I recently had the distinct pleasure of speaking with NWA superstar Tim Storm in an exclusive interview, where the former world’s champion and I discuss his 2017 title defense against the legendary Jerry “The King” Lawler, the birth of his “Mama Storm’s baby boy” catchphrase, how he was able to connect so much with the NWA fanbase, how passionate Billy Corgan is about the wrestling business, and what his plans are for when he finally decides to retire from in-ring competition. Check out highlights, including the full video interview, below.
On his NWA world championship defense against Jerry “The King” Lawler in 2017:
“I have nothing but good memories. I know that a lot of people don’t have positive things, or some don’t have positive things to say about working with Jerry. I have no negatives. I knew going in that it was going to be a completely old school type match. At the time I had some success primarily as a fan favorite, but you can’t really be a fan favorite against Jerry Lawler. The crowd loves Jerry Lawler. In every match there’s that first two, three, four minutes of kind of figuring out if the other guy knows what their doing. I didn’t have that fear from him at all, but he didn’t know me that well as far as being in the ring. It came to a point pretty quickly where I guess he felt comfortable with me and basically just turned over the reigns and said, “it’s all yours let’s go.” As for the match itself…easy, fun, safe. The crowd ate every second of it up and completely old school, which, that’s my ballpark.”
On the debut of NWA Powerrr and setting the tone with his matchup against Nick Aldis:
“Everything that Billy and Dave did exceeded expectations, always. Just walking into that arena and seeing the old school colors, kind of a new backdrop, it was a good mix of old new. Setting the tone is always important. Main event of a TV show always important. I think we walked into that with at least a comfort with each other having had two-four matches. The unknown was gone. We know what to expect. Let me be honest…I wanna put Nick over on this…Nick should get credit for that because as I continue to get older…I have more and more limitations. At that point Nick knew what I could do and what I couldn’t do. There wasn’t a spot in there like there was in our first match where it was like, “okay I’m not quite sure if I’m good with this but I’m going to try it because it’s a big match.” I go back and I look at that match…I can picture parts of it in my head especially towards the finish. I like watching the fans instead of watching the match. What I live for as a wrestler is connecting with an audience, reaching out, and getting some kind of reaction. Watching the fans in that match…they were on the edge of their seats, they were standing, they were literally living and dying as those finishes started happening, and you can watch the faces and see who was cheering for Nick and who was cheering for me. That’s wrestling. That’s why we do this. Did I know the importance of that first match in kicking off this? I don’t know that I grasped it. I did feel the pressure of, “We need to deliver in this situation.” And we did. Nick gets a lot of credit for that because he knows what I can and cannot do.”
On the birth of the “Mama Storm” catchphrase and his connection with the NWA fanbase:
“Here is kind of the way the story went. I was told you were going to have about 30 seconds before the match to just kind of connect with the fans, talk to the fans, tell them what your expectations are and tell them what you want. With NWA Powerrr…it’s us. Their whole philosophy, Billy told everybody, this is a live audience. That’s what we are built-on. There’s no entrance music. He said, “You sink or you swim.” That’s just it. When you go out…you’ve got 15 feet to the ring, there’s no big entrance, there’s no music. Sink or swim. I knew I only had about a 30-second stand-up promo before the match. I didn’t know what I could get out in 30 seconds, I didn’t know if there was going to be a connection. I don’t think you ever know. As I was walking through the curtain, gorilla position getting ready to go, Billy walks up and goes, “Don’t worry about the time. You do what you do.” And he didn’t know what I could do either. My thing in wrestling in the ring and my thing in talking is, “I’m just gonna be me.” You don’t know if that’s a connection or not. Well that night is “Mama Storm’s baby boy” was born. I literally said it and was just moving on, there’s barely even a pause. I didn’t go out there and say, “hey watch this guys they’re really going to pop for this.” I had no idea. The connection was there. I personally could feel it. When I’m teaching… if I’m in the middle of a story and I’m passionate about it…I know if they’re listening, I know if I’m connecting. It’s the same thing with an audience. You could feel their energy coming. The Mama Storm thing started and I just kind of rolled from there. Nobody was more surprised about the fan reaction than me. You never know until you get there. Honor, humbling, privilege, we are only as good as the fans make us and allows us to be. Thankfully they liked me and they made it better and better every time.”
Jokes about working heel as a school teacher:
“I don’t have a lot of discipline problems. I’ve made the joke a lot that I work heel as a teacher. When you’re truly passionate about something, whatever that is, you know you said you were a theater rat. If you’re in the middle of a soliloquy, or a presentation and the crowd, you can feel it in the room, right? You know if they’re listening or if they’re into it. That’s the way with promos, sometimes it’s that way in school. Sometimes it’s not. I use the Tim Storm heel look in class. We wear masks all the time…it really takes away about half of my intimidation because they can only see my eyes. I can get there attention if I need to.”
How passionate Billy Corgan is about the NWA and the wrestling business:
“Billy is very VERY hands on. He knows the wrestling business. Here is what I respect most. He is passionate about the business. He had that history with IMPACT. A lot of people…if they weren’t passionate about the business…that would have been it. They would have broken it off. “I had a bad experience so I’m not going to do that again.” Just the fact that not only did he continue with that and he went out…and I tell people this…he could have started Billy Corgan Wrestling promotion and called it that. He went after a brand that he knew and he respected because he loves that old-school wrestling. This was his vision. When he said we were going to bring studio wrestling back…I grew up watching Memphis Championship Wrestling. I watched World Class, even the old Mid-South stuff was studio wrestling. There were a lot of people out there that thought, “This is never going to work.” The fact that Billy had the vision, that he had the passion, and the ingenuity to move forward with that, and he made this presentation to some pretty big companies who couldn’t see that vision. For him to do that…step out, and not only do it but make it work. I remember the first episode of Powerrr when it aired you can go in and click the video and see the views, after a week we were getting up to about half-a-million views. For a new start-up thing…who has that vision and knows it gonna work?”
Hopes to stay involved and pass down knowledge after his in-ring career is over:
“You know I’m at a point in my career that I’m not done, I’m not done in the ring. I don’t have a timetable. I don’t know when that is going to happen but I also have always said that I never want to be that guy that stays too long and embarrasses himself or the business. That’s a fine line but here’s where I’m at today in the business and I’m trying to do that in other places…it’s passing on that knowledge. Same thing that people did for me, and one of the ways this business has changed, not necessarily in a positive way, is we don’t have those opportunities to get in a car with veterans and drive six hours and listen and be quiet. That’s how you build your knowledge base. We don’t have that anymore. I got that opportunity with some great guys that I respect. Now what I’ve got left, I want to continue telling good stories in the ring, I want to be involved when it’s time to step away from in-ring. I want to stay involved whether that’s on the production side, the agent side, something. Because whatever knowledge I’ve got that was handed down to me I want to give to somebody else, and I think that’s the right thing to do in the business. I’m passionate about the wrestling. I don’t want it to be gone. I wish I could wrestle forever, I can’t, but when that’s gone I still am passionate enough about it that I want to be involved.”