There aren’t many pieces of WrestleCrap that get me truly angry. Sure, long-time fans will probably remember that the infamous InVasion angle, in which Vince & Co. botched the easiest and potentially biggest money maker of all time ticked me off. But that’s really the exception, though, and not the rule. Most of the time, I find the stuff posted here hysterical; hysterical in that someone, for some reason, thought that say, having a one-eyed midget named Cheatum would somehow help a wrestling promotion.
But every once in a while, I do get really Hulk-level angry at something I post here. And this, fellow Crappers, is one such instance.
His name? Lance Storm. You might have heard of him. Hailing from Calgary (*dramatic pause*), Alberta Canada, he was one of the hottest young prospects in the mid to late 90’s. A hell of an athlete, he also had ring skill to spare, tearing up both ECW and WCW, winning countless championships along the way.
But then he got to WWE…and man was it ever all downhill from there.
Do you recall Lance’s monumental WWE debut?
No?
Then that should tell you everything you ever need to know about what a disaster that horrific InVasion angle was. Because believe it or not, the first WCW guy to invade the WWF was none other than Mr. Storm. He just ran into the ring one week, Pearl Harbored someone, and ran away. How sad is it that this, the start of what should have been the biggest angle in the entire history of pro wrestling, and it was so forgettable that I can’t even tell you who Lance attacked!
Anywho, the InVasion was a flop and Lance was stuck in the midcard, doing nothing much of note for months on end. But fear not! The creative staff had a brilliant idea of how to get Storm over: make him BORING.
Yes, boring to the point that Steve Austin, who was co-GM of Raw at the time, actually came out ranting and raving about just how boring Lance Storm was.
To illustrate his point, Austin brought out a blanket and pillow…
…and proceeded to fall asleep.
Ah yes, I remember just how well it worked for WCW when they had the nWo continually tell people how much WCW sucked.
Sad that I remembered that – but that no one in WWE did.
Storm retorted to Austin’s tirade the following week with a prepared statement on Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel…
…that Austin found so dull that he had the crew come out and deconstruct the Highlight Reel set.
At this point, Storm knew he was in trouble, so he sought out someone who could help him with his personality deficit…
…the always wacky GOLDUST, now 100% wackier, since he had developed a stuttering problem and had Turret’s Syndrome.
Hilarity (well, not really) when Goldie unveiled the newly made over Storm to Molly Holly. Reading from a cue card, Lancedust proceeded to congratulate Molly on her big ass…ass…ass…ascension up the women’s ranks.
See, because HER gimmick at the time was that people said she had a fat ass.
Now before I go any further, let’s take a look at what I’ve presented in the last 187 words.
1. We have a wrestler who is portrayed as so boring he makes people fall asleep.
2. We have another wrestler who, after being electrocuted, develops a speech disorder that causes him to stutter…but only when he’s blurting out profanities.
3. Finally, we have a very beautiful young woman, who supposedly has a great big ass and we, the marks, are supposed to hate her for that. Even though she doesn’t, in fact, have a great big ass at all.
You know, I think I could write another book just based on WWE’s 2003 booking alone.
Despite his failure with Molly, Lance is persuaded to head into the women’s locker room, in an attempt to…hell, I don’t know. Maybe he was doing a panty raid or something.
Anyway, he didn’t find any of the lovely Raw divas, but rather ran into a female midget version of Goldust.
MiniDust proceeded to hump poor Lance’s leg. Man, the folks in Stamford sure do love Austin Powers.
(Speaking of which, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the latest zany rumor I’ve heard about a new gimmick that is headed for the WWE main roster: a woman who has a giant mole on her face, and is made fun of for this fact. Methinks the new Diva Search might actually have some competition in this year’s voting.)
Despite being humped by Little Beaver (oh wait, that was a real MALE midget wrestler, my bad), Lance was now loving life. In fact, he went so far as to THANK Steve Austin for telling him he was boring, which is quite possibly the dumbest thing a WWE performer had to say since the time Terry Taylor stated that he wasn’t really Terry Taylor, he was the Red Rooster. Yes, he WANTED TO BE A WALKING, TALKING CHICKEN.
Maybe Lance didn’t have it so bad after all.
After macking with Miss Jackie, he got so excited that he started Cabbage Patching around the ring, and thus his new gimmick of Dancin’ Lance Storm was born.
Amazingly, this didn’t get over.
Nor did Lance’s following gimmick, that being that he had a big dong.
Yep, penning that 2003 WrestleCrap Almanac sounds pretty inviting…maybe Lance could even write the foreword!
This was one time when I was totally stumped; I simply did not understand how this was supposed to help Lance get over.
But thanks to our “Explain Why Lance Was Boring” contest winner Michael Maiello, it all makes sense now:
In the age of irony, boring is the new interesting. Vince expected to create a new trend and maybe even a buzzword, where young hipsters would call stuff “boring” to mean cool. Time magazine would then start running cover stories about “The Snooze Generation.” T-shirts would be sold. Once it caught on, Linda McMahon could use the phrase to confuse un-hip stockholders. “I don’t know why buy rates, ad rates and ratings are down,” she would say at a quarterly meeting. “We’re putting out the most boring television possible, each and every week!”
That not only explains Lance Storm’s problem, but WWE’s problem overall.
Bravo.
Steve Austin: “I was outside while ago, I was watching the grass grow, I was watching the paint dry. And I was thinking to myself, what can be more boring than this, that could actually put Steve Austin to sleep? And I figured you were fixin’ to have a match right there with Garrison Cade…wait a minute….BOOOO-RRRINNNNG! You’re better than a sleepin’ pill, kid.” Austin then begins snoring.
Lance: “Congratulations on your huge ass…ass…ass…ass…”
Molly Slaps Lance
Lance: “Ascension in the women’s division!”