By Gordon Holmes
Special to Canadian of the Week
From Alberta’s Hart Family to Quebec’s Rougeau Brothers to Ontario’s Edge and Christian, the tradition of Canadian wrestling is full of larger-than-life personalities and unforgettable matches. Join us every week as we count down to Wrestlemania XXVI by taking a look at the Great White North’s finest contributions to the squared circle.
Editor’s Note: The “Modern Era” is defined as the period of wrestling that exists from
SummerSlam 1988 to the present day. Why 1988? Because that’s when I started watching wrestling. I know, I’m lame.
Previous picks:
10. Andrew “Test” Martin
9. John “Earthquake” Tenta
8: Lance Storm
Height: 6’
Weight: 228 lbs.
Hometown: Calgary, Alberta
Greatest Match: Lance Storm vs. Edge – SummerSlam 2001
My buddy Mike likes to hit me with random questions every now and then. Nothing too heavy, just the kind of questions Gordie would ask Vern around the campfire in “Stand by Me.”
Who’d win in a fight between Mighty Mouse and Superman? Where were they going in the show “Wagon Train?” What the hell is Goofy?
The one that always stuck with me was: If you had to give up either pork or chicken for the rest of your life, which would it be?
Upon first hearing this question, I reasoned that I eat chicken far more often than I eat pork, so I’d probably choose to stop eating pork.
Mike countered by saying, “Chicken is always good, but pork has more potential to be great.”
What does this have to do with Canadian wrestlers? Well, I’ll tell you…
Lance Storm is chicken.
OK, let me rephrase that so I don’t have a super kick waiting for me from an angry retired wrestler. Lance Storm was a consistently good wrestler, I don’t recall ever seeing him have an off match. But, he was rarely great.
You could argue that Lance Storm wasn’t given the opportunity to be great. For as technically sound as his matches were (and Lance’s work was second to none) he was never truly given a sustained push or a super-heated feud.
I think that’s a shame, as when he was given the ball during the dying days of WCW he definitely ran with it. For those of you who weren’t following WCW during 2000, (and there weren’t many of us) Storm managed to win the U.S. Championship, the Hardcore Championship, and the Cruiserweight Championship in a little over two weeks.
Fun Fact: In the storylines, Storm renamed those titles the Canadian Heavyweight Championship, the 100-kg-and-Under Championship, and the Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title.
Even the bizarre booking of his match against Mike Awesome at New Blood Rising (Lance was booked to drop several falls in front of his hometown crowd) and the adding of American “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan to his Team Canada stable wasn’t enough to truly derail him.
By the time WCW folded in the spring of 2001, Storm was still one of the organization’s top heels and was one of the bigger names that made the transition to WWE in the Invasion storyline.
Unfortunately after a brief reign as Intercontinental Champion, he spent the majority of his time in tag teams with Shane “Hurricane” Helms, Christian, and William Regal and never again had the opportunity to break through to the upper level.
After Mike’s good vs. great answer to the chicken vs. pork question I changed my initial decision. It’s always nice to have the good, but you truly appreciate the great. Lance Storm is the best of the chicken, the next seven Canadians you’ll see on this list are pork.
And Goofy is a dog.
Gordon Holmes is the wrestling correspondent for Comcast.net’s SlamCast wrestling coverage and the “Survivor” correspondent for Fancast.com. He was also trained to take a beating by WWE Hall of Famer Afa “The Wild Samoan” Anoa’i. You can follow Gordon on Twitter at twitter.com/gordonholmes.
