During a recent appearance on the Marking Out with MVP & Dwayne Swayze podcast, AEW star “Timeless” Toni Storm opened up about her time in WWE, specifically addressing the level of creative freedom she experienced while working there.
Storm revealed that, contrary to the perception that WWE superstars are often heavily scripted and micromanaged, she actually felt the opposite.
In her case, she believed she wasn’t given enough creative direction, leaving her feeling “very lost” at times. “Well here’s the thing, this is where I get stuck on it. If the WWE—I don’t think I was told what to do enough. I wasn’t told to do anything actually,” Storm said. “I mean, obviously you were told what to do under certain circumstance. But overall like, I don’t feel like I was told what to do enough. I was very lost.”
She explained that while there was guidance regarding television presentation and working with cameras, she did not feel the same when it came to character development. “As in regards to a character? No, I was never like, I mean they write promos but like I was—I just did it. Wasn’t really told ‘do this, today you’re a cat and your name’s Tori bloody Smith.’ No one told me anything and I kept my name the whole time and it was like I had complete creative freedom, to be honest. Some were [given things], others weren’t. It’s so much so a very difficult thing to grasp.”
Looking back, Storm said she would have embraced whatever character direction WWE might have handed her, no matter how unconventional. “I would have done anything to be honest. That’s the weird thing about this—if they had just given me some mad off-the-wall thing, I would have 100% gone with it. This is like therapy!”
Since leaving WWE in late 2021, Storm has reinvented herself in AEW, where her “Timeless” character has become one of the most unique acts in the women’s division.
