Tim Storm recently spoke with Andrew Thompson of POST Wrestling for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Storm revealed he isn’t sure if he’ll be more active in the ring for NWA post-75th Anniversary:
“To answer your question (about whether I’ll be more active in the ring for NWA post-75th Anniversary), I don’t know. I’ve said this before and I wanna make sure I say it carefully because I don’t want anybody — here’s how it’s been… It was when Jim (Cornette) left, and then Wade Barrett came in and then Wade left. Because of the pandemic, we just basically shut down and then he’s gonna come out the other side with WWE. They (NWA) came to me and they said, ‘Okay, bring a suit. We want you to do a couple of matches on the pay-per-view on the announce table.’ Okay. You know, whatever. I’m good. I didn’t have a match on the pay-per-view. That’s good. Joe Galli comes up to me and I’m getting dressed and he goes, ‘So I hear you’re here to do commentary’ and I went, ‘Yeah, a couple of matches. I don’t know which matches yet. But they haven’t told me which matches’ and he goes, ‘No, you’re doing commentary’ and I went, ‘I know! I just don’t know which matches’ and he goes, ‘No, you don’t understand. You and I are doing commentary, for the whole live pay-per-view’ and I went, ‘Okay’ and later, Pat (Kenney) comes up and he goes, ‘Are you nervous about this at all?’ I went, ‘No. Am I supposed to be nervous? I mean seriously, is this something I should be thinking about?’ And he goes, ‘No, no, you’re fine.’ So here’s what I say… I’m always careful. When they put me on commentary and I’m told, okay, at this point, you’re more valuable on commentary. In my mind, what I’m thinking is, oh, so you’re saying I can’t wrestle for you? Is that what you’re saying? Am I not good enough to wrestle? This is my ego inside. Now on the other side of that is if they say, hey, we got you with a match. Somebody else is doing commentary. Inside, I’m immediately going, oh wait, I’m not good enough to do commentary? … I wanna do well at whatever I’m doing…”
There’s been talks of Storm transitioning to a backstage role, discussions of Talent Relations & he has agented matches, Storm wants to be full-time with NWA:
“Yes, to all of that (if he could see himself transitioning to a backstage role). There’s been lots of discussion off and on because I don’t know, I don’t know how long this has been now. Five or six years? It’s been discussed about Talent Relations. Pat Kenney’s there now. He does a fantastic job. I’ve agented a few matches but now if you say, okay, well look who we have agenting matches, we’re not talking about good wrestlers. We’re talking about wrestling legends. Homicide, Madusa has been there, Jazz, who should be in the Hall of Fame… I work with her for another organization and I agent matches with that one but I learn from her every time. She should be in the Hall of Fame and she may be the baddest — you know her catch line but she was one of the baddest women in wrestling for a long time… When you look at those people… I don’t fit into those categories. Someday, maybe. I’m gonna keep learning. I watch those guys and I saw Homicide handle a situation one day and I walked over and I went, ‘Could you walk me through that?’ And it wasn’t a wrestling thing. It was a how did you handle that diplomatically without — so I’m always learning and so I don’t fit into that category yet. But I’ll keep working at it and maybe at some point but, yeah, I would do anything — you know my shoot job, you know I’m a teacher and my ultimate goal would be to get to a point where I’m not teaching and I’m doing something for the NWA full-time, whatever that may be.
Storm speaks about passing of Joseph Hudson (The Question Mark), shares that Hudson put together commercials that aired on NWA Powerrr:
“It’s interesting, I got a text about a couple months ago from Austin Idol and he said, ‘Who was our original crew of guys?’ And I think what he was asking because he was kind of trying to put it together like, ‘Who was here on this –’ and I think what he was asking was probably more like season one (of NWA Powerrr), I think. But that’s not the way I took it and I called him and I said, ‘Here is our original crew of guys: It was me, as the champion, it was Nick coming after the championship, it was Jocephus, right? It was Joseph’ and then the big surprise when I lost the title was Austin Idol came in as Nick’s manager at the time and I said, ‘And that was our entire crew.’ That was it. We had three wrestlers and then Austin came in as the manager and what a lot of people didn’t realize is the stuff Joseph was doing behind the scenes because he was like a music professor. I don’t know if it was at a junior college or a college. That’s what he did. He was editing, he was producing — one of the things that a lot of people really loved about the first couple of seasons was we really had — intentionally — we really had that throwback, old school, NWA look. The commercials, Joseph was doing a lot of those commercials, right? And putting those together so his talent was outside the ring. He was doing a little bit of everything.
Joseph and I were definitely friends. We had a really interesting chemistry at times where we loved each other but it was more like two brothers who would kind of rib each other all the time… To this day, I miss Joseph. Way too young… He loved that kid (Joseph Hudson’s son) and for him to lose his dad that young. You know, great person, cared so much about his son and to have that taken away and so unexpected for all of us but his family, I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
While Storm was NWA Worlds Champion, he had an offer from a promotion in Japan to drop the Worlds Title, there were other offers made as well:
“Historically speaking, that’s not unheard of (champions being offered to drop their title in another promotion). I think Jerry Brisco did it, Harley (Race) was with him and it was a huge amount of money and I wanna say it might have been the drop to Giant Baba maybe, where they basically dropped in I think what? Three days later, won it back and the NWA, if I’m remembering right, NWA didn’t approve any of that. So historically, that’s been done before and I guess, truthfully for me, there was more than one offer for that. The amounts of money were pretty different but, there was some discussion as I was going to make the trip to Japan and planning some other trips and those kind of things that maybe we do something like that. I think that was actually pitched to — and I don’t remember if this was pre-Billy (Corgan) or Lightning One or post but, to maybe drop the belt over there and then the guy hold it for three months because I think about that, you’re made. Going to Japan as the NWA World Champion is completely different than anywhere else on earth. Their respect and their love of the NWA Champion, it’s almost worship… Kind of the way the situation worked was they did not — that wasn’t a good idea. We’re not gonna drop it. To me, you don’t turn major titles over quickly and short term, I think it loses some of the meaning if you’re just constantly changing champions, it loses the respect of that title. It was a considerable amount of money and I won’t say it was life-changing. It’s not like, okay, I do this and I’m retired. It’s nothing like that. But it was a lot of money. But it never even was a realistic decision. You think about it. Like you said, you kind of go, ‘Hmm, what could I do with that kind of money? You know, I’ve always wanted a Corvette.’ There’s a lot of things that you can look at. But truthfully and people are gonna go — because that’s not wrestling now. It meant too much to me for me to even consider that realistically and then even back here, no names because I will probably run into these people, but there were some other states who thought that it would be great to come up and drop the title to their guy or to them personally and that’s a whole different ball game, that’s a joke. I would not even consider doing that. The other money, got your attention. Yeah, I better leave that alone. There was even some finagling to go, ‘Hey, you know that the plan was for you to probably drop it to me anyway before they bought it so why don’t we do this and he’ll pay the fee.’ ‘No.’ That’s a little shady but, you know, to the point where I did call Billy and say, ‘Hey, did you know anything about this? Was that ever gonna happen?’ He goes, ‘Nope. Not gonna do that. That was way before me. We’re not doing that so’ and truthfully, they put a ton of trust in me. When I found out that the NWA had been purchased, my first thought was, it was a really good run. It doesn’t take anything away from what I’ve accomplished. I never thought I’d be on the list of the greatest wrestlers of all-time in my opinion, of NWA champions. So, I really thought, probably my first match out, whoever they picked, because Billy came from TNA and probably had a list of guys that were in consideration but to leave it on me, let me run a program with Nick so that it meant something, couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Tim Storm reveals Dexter Lumis is the voice behind his portion of NWA Ten Pounds of Gold:
“Okay, I hope I don’t get in trouble for this so, Dex, don’t get mad at me. Do you know who the voice was (for my portion of NWA Ten Pounds of Gold)? Dexter Lumis in WWE.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
