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Former WWE star Lance Storm appeared on a recent It's My House podcast episode and revealed how he enjoyed working with Jim Cornette in Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
The former WWE Intercontinental Champion spent six years wrestling for various promotions before joining ECW in 1997. Lance Storm briefly wrestled in Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling in 1994, and he admitted to being a big fan of the Jim Cornette-helmed team, Mightnight Express.
Storm noted that he was also an admirer of Jim Cornette and cherished the opportunity to work on a program with the outspoken former WWE manager.
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Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling followed the traditional territorial system, and Lance Storm revealed how the shows mainly consisted of squash matches that built up the hype for the live events.
Storm stated that Jim Cornette's SMW roster then performed a string of shows in all the top wrestling towns. The veteran added that Smoky Mountain Wrestling was one of the last companies to adopt territorial principles as old-school ways soon paved the way for a new era.
"I really enjoyed it because I was a big fan of the Midnight Express. I was a big NWA WCW fan. So, Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express was someone that I was a big fan of, so then getting to come in and work a tag team programme with Jim. He was managing the Heavenly Bodies at the time, not the Midnight Express, but it was still really cool in that regard. It was the only real traditional wrestling territory that I worked. It was like an old school territory where you did, you know, TV once a month that was primarily squash matches and angles to hype the live events, and then you would do the 15 shows a month where you hit all the regular house show towns. And it was a very traditional old school territory, so it was nice to experience that because when I broke in was really the start of the death of the territories. So I really enjoyed that, and I learned a lot," Lance Storm explained.
You're doing it for the audience: Lance Storm on the biggest thing he learned under Jim Cornette
Lance Storm learned a lot about wrestling for the crowd during his time in Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The underrated wrestler had traveled the world and developed an in-ring style with Japanese and Lucha Libre influences.
The former producer said that while he was a 'mark' for cutting-edge wrestling, fans with a territorial mindset wanted to witness a different brand of in-ring action.
"I think the biggest thing that I learned there was," Storm continued, "you're not doing the wrestling match for you, you're doing it for the audience, because both Chris and I, you know he was working in Mexico we both done a trip to Japan, I had just got back from Europe. We were trying to be that, you know, cutting edge new we got to do all this new stuff we got to do all this, and it's like, that's all great, but we were working, Harlem and Kentucky, and they weren't seeing new Japan Junior Heavyweight style, they weren't seeing Lucha Libre, so us just trying to do these great matches that we were marks for wasn't what the audience wanted."
Lance Storm's stint in Smoky Mountain Wrestling happened when he was new to the business, and he thankfully walked away from Jim Cornette's company with some invaluable experience.
