During the mailbag segment of this week’s episode of Killing the Town with Storm & Cyrus, the hosts fielded a question asking them what they would do differently in their career if they had the opportunity. Lance Storm’s response was surprising:
“In WCW, the one night US Title tournament where I fought, I think Buff was the first match, Shane Douglas was the second and Mike Awesome was the third. I was still pretty new and didn’t want to rock the boat. Buff was putting up a pretty big stink about having to do the job in that match. You know ‘Why do I have to be the one to sacrifice?’
“The finish, when it was pitched to me, was I get him in the half crab submission, then they’re going to put up on the big screen the video of Kanyon attacking Judy Bagwell in the parking garage. He was supposed to tap when he saw that, and I’m assuming the justification to Buff was ‘You tapped to get out of the match so you could go save your mom’ rather than ‘You tapped because I was putting you in too much pain and you lost.’ I’m like ‘Ok, whatever. That’s what they want, that’s what we’ll do.’ But Buff did the crawl real fast towards the rope where his hand hit with each crawling step and the ref kind of said that was the tap out and he totally didn’t tap and it looked like crap.
“If I had it to do over, I would’ve pulled that son of a b**ch back into the middle of the ring and just sat on him until he tapped and wouldn’t let him get away with avoiding doing the job because I thought it was really lame. But I was only in WCW for a little while and didn’t want to get heat, so to speak. In hindsight, I would’ve been happy to take the heat and just sat on him and made him tap.”
Rush’s Analysis: Lance noted prior to the story that he doesn’t have many regrets in his career. I find it funny that, when pressed with such a question, he doesn’t think back to mistakes he may have made in his early days in SMW or perhaps taking a chair shot or the like that he wishes he wouldn’t have in ECW. Maybe you’d expect he’d have some regrets about something he did as part of the Invasion angle or the UnAmericans storyline in WWE. Instead, he thinks back to the time he allowed Buff Bagwell to take liberties in a match few people remember in WCW.
My point isn’t that he should regret anything, nor that he’s being petty in any way for holding onto this memory. Instead, I find it perfectly fitting that a man described by his colleagues as borderline OCD and as a perfectionist, can’t let go of the memory of the time an inferior in-ring performer like Buff Bagwell refused to sell for him. Awesome stuff.
The episode also provided in-depth analysis of the Chris Jericho-Kenny Omega angle that is now leading to a match at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom in January and much more. To check it out, visit Killing the Town at PodcastOne.
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