James Storm

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[TRMD]

He was 1/4th of the best TNA match I've ever seen (Americas Most Wanted vs Triple X at Turning Point 2004) if that means anything.

[Dylan Waco]

Storm is interesting to me because he's the only guy who's entire career (basically) has taken place in TNA who I consider worthy of thinking about for this project. While you could argue other guys in the promotion had better individual years (Joe in 06, Aries in 2012 I think), and more absolute top level singles bouts (Styles, Joe, maybe Aries), I think over the course of TNA's history Storm has been the both the best guy in the promotion and the most consistent. Yeah he kind of sucks now, but that's largely due to the gimmick they've given him, and this is the first time I can really remember thinking he looked poor in the ring. AMW was a great team in a shit promotion, with matches that stood out then and still hold up now. Beer Money is more fondly remembered, and while not as good, they were the best thing about TNA when they were around and Storm was the better guy in the team. As a singles he's been in some really good stuff, particularly the Harris Texas Death Match which some people think is the best TNA match of all time. Ultimately I doubt he makes my list, but he's had a sneaky good career despite the handicap of being in TNA

[GOTNW]

Storm is a good worker but he doesn't really have the resume to make my top 100 and I'm not sure he'd have one even if he worked somewhere else. I'll give him mad props for getting multiple good matches out of Gunner and convincing people Roode is/was good but I've never seen him deliver a performance that made me think he is a latent great worker.

[SomethingSavage]

Great bleeder. Super fun brawler, especially in the right setting with the right story to tell. Loved the feud with Roode up until the Lockdown cage match finish. Storm has had entertaining car-crash style garbage matches with Gunner as recently as last spring & summer. He's shown a knack for playing up big & loud for the audience when he has to, which is something that you don't get very often with TNA.

 

The rematches with Angle, after his short-lived title deal, aren't something to sleep on either. I think they managed to spin off the first fluke finish and come back to tell some decent stories about cementing Storm as a main event player.

 

I don't know that he's got the body of work to justify him making a list like this one - in fact, I think it's a real stretch when you start narrowing the edges and eliminating names, but I absolutely find Storm to be one of the more underrated modern performers overall.

[Jimmy Redman]

To me sort of has a similar case to John Morrison, in that his biggest strengths are being in two of the best tag teams of the 00s, and in working for a company that gives him the opportunity to have good matches every week on TV.

 

AMW were great, as were Beer Money, and he has that all-time Chris Harris match. I also really like the cage match with Roode, but the finish and general TNA fuckery around that time leave a bad taste in my mouth. Outside of that I don't see that there's enough meat there to merit his inclusion, not even above someone like John Morrison, who to me has just as good a tag career, but much stronger singles performances.