The duo of James Storm and Bobby Roode, collectively known as Beer Money, is one of the most iconic tag teams in modern wrestling history, and there is a crazy story behind the two TNA originals becoming partners.
The Cowboy recently had an interview with Chris Van Vliet where he talked about things such as his start in wrestling, never signing with WWE in his career, his TNA World title run, and more.
During the interview, the former TNA star also talked about the origin of the Beer Money tag team. He revealed that Dutch Mantel put them together because their contract was coming up. According to the former champion, the company actually intended to let both of them go if the pairing did not work:
We were coming to the end of our contracts, and I don’t think they really knew what to do with us. So Dutch, he was just like, ‘Just put them together. If anything, we fire them together.’ That’s how I got the Dutch was looking at it.\
Just Act Fools: James Storm
James Storm and Bobby Roode were both TNA originals, and they had worked with each other on occasion before. Though they really became a proper tag team and got their name in 2008. Together, they would go on to win the TNA tag titles a record five times. Beer Money also holds the record for both the longest single and combined title reigns as tag champions in TNA history.
In his early run with the company, Storm was part of another tag team dubbed America\’s Most Wanted with Chris Harris. He explained that Beer Money was different because both the stars had been established by that point, and they could just go out there to have fun:
\”So they put us together, and me and Bob was like, You know what? We’re gonna make the best of this. We’re gonna do what we can to it. The thing with Bobby is, whereas me and Chris had to rely on each other, me and Bobby was already kind of established, so we can just go out there and have fun and just act fools. So they had us as heels, and I made up some dumb merchandise that said Beer Money on it.\
Apart from this, James Storm also revealed that they came up with the team name during a casual conversation with Eric Young. They originally intended to annoy the audience with it but it soon caught on and became a popular phrase.