ESPN 30 under 30

[Chili]

16 hours ago, JLM said:

Definitely forget that Toni Storm is still only 29. It's partly because she completely disappears into the Timeless character, who is definitely meant to be older than that. It think it's also because she's done so much already. Progress, NXT UK, Stardom, NXT US and WWE main roster. Then in AEW it almost feels like two runs because the reinvention has been so drastic and such a massive step up from any of her previous work. I also forget that the Timeless character hasn't even been around for that long. 

It's The Beatles effect that it seems impossible they covered all that in that time and were just that age when that chapter ended. Harrison being TWENTY SIX for example.

[The King of Old School]

I have no memory at all of Toni Storm on the WWE main roster.

Was it the Thunderdome era?

Edited November 27, 2024 by The King of Old School

[MVP RULZ]

33 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

I have no memory at all of Toni Storm on the WWE main roster.

Was it the Thunderdome era?

I want to say it was just after or literally just as fans were coming back to shows.

The only thing I actually can remember of her main roster run was getting a pie in the face from Charlotte on what must have been a Thanksgiving themed episode of Smackdown.

[CDM]

Just something I've noticed about Daniel Garcia. Does anyone else feel he's better now he has got rid of the hip shake? I don't have anything against comedy in wrestling I really like it. But it didn't seem to match his character for me. He's not my favourite wrestler but getting rid of the hip shake has made him more likeable for me. Does anyone else feel the same? 

[LaGoosh]

Not me, I loved his little dance.

[Supremo]

Most memorable thing about Toni Storm on WWE’s main roster was when she was rebranded as, “The Wild Child of the Eighties!”

Born in 1995.

 

[RedTwoster]

Toni Storm in WWE was so bad that they had me convinced that she had no value - but her brilliant reinvention in AEW has me wondering how many other failed WWE wrestlers I totally dismissed who had it in them to do something that brilliant, but did not have the benefit of another major US company in which that could be done.

Edited November 29, 2024 by RedTwoster

[Merzbow]

Garcia is better now that he's not in the Jericho black hole, he was in there far too long. There was no reason for him to be after he leveled up after the Bryan feud, he was made.

[BomberPat]

2 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

Toni Storm in WWE was so bad that they had me convinced that she had no value - but her brilliant reinvention in AEW has me wondering how many other failed WWE wrestlers I totally dismissed who had it in them to do something that brilliant, but did not have the benefit of another major US company in which that could be done.

A big part of it is that Toni is still very young - she's been wrestling for 15 years, but she's still not even 30. It takes a long time to figure out who you are even when you're not on TV every week, let alone figuring out the version of yourself you sell to the public, and while I don't think that Toni would ever have had the freedom to become Timeless Toni Storm in WWE, she also wouldn't have landed on that character on her own anywhere else before now.

I've known Toni for a while from crossing paths on indie shows and having a lot of mutual friends, and she's always been hilarious, and nobody (herself included) had ever really tried to channel that into her wrestling persona. The old tried and tested advice is that the best gimmicks are "yourself turned up to 11", but what nobody tells you is that it takes a long time to work out which parts of yourself to dial up - The Rock couldn't be The Rock right out of the gate, and Steve Austin had to be Stunning and Superstar and The Ringmaster before he was able to suss out what Stone Cold was.

Like you, I wonder how many other wrestlers have the germ of a great character in them that we never get to see, but most of the time the evidence is that they just don't. That's why there was a couple of years of every single person released from WWE doing an "escaping/being released from prison" video, because most wrestlers don't have a single original thought in their head. Or you go too far the other way and get a Malakai Black. Or they don't take the risk on a reinvention, because they'd rather take the safe money of doing their WWE schtick on the convention circuit.

 

Though in terms of fun reinventions, there was a guy who works for Beyond Wrestling, who used to pop up in CHIKARA a bit, called Thomas Santell. He's a great technical wrestler, and does a kind of George McFly nerd character, and I just really enjoyed watching him without knowing anything about him, just assumed he was some new indie guy who had popped up recently. One day I looked him up for some reason, and discovered that he was Antonio from The Heart Throbs!

[Statto]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Not me, I loved his little dance.

Yeah, I thought it was a nice little addition to his character and was massively over. 

Keeping the dance was a nice little resolution to his "Am I a professional wrestler or a sports entertainer?" dilemma during the JAS period. Turned out he was a bit of both and everyone was fine with that. 

[LaGoosh]

Yeah the story of the dance itself was really cool. Originally it was a bit of stupid "sports-entertainment" in the JAS, then after the JAS it became a thing that was actively holding him back, then eventually he embraced it but as an act of defiance and rallying call. I've never seen a "taunt" get it's own story before. It was great and it's a shame he's seemed to have dropped.

On the subject of Toni Storm - one of my worst BritWres experiences was being at an EVE show and Toni was in the crowd and my inebriated friend thought he should go chat her up. The sheer level of cringe was unbearable. Her look of disgust will stay with me forever.

[WeeAl]

Not a fan of Garcia dropping the dance. He's a really solid hand, but I think the ship has sailed with him to capitalise to become something more than that. He was finally starting to click a bit for me with the MJF feud, as Max was hot at the same point just off a return. Now it's dropped, MJF is cool as ice so Garcia can't gain off him the same way even if they went back to it - and he's dropped the dance. Not good.

He'll be a solid operator around the mid card level for as long as you need him to be but that's the limit I imagine.