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James Storm talks TNA career, never signing with WWE, and more on Insight

Posted: Jun 13th 2025 By: Colin Vassalo

Former TNA star James Storm sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles for the latest episode of Insight.

Storm discusses his legendary TNA career, his partnerships with Chris Harris and Bobby Roode, becoming World Champion, being a part of the infamous blindfold steel cage match and reverse battle royal, the train track segment with Mickie James, why his time in WWE didn’t turn into more, making the
transition to acting, when he plans on retiring and more!

On why he never signed with WWE:

“Man, it was a lot. Mostly had to do with my family. Had a little bit to do with money, which is not like ‘They didn’t pay him a lot of money, so he’s not coming.’ It wasn’t like that at all. They gave me a contract, I went home and I got a call from Regal. He goes, ‘Hey, we definitely want to sign you.’ I was like, Oh, great. So I was going to sign the contract and all that stuff, and then he asked me, ‘Can you
tighten up a little bit? Lose a little weight?’ I was like, Yeah. I busted my ass and I lost 20 pounds. I got in really good shape when I got back down there, everybody’s like, Oh my God, you look totally different. Because I always tell people, you give a man motivation, he’ll work his ass off if. So I did it, and then when I got down there, the contract had changed. They added 25 more dates, but the money didn’t move. I even told them TNA had offered me another contract to come back because they heard about me wanting to sign with WWE. I said, ‘Look, this is what TNA is offering me. I’m not trying to hold this over your head at all, because you don’t have to match this at all. I’m just saying this is what I’m
willing to give up to come and work for this, but it has to be right.’ Because my wife, she wanted to have another child at the time, but she had to take the [IVF] shots and all this stuff, so I was basically kind of giving that up as well, because I was going to be on the road a lot. We came to an agreement, and she was like, ‘Well, if they can just give you this, then you have my blessing to sign.’ Hunter is like, ‘I just can’t do it.’ I was just like, ‘All right, well, I’m sorry, my wife gave me permission not to sign, so I’m going home.’ Three days later, Canon Ceman called me. He goes, ‘Hey, man. Paul wants to know if he can call you.’ I was like, ‘What? Hunter?’ He goes yeah. I go, ‘He has my phone number. I just talked to him not too long ago.’ He goes, ‘Well, since you’re not signed, we had to go through the proper channels, and I had to make sure. You’re on a recorded line.’ I was like whatever, yeah, he can call me. So he called me and I talked and he’s like, ‘Look, you’re not gonna be here long, because Vince loves characters and you know how to work, so you’ll probably be shipped off real quick.’ I was like, ‘Well, can you give what I was asking?’ And like I said, it was not much at all, and he’s like, ‘No, I just don’t have
the authority to do that.’ I was like, ‘I’m sorry, man. I’m gonna have to say no.’”

Was that a tough decision?

“That was the hardest phone call I think I’ve ever had to get off the phone with a man. Usually I just hang up the phone. I was like, oh, man. Am I making the right decision? But in hindsight, I didn’t know at the time, but it was the right decision for me and my family at that time, because I was able to have my son that’s eight years old now, and everything. So I can’t imagine what if if I would have taken that.”

On the blindfold steel cage match:

“Oh man. Me and Chris were in this big feud. I was supposed to have put his eye out and everything. So they’re like to even the field, you should have to see like he does, and be in a blindfold match. I was like this isn’t the 80s no more. That match is so hard to pull off, especially in those times, even today. I was just like all right, well if that’s what you want to do. Then I was like wait, this is inside of an electrified cage too? There’s so many gimmicks going on in here. But thank God the cage wasn’t on when we did it. But it wasn’t until like 30 minutes before our match started that they realized that they didn’t have the blindfolds, so they ran to somewhere and just got two black bags and just put them over our heads that didn’t have draw strings or anything, so they keep falling off. There’s a point in the match when I look at Chris and I said, ‘No, to hell with this, we’re taking it home.’ He’s like, really? I was like, yep. I think it was the beer bottle and for the finish or whatever. I was like, we’re going home. I got to the back, and to his credit, Vince Russo, he was standing right there, he knew it too, and I just lit into him. He goes, ‘I am so
sorry, blah, blah, blah. I understand if you want to punch me.’ I said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to punch you. I want to.’ He goes, ‘To make it up, I’ll let you do any match that you want to do.’ And then that’s when we did the Texas death match.”

On the Mickie James train angle:

“The funny thing was, a lot of people don’t know it, I actually had cops come to my house to make sure, they thought it was legit. My brother, who was a detective at the time, he called me. He goes, ‘Hey man, did you kill somebody on TV?’ I was like, bro, it’s wrestling. He goes, ‘That’s what I try to tell him.’ But there was this cop that had just started on the beat with him, so he was messing with him. He had that guy come to my door and ring the doorbell and ask me about all this stuff, and my brother sitting in a
car just laughing his butt off. So I had to bring the cop in and put the episode on and show him it’s part of a wrestling angle. Me and Mickie and Nick, all three of us are trying to tell John this is not a good idea to murder somebody on TV. I came up with a plan of having a flash of me, this is what would happen if she wouldn’t agree with me, like, I would push her off and she would die, you know, but they didn’t like that idea. I was like, All right, well, I guess I’m pushing her.”