Jim Cornette, speaking on the latest episode of ‘The Experience,’ shared his thoughts on the evolution of Toni Storm’s character over the past few weeks, through matches, backstage interviews, and ‘Portrait Of A Star’ skits with RJ City.
Sharing that he likes the character, or at least did until a few weeks ago, Cornette shared that being on an already outrageous and silly show like AEW will inevitably result in Storm not reaching the heights she is destined to. He also believes that Storm has gone past the sweet spot into unchartered territory, where her character has gone too far beyond the ordinary in just a few weeks. He said,
“I find Tony Storm entertaining. She’s great, and this gimmick is great, the Sunset Boulevard, ‘I’m ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille,’ the silent movie treatment, okay, all of that stuff. But here’s the problem: on a wrestling show, this video and this gimmick would stand out. But on a do-it-yourself cable access sketch comedy show like this, it’s just more silliness. It’s on the same theory that if you have 12 SF Footers, you have no Giants. Everything is fucking silly and over the top, and people are auditioning for something in a business that they’re not currently in. It blends in. I want to like Tony Storm in the ring; she’s great, and she’s performing this well. But instead of accentuating the heel being crazy or eccentric or demented or deluded or whatever, instead of accenting that or accentuating it by everybody around them still being normal, when you put people in with them that are just as fucking weird, and they’re surrounded by activity that’s just as fucking weird, it hampers that thing to get over. So, I’m struggling to like the stuff I like because it’s just endless with this program.”
This prompted Cornette to discuss Dustin Rhodes’ iconic ‘Goldust’ character, where he emphasized that while the character started out really well, Rhodes ultimately overdid the weirdness to an extent that he was never able to become a main event player again.
“Remember when Golddust started, it was a revolutionary gimmick, and he became a top guy, and you understood the gimmick, it’s him and it’s Marlena, and he looks like an Oscar in the whole nine yards. But then because he kept trying to make it fresh, and he had shitstain (VInce Russo) staying there to fucking spur him along, it got so ridiculous at the end, wearing the ball gags and the fucking lingerie, and he was talking about getting breast implants. That took two or three years. This has happened to Toni Storm in eight weeks. She went from ‘boy, this is really good’ to, like you said, ‘this is too far, it’s too much.'”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Jim Cornette’s ‘The Experience’ with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.