have Bret come out one last time and get a standing ovation.
-When asked about the death of WCW, Lance says that he was shocked when WCW was sold to WWE. He says that Bischoff came out a few weeks before hand and said that he was going to be the new owner. Unfortunately, the AOL/Time Warner executives decided to pull the plug on the TV slots, making WCW pointless for Bischoff to purchase. He says that everyone knew that business was down, but it was still a huge shock when it was sold, and everyone assumed WCW would be around forever.
-When asked about Bill DeMott and whether or not he held WCW together, he says that he was a great guy, but things were so chaotic that he couldn’t have been able to hold it together. He says that everyone got along with everyone and he was good for morale.
-When asked about the WCW Invasion angle, he says that Vince had to play the cards he was dealt. None of the big stars like Goldberg, Hogan, and Bischoff were available, so it was not possible to get the big Invasion that people wanted. However, it became a case of the WWE not wanting their top guys to job to midcard/lowcard WCW guys. He says it’s a shame they couldn’t get Flair, nWo, Steiner, or Goldberg together all at once.
-Lance Storm is then asked about Scott Steiner being misused in WWE. He says that in WCW “he was pretty much allowed to do whatever he wanted because people were afraid of him” But in WWE there is a greater restraint on what can and can’t be said. He also says it was a mistake to put Steiner in a World Title feud with Triple H so soon upon his arrival.
-Lance doesn’t feel The Un-Americans was in poor taste because it had no real ties to Terrorism. He says it was more of an imitation of what Bret Hart did in 1997. He also feels that Muhammed Hassan got pulled for the timing of The London Attacks. He says that if there was another terror attack during The Un-American angle, it would have gotten pulled immediately. Chuck then says that Hassna is a talented worker to which Lance Storm disagrees. He then says that feels Daivari is twice the worker that Hassan is.
-The interview then talks about some of his sillier stints in WWE such as the dancing and tagging with Val Venis. He says that there was no plan to do anything with these gimmicks, and they were just worthless. These angles never led to any matches or anything, so there was no point to it. When asked how he would book himself, Lance says that he doesn’t really need a gimmick. All he needs to do is wrestle and have a serious program to work with.
-Lance is then asked about the ECW: One Night Stand PPV. Lances says that WWE did a great job of letting ECW do their thing. He says that the Invasion wasn’t necessary, but they saved that for the end so there was no problem. He says the crowd helped make that show, just like they always did in ECW. He then ties in what he said about respect for the fans back to what respect ECW showed to the fans. He then brings up a story of where all the wrestlers stood in the ring after a show while the crowd chanted “Thank You!”
-When asked about the JBL/Blue Meanie situation, he says that he actually didn’t see it happen. He said he was disappointed in JBL, but then he heard that Meanie had provoked JBL beforehand and just says it was a mistake to even put them together. Lance Storm says he would never do what Bob Holly does because it is “Professional” Wrestling and professionalism is needed.
- One last question to end the interview: “What does the future hold for Lance Storm?” Lance stays that he is going to spend a lot more time with his family, and says that he hopes his school will be successful
You can download this interview right now at www.WrestlingEpicenter.com. This show also features 2 hours with "The Queen of Extreme" Francine as she sits in for the absent James Walsh.
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