One of Canada’s best wrestling schools won’t be running in 2020 or beyond, and this news was delivered rather abruptly earlier this year. This is the Storm Wrestling Academy, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada run by WWE alumni Lance Storm. No one really knew why this move was made, until now. The 50 year old Canadian wrestler is returning to WWE to work in a backstage role, helping put together matches for TV, a role many wrestlers from his era have settled down into, including Dean Malenko, Fit Finlay & D’von Dudley.
His Schools Legacy
The Storm Wrestling Academy might not carry as much weight as The Hart Dungeon, but the talent he trained there are some of the most technically sound in the wrestling industry today. His students you’ll find in WWE and NXT include Tyler Breeze, Peyton Royce, Oney Lorcan, Chelsea Green, & Rachael Ellering. He is also responsible for training Tenille Dashwood (fka Emma), current Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion Taya Valkrie, and WWE crusierweight classic competitor Clement Petiot. These are just the cream of the crop, his list includes many more talents.
Impact Connections
With Impacts move to Canada in 2018, Storm did some work for them as a backstage producer and on-screen special guest referee for the World Championship match involving Johnny Impact and Brian Cage at the Rebellion PPV in 2019. It was thought when his school was slowing down, it was because he was going to join Impact full time to become a trainer for their talent. With him signing on with WWE, that seems unlikely, as they likely won’t want him helping out a competeting brand.
Lance Storm as a Talent
Now if I can be serious for a moment, Lance Storm is among my favorite wrestlers from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. His technical skill and deadpan humor always drew me to him, and his resume is fairly impressive for someone who spent a long time in the undercard. He is a one time Intercontinental Champion, four time WWE tag team champion, one time WCW Hardcore Champion and Cruiserweight Champion, as well as a three time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion, which he dubbed the Canadian Championship when he held it. He was the type of solid hand who could give anyone a good showing due to his sheer reliability. You might find some boring matches of his, but never a bad one.
He became semi-retired in 2005, following a match with longtime friend Chris Jericho at ECW One Night Stand, but came out of retirement a few times, notably in 2006 when he faced Bryan Danielson for the Ring of Honor World Championship.
What Storm As A Producer Could Mean For WWE
Given his near 30 years in the wrestling industry and knack for helping young talent, having someone like Lance Storm working behind the scenes to help put together matches will be a huge help. His specialty was always very tight technically sound matches, which is a style that the women’s division can do very well, which is also a division with a lot of young up and coming talent. Storm could be perfect for improving some of their matches.
Regardless of what impact this will have for WWE, it’s nice seeing someone like Storm get a steady job behind the scenes with WWE. Maybe this will get him down to the WWE Performance Center more often, and we’ll see an upswing of Single Legged Calgary Crabs being applied in various matches. The Storm Wrestling Academy will be running until November 29th, 2019. It’s likely he will begin his WWE job following that.
Source: https://twitter.com/LanceStorm/status/1190668671292563456
