James Storm is a TNA Original through and through. After over nine years with the company, “Cowboy” received a shot at the TNA World Heavyweight title in October 2011.
Champion Kurt Angle had just defeated Storm’s partner at the time, Robert Roode. Storm was able to pick up the victory and would go on to hold the belt…for a little over a week after Roode used a Storm’s beer bottle to score the win.
The World Title Escapes James Storm Forever
Instead of building towards a rematch for the following month, Storm is attacked by someone backstage who is later revealed to Kurt Angle. He is unable to deliver the fight in the immediate rematch.
What followed is one of the most jumbled, convoluted series of events. It’s exhausting to explain but in short, he was entered into a program with Kurt Angle which eventually became a program that involved two number one contender’s matches and two failed attempts at the title.
The beauty of this was that James Storm actually won the first contender’s match against Angle. He was to face Roode for the belt—until it was decided to have a second one because of…reasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24JbP_4KnDk
This unnecessary second match versus Jeff Hardy ended in a DQ after Bully Ray came in. Eventually, the title match was made into a four-way involved Hardy and Bully Ray which Roode won.
After that, Storm received another shot against Roode at TNA Lockdown 2012. He was unsuccessful in this attempt, thus ending Jimmy’s Bizarre Adventure which started in June with the Bound for Glory Series and ended in April of the following year.
Why Didn’t He Receive Another Reign?
Obviously, Storm’s reign was a means to get the belt onto Roode however, Storm was always pretty damn over in TNA as a tag competitor and in singles action.
The fans dug his beer-drinking, drivable cooler Southern simplicity. It was Stone Cold minus the theatrics and over-the-top assault on authority.
Storm doesn’t seem to dwell on only holding the belt for eight days since he got paid all the same. However, there were opportunities to give him a second, more substantial reign worthy of the years he’d given the company.
I don’t where he would’ve fit in during the post-A.J Styles age of Impact Wrestling but prior to Styles’ release, he had the room for another and probably could’ve been positioned as a major player after the Phenomenal One left.
We’ll just have to chalk this up to management at the time being lousy with its OGs.
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