With the exception of an approximately three-month period in 2015, James Storm has been in TNA (now Impact — for the time being) since day one. That’s a long-ass time for anyone to be employed by ANY company, let alone a professional wrestler. Let alone a pro wrestler working for Impact Wrestling.
James Storm has accomplished pretty much everything a person can accomplish in TNA/Impact. He’s a former TNA World Champion, a former King of the Mountain Champion, a 14-time(!) tag team champion — seven NWA tag titles and seven TNA tag titles. Hell, he even got his own title when he became TNA World Beer Drinking Champion. Twice! About the only thing he never did was capture the X Division title. He even committed train murder!
At any rate, Storm famously appeared in NXT while he was between contracts for those few months in 2015, and had a televised match that was very well-received both by the Full Sail crowd and NXT viewers at large. But for various reasons, he opted to sign a new contract with Impact rather than jump ship to WWE/NXT for good.
Now that Impact contract appears to be up, and there have been rumblings for a few weeks that the writing might be on the wall for Storm to go the way of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Eric Young, and Bobby Roode before him, and find a new fanbase in the world of WWE.
Regardless of where he ends up next, it certainly looks like Storm is gone from Impact Wrestling as of right now. During Thursday night’s Impact Wrestling television tapings, Storm delivered a farewell speech to the live crowd in Ottawa.
After 15 years, the Cowboy is hitting the open range again. 2017 has been wild and woolly, so there’s really no telling where he winds up. WWE, NXT, Ring of Honor, New Japan … hell, maybe he’ll go to CHIKARA and be the new Mysterious and Handsome Stranger. Best of damn luck to him.
