"Calgary, (Dramatic Pause), Alberta, Canada"
"If I can be serious for a minute..."
Lance Storm (real name Lance Timothy Evers, born April 3, 1969) is a retired professional wrestler hailing from Calgary, (Dramatic Pause), Alberta, Canada, trained by Black Dragon, Ed Langley and Stu Hart, best known for his time in ECW, WCW, and WWE. He started training alongside fellow Canadian wrestler Chris Jericho, with whom he would team with and occasionally feud with off and on around the world, including the WAR and FMW promotions in Japan and several independent promotions in Canada. After a brief tenure in Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling, they went their separate ways (though both ended up in the same promotions, it was never at the same time till 2001).
Lance Storm found success in ECW tagging with Chris Candido and later forming the Impact Players with Justin Credible, with the beautiful Dawn Marie by their side. Eventually he left for WCW, where he is best known for holding the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship
note , the WCW World Cruiserweight Championshipnote , and the WCW Hardcore Championshipnote all at once. He awarded his Team Canada ally "Primetime" Elix Skipper the Cruiserweight Title, and awarded the Hardcore Title to another Team Canada member, Pierre Carl Ouellet (who would later become known as PCO).
Lance later started working for WWE when they purchased WCW in 2001, being the second WCW wrestler to win a WWE Title.note He was fairly successful in WWE, winning the WWE Intercontinental Heavyweight Title and forming a successful Foreign Wrestling Heel Tag Team with Christian, who won the WWE World Tag Team Championship from Edge and Hulk Hogan, of all people. He also had a similar run with William Regal as his partner. Eventually he retired from full time in-ring action to become a trainer, first for the WWE's developmental program before creating his own school, the Storm Wrestling Academy, in Calgary, (Dramatic Pause) Alberta, Canada. He's also served as the Pure Wrestling Association's booker.
A television show about Lance Storm's academy called "World Of Hurt" premiered in 2011. He is also a regular guest on Figure Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez.
"These tropes are from Calgary, (Dramatic Pause), Alberta, Canada":
- 10-Minute Retirement
- Originally intended to retire following a match against Jericho at ECW One Night Stand. He's since wrestled a few matches since his supposed retirement, but these matches almost always involve other close friends of his such as Bryan Alvarez, Christian, and ECW alumni. One notable exception was a match against Bryan Danielson at Ring of Honor.
- He sometimes stops into Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore and has wrestled on and off for the Pro Wrestling Syndicate with Jerry Lynn and Justin Credible.
- Arch-Enemy
- (in SMW): The Heavenly Bodies
- (in ECW): Chris Candido, Tommy Dreamer, Jerry Lynn
- (in WCW): The Misfits in Action
- (in WWE): The Dudley Boys, Kane, Rob Van Dam
- Bookends: His first and last match of his full-time career were both against Chris Jericho.
- Boring, but Practical: In WCW he used a half crab (later renamed the Straight Shooter) as a finisher. Previously the half crab had been more of a resthold; this was explained as Storm just being better at applying the hold than anyone else.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Even at ECW One Night Stand 2005, where ECW was supposedly all on the same side against the Raw and SmackDown! "invaders," he still relied on cheating (Justin Credible hitting Jericho in the head with a Singapore Cane while Dawn Marie distracted the referee) to win, even though there would have been no way for Storm to get disqualified.
- Character Catchphrase
- "If I can be (th)erious for a minute..."
- "and that's from Calgary, (Dramatic Pause) Alberta, Canada!"
- The Comically Serious
- This was put to an end after Stone Cold got the crowds chanting boring at him and he began teaming with Val Venis in an effort to make it stop.
- Derek Wylde threatened to rape him on World Of Hurt and response to this, Lance gave him pointers on how to make his threats more creepy.
- Composite Character: Style is a blend of Bret Hart-esque mat and submission wrestling and high flying similar to a young Shawn Michaels. He's even used both of their finishers (Sharpshooter and Superkick) at various points of his career.
- Cool Teacher: Called such by many talents in OVW, whom Lance would talk up on his website when he deemed any ready for the main roster. He later got a booking deal because of his work at the Storm Wrestling Academy. Also trained ECW teammate Justin Credible.
- Deadpan Snarker
- You'll see a lot of this on the Q&As of his website.
Q: What is the most difficult thing you have ever tried to do in the ring?
A: Convince people I enjoyed doing the cabbage patch.- In fact, when someone asked him if he would mind being referred to as "The Soup Nazi, but for wrestling questions," he replied "Not in the least." If you send the man a question and he thinks it's stupid, he won't mince words.
- Even when presented a student's over the top serial rapist gimmick, his first response was "well, if you're going to rape people, you need to have better facial expressions."
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": He really doesn't like fans using his real last name.
- Finishing Move: Most notably the Canadian Maple Leaf/Straightshooter (a half crab), but also the Sharpshooter, a springboard missile dropkick, and a superkick... Storm tried to have something that could be used as a finisher on any wrestler regardless of size or speed.
- Foreign Wrestling Heel: As part of the UnAmericans. "America Sucks," indeed.
- Fun with Acronyms: Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title.
- Gag Penis: During the last period of his WWE career.
- Gimmick Matches: Like a stereotypical Canadian, Lance Storm is a vocal fan of "pure wrestling" matches. He is not a very big fan of table matches due to a phobia of screws somehow getting into him.
- Gone Horribly Right: When "Stone Cold" Steve Austin called Lance boring, it just killed Lance's heat. Before that, Storm could actually enrage a crowd very effectively with his monotonous, comically serious delivery.
- Happy Dance: A lot of viewers did not realize that the "dancing" gimmick was supposed to be a big penis gimmick, so he did a bit of a double take when people told him Victoria stole his gimmick, until he realized they were referring to her dancing for no reason.
- Hidden Depths: While Lance was always billed as The Stoic, any shoot interview with him reveals he's a pretty good Deadpan Snarker and actually pretty funny when telling stories.
- Irony: For all his patriotism, Lance Storm often uses the Scorpion Death lock instead of the Sharpshooter (It's the same move, only applying pressure to different parts of the leg.)
- Jack of All Trades: In WCW when he collected every undercard title, his success was attributed to his being this. Although he wasn't the best at any one style, he was above average in just about every style and could usually find and exploit a stylish mismatch against his opponent.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When Storm arrived in WCW he ended up teaming with Billy Kidman. Kidman made fun of Lance regularly, and would do stuff like dance around behind him and make faces while he was talking. Storm finally turned on Kidman, but to be fair Kidman was really asking for it.
- Masked Luchador: As "The Ideal Canadian"
- Meaningful Rename: In WCW, renamed the United States Heavyweight Title to Canadian Heavyweight Title, the Hardcore Title to Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title, and the Cruiserweight Title to The 100kg and Under Title.
- Name of Power: A half Boston crab he calls "The Canadian Maple Leaf"
- Odd Friendship: With Goldust, who else? His friendship with Val Venis might count as well, considering how friendships don't normally start with one guy accidentally looking at another guy using the urinal and being impressed with his penis size.
- One-Steve Limit: He booked for the PWA(Pure Wrestling Association) he wrestled for the PWA(Prairie Wrestling Alliance)
- Perky Female Minion: At various points, Chastity, Dawn Marie, Major Gunns, Tammy Lynn Sytch, Jazz
- Power Stable
- (in ECW): The Triple Threat
- (in WCW): Team Canada, with Elix Skipper, Jacques Rougeau, Carl Pierre Ouelette, Major Gunns, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggannote , Mike Awesome and Kid Romeo.
- (in WWE): The Un-Americans: with Christian, Test and William Regal.
- He also was a member of the Alliance.
- Red Baron: The technical wizard
- The Rival: Chris Hero, though it's a verbal rivalry rather than a physical one.
- Shout-Out:
- The Impact Players name was a reference to Sudden Impact, the name for Jericho and Lance in Japan. Their victory pose was lifted directly from the Shawn Michaels/Diesel and D-Generation X victory pose (Justin Credible was something of a fringe member of The Kliq. Scott Hall mentored him backstage in his Aldo Montoya days, leading to him traveling with them. In February 2001, he made his WWE TV return by running in to make the save for X-Pac.)
- Lance used to wear the WCW Monday Jericho shirt in ECW and years later in Ring of Honor started using Fozzy songs such as "Enemy" as entrance music.
- Signature Move: Leg lariat, Star kick (drop sault), super kick, sidekick, cradle pile driver, spiked pile driver(deep impact), Suplex dropped into a power slam (power-plex, Goldberg would make it famous as the Jackhammer)
- Still Got It:
- After retiring, when he came back to wrestle Bryan Danielson (considered by many to be probably the best wrestler in the world) and showed he could keep up with him for 30 minutes straight and nearly beat him, he received a huge chant of this from the Ring of Honor fans (along with chants of "Thank You Lance!" and "Please Come Back!").
- Six years later, he made another appearance in ROH to face Mike Bennett, which was almost as well received. Lance might not wrestle very often anymore, but he make sure it's worth it when he does.
- His return for the Preston City Wrestling/Ring Of Honor Super Show in 2014, where he wrestled Joey Hayes and actually defeated Martin Kirby.
- The Stoic: Almost never smiles. This extends to his personal life too.
- Tag Team
- Sudden Impact/The Thrillseekers, with Chris Jericho
- The Impact Players, with Justin Credible
- Tournament Arc: Defeated Mike Awesome in the 2000 WCW United States Title Tournament final.
- Trademark Favorite Food
- Cracker Barrel. He actually carries around a map showing every Cracker Barrel location when he travels to the U.S.
- Tim Horton's coffee is getting there, to the point where not finding one was the biggest worry of his trip to Iqaluit, Nunavut.
- Uncool Undies: He found himself on the end of a Pants-Pulling Prank from Edge, revealing a pair of Power Rangers underoos, which got huge laughs from the crowd, as well as a zoom-in from the camera.
- Underwear of Power: It is only the most common outfit in professional wrestling.
- Unrelated Brothers: According to Lance Storm, the Hardy Boys, The Steiner Brothers, The Usos and the Mcmahons are not really related. The only real siblings in professional wrestling are him and Victoria.
- Versus Title: WC Christopher Daniels Vs. Lance Storm
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Chris Jericho. While he credits Jericho for keeping him in the business, he would also shoot down any of Chris's lame ideas for ring names, finishers, etc. with brutal honesty. Lance shutting down one, The Boomstick in 2007, became
Hilarious in Hindsight in 2012, when TNA's Jay Bradley used it as his finisher's name. - Wearing A Flag On Your Tights
- Before switching to the aforementioned Underwear of Power, his tights were in red and white Canadian colors, as can be seen on this very page.
- The Un Americans wore the Stars And Stripes upside down.
- Wrestling Family: A running gag on his website was that The Hardy Boys and everyone else anyone cared to ask about were not really related because he and Victoria were the only true siblings in wrestling.note Victoria mentioned on byte this that she did not really mind.
