James Storm holds an honor that may be unmatched in all of pro wrestling – he has the greatest number of Tag Team Title reigns in two separate promotions. His eight NWA Tag Title reigns is the most ever, as is his seven TNA/Impact Tag Title reigns.
Most of those NWA reigns came as one half of America’s Most Wanted alongside Chris Harris, while most of his Impact reigns came teaming with Bobby Roode as a part of Beer Money. As a member of two historic tag teams, Storm was asked which could have drawn better when he joined Busted Open.
“I always tell people because they always ask me which one was better, and there’s no answer to that because those were two different times. There was a time with AMW where me and Chris had to rely on each other. So, we had each other and we tried to make it as a team because we were basically unknown,” stated Storm. “So, we had to make that team work, whereas me and Bobby, we’re basically already known in TNA. So, we thought we were just going to be thrown together for a couple months, which is what Dutch [Mantel] told us anyways. ‘Here, you guys are going in together. Make it work’, and then we blew it up.
“But to me, I think that Beer Money could be the bigger of the two on a worldwide level just because no matter where I go, people are still like, ‘Beer! Money!’ Just something that we thought was so silly and stupid just got over ridiculous. Just like the Beer Money Suplex, Bobby would always say, ‘We got to come up with something so stupid that when we get ready to do it, people would boo us.’ And it just became so comical that it just got over, and people hated taking that double suplex. It was just a double suplex, but how we had them hooked and we sit there for a good while and– ‘Just suplex me already!'”
Beer Money were last together in the ring in 2016 and shortly thereafter Roode moved onto WWE. If they were to team together anytime soon, it would have to be in WWE, as the company has a stranglehold on its talents working indie promotions. Storm was asked about the chances of teaming with Roode again and how he would approach it if he joined WWE.
“Yeah, but it’s one of the things too. I would say if he’s got something good going on, great. I don’t want to go in there and just be like, ‘Hey, we should be a tag team now,'” said Storm. “If I went in there knowing I was going to go by myself, I’d want to go in there and make a name for myself first until– because people already know Beer Money if we got together. So, I would like to go in there and put my footprints in the sand before I start doing any kind of Beer Money stuff.”
Storm was recently spotted in a wrestling ring with, of all people, Ronda Rousey. She and her husband invited Storm “to do a little wrestling around” according to Storm, and he posted a picture afterwards of the three of them. He talked about what led to them all training together and what he thinks of Rousey in the ring.
“I mean, it was just a one-day deal. It wasn’t like I’m going out there forever, but I had to go for David Marquez’s Primetime Live pay-per-views, and one of my buddies has a training school and I guess Ronda and Travis [Browne] have been going there. And he mentioned to Ronda that I was in town and she was like, ‘Man, please tell him to come by and see if it will work out.’ I was like, ‘Yeah!’ So, I went to this undisclosed location, just got in the ring, and worked out with her. I’ve always been kind of the guy, I guess because I’m old school, with the intergender wrestling, I’m like, ‘Can a woman really whip my behind?’ I’ll tell you what. She was standing there across the corner from me, and yeah, I don’t think I want to be in a cage with her,” admitted Storm.
“She was showing me some of her Judo throws, and I was just like, ‘Jesus!’ It’s all in the hips. But when I was talking to her and I was trying to explain to her… Mr. Perfect would always tell me, ‘The most important move in a match is the move in between moves.’ And it took me forever to realize what that was, and it was basically ‘put somebody down’. That brief reaction from the crowd that you can stop and you can control them just by looking at them? And I tell her, especially in WWE, they’re all about facials. They got cameras everywhere just to get your facial, and I’m like, ‘Watch Jeff Hardy.’ Jeff Hardy, you hit him with a semi-truck, he’s up on the second rope with his face right in the camera because he knows this is his money maker. And that’s what I was going through. And we got in the ring and I was showing her some different stuff and everything.
“So, it was a lot of fun. Like I said, Bully, you see it where people come in on the sport and they treat professional wrestling like it’s a joke, and she was just soaking up everything. She would ask questions, ‘Why is this part of this?’ and I would explain to her and ‘Oh, now I get it.’ And I just said I never met someone from a different sport that came in pro wrestling, besides Kurt Angle, that was so appreciative of what we do.
Rousey has teased jumping back into the squared circle since she took her hiatus to start a family. Paul Heyman has also hinted that she may have already signed a new contract with WWE, so Storm was asked if he wants Rousey to go back to pro wrestling.
“I would definitely say so, just because she was a huge reason for the crossovers and the mainstream media for them. And it would just be another good shot in the arm for WWE to have someone like that back that can cross over into the mainstream,” said Storm.
