Real reason why WWE retracted contract offer to James Storm after WrestleMania 36 revealed
Michael Morales Torres from Lucha Libre Online recently interviewed James Storm. The former IMPACT Wrestling star opened on various topics, including the story about how he almost joined the WWE after WrestleMania 36. Storm first told Ryan Satin that the plan was dropped due to the pandemic.
During his most recent interview with Michael Morales Torres, Storm revealed more details on what actually happened between him and the WWE.
Storm was waiting for his physical test, and the exam was apparently scheduled to take place a few days before WrestleMania 36. However, the COVID-19 pandemic played spoilsport as the WWE was forced to take a few controversial business decisions, including several releases and furloughs as part of the budget-cutting move.
The WWE informed Storm that the contract offer was retracted due to the pandemic. Storm completely understood WWE's decision as he knew how the business works. James Storm had a conversion with Canyon Ceman, Senior Director of Talent Development for WWE, and the former IMPACT Wrestling Tag Team Champion commended the WWE executive's professionalism regarding the matter.
James Storm added that he is not hurt about how the entire situation panned out, and he hoped that another opportunity could possibly come his way in the future.
Here's what James Storm had to say about how close he came to joining the WWE:
Michael: Speaking of WWE, you said some interesting facts; you mentioned in Ryan Satin's interview a few days ago, and it's that you were supposed to made your debut after WrestleMania for the WWE and unfortunately, Sorry about your damn luck, it did not go that way due to the pandemic, or as James or as James Ellsworth calls it, the "Pandammit." So it happened, and it got changed. Everyone's plans changed. Did you got to sign a contract with WWE? Is that still valid at this point?
James Storm: You know us on the contract and all that stuff, and I was just waiting to take the physical exam, and I was supposed to take it a couple of days right before WrestleMania. Then they had called me and just told me, 'hey, it's going to be put off just because of all the stuff going on.' I completely understood and then once I saw that they were going to, they were making all these cuts with all these different guys and stuff. Like I just knew it was a matter of time before they just retracted the contract, which I mean it's business. It's no big deal. That's how business goes, and I completely understood it, and I can't tell you like, so many people have problems with this guy named Canyon, seemingly always. People talk bad about it. But for me, this guy was nothing but professional, and he was also just like man, like I just have bad news. I really hate to give it to you, and I was like, hey man, like it's no big deal. Like I understand this business, and hopefully, we can do business again sometime in the future. I don't think it was any hurt feelings at all. It was his business, and it sucks because I can sit here and say me, me, me, but in the whole scheme of things, it was a lot of people that lost their jobs like a lot of people got cut loose. So I said, all I can do is just keep on keeping on man and doing my thing, and like I said; hopefully, another opportunity will come in the future. It's funny that you know, so many people, because Ryan hit me up and he says, hey man, like I heard from a little bird on the wire this right here. Like... How do you find this crap out? I had it hid for so long, like hardly anyone knew because they want it and I wanted it to be like a big surprise because I knew people would pop because I look at it like you saw my debut when I went to NXT like, they're recording these people in the crowd and went absolutely crazy, you know in the whole crowd is going crazy, so I can slice. I can only imagine what the main roster would want to you know, and it's just one of those things where I was just like what if, you know, what if. You can't live on what if. You just got to keep moving forward.
During the interview, James Storm also spoke about the possibility of reuniting with Robert Roode and reforming Beer Money, Inc. in the WWE.