James Storm has revealed that Paul Heyman wanted to use him on the RAW brand, earlier this year, as he exclusively told Busted Open Radio in an interview.
The former TNA Heavyweight Champion advised that WWE reached out to him at the end of January (transcript h/t to WrestlingInc.com):
“We did our last [NWA] taping around the end of January. That’s the last taping that they did and it’s something where I actually kind of had another month on the contract that I had, but it was actually the Thursday before Royal Rumble that WWE contacted me and asked me if I would like to come in and stuff. But the bad thing is, I didn’t get the damn email until after the Rumble and I got my call on Wednesday because the email on my phone was not working. So, they were basically like, ‘Since we’re getting into WrestleMania season, let’s kind of just hold off everything until right after Mania.’ I talked to Billy Corgan and told him, ‘Whatever you guys need me to do to go out the right way, I’ll do it.’ They were going to plan a show around that WrestleMania weekend, where all the shows go on and I was going to drop [the tag title] down there and just as I say, do good business on the way out the door.”
Storm added that Heyman, the then-RAW Executive Director, wanted to use him on WWE’s flagship show:
“I don’t think it was to come in for the Rumble, because I never did say. You know how it is. You never know until it’s over with really. You’re in the ring, you head to the back and take your boots off. But I kind of felt that way, because like I said, it was on that Thursday and I didn’t answer the email until I got back home on Wednesday. And it was Heyman that wanted to bring me into RAW and he was basically like, ‘Hey, I need guys like you that know how to work’ because I tell everybody all the time, ‘WWE, AEW, New Japan, they get guys that can do every move in the book.’ I said, ‘There ain’t no move that you’re going to come up with that one of those guys can’t do.’ I said, ‘There’s a lot of guys who don’t make it really believable even more’ in my eyes anyway.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuP1Udt6hNU
As it turns out, James Storm did not appear on WWE television as planned. Instead, the ‘Cowboy’ has worked mainly on the independent scene in 2020 after the NWA stopped running shows due to the COVID pandemic.
He has also assisted in training Ronda Rousey for a potential WWE comeback.
When quizzed on whether he thinks WWE will come calling again, Storm added:
“As they say, ‘never say never in pro wrestling.’ Hopefully, it does, because I was really looking forward to it.”
The 43-year-old left the NWA in September when his contract expired. It remains to be seen whether he will finally receive that opportunity with WWE.