The “Busted Open” show on Sirius 94 XM 208 and Sportszone 860 online featured an interview with TNA wrestler James Storm discussing tonight’s Lockdown PPV and why ratings tell a story with Impact Wrestling regarding which talent is featured.
On tonight’s Lockdown main event going against Bobby Roode for the TNA Championship:
“It’s one of those—I don’t wanna say ‘make-or-break’ matches—but it’s definitely the biggest match of my career so far. There’s a lot of pressure. To me, I think a wrestler’s dream is to headline a huge pay-per-view, be in the World Championship match in his hometown, and ultimately win it. And that’s what I have the opportunity to do in front of my friends and family and all the fans that came to see me when I used to wrestle in Tennessee and Georgia and Kentucky. I know a lot of them are going to come out for me. There’s a lot of pressure on me, but I’m going to handle it just like I do anything else. It’s time for me to step up or shut up, so come Lockdown this Sunday, I’m definitely going to be stepping up. Bobby does his job well. He’s arrogant, he’s playing the heel role to a T. And my job as the babyface is to get the crowd behind me, to get them to want me to kick his ass. And both of us do our jobs.”
On ratings telling a story and why wrestling fans aren’t stupid:
“They bring in these other guys and they put them ahead of us just because they think they’ve got the name recognition and all this, but now I guess they’re learning that the fans don’t want to see them. They want to see guys like us who go out there and give it 110 percent who are not there just to collect a paycheck. It’s politics. That’s basically what it all comes down to. It’s good to have guys who still love the sport of wrestling, who are not there just to collect a paycheck, who want to go out and wrestle their next match like it’s their last match. And I think that’s what TNA needs to get to is the guys that are passionate about this, and they’ll start seeing ratings go up. To me, wrestling fans are not stupid. The company and the higher-ups can say what they want to say, but at the end of the day, wrestling fans know that they want to see wrestling. They don’t care about all these older guys going out and talking all this. It’s a wrestling show—let the guys go out and do what you hired them to do and that’s perform.”
Source: Prowrestling.net