James Storm has stated that he was supposed to make his WWE main roster debut with the company after WrestleMania 36. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
Storm told Pro Wrestling Sheet that he was first approached by WWE during Royal Rumble weekend. Dave Lagana and Billy Corgan even allowed Storm to be let out of his NWA contract early.
“I get home and I see I got an email from Canyon Ceman saying, ‘Hey, we’re interested. Paul Heyman wants me to reach out and bring you to Raw,” Storm said. “I was like, ‘Wait … I think Bobby is going to Raw. Hmmm. This could be interesting.’ Ya know?”
“I told them I would work the weekend of WrestleMania shows with Eli [Drake] to drop the NWA belts to whoever they wanted to drop it to,” Storm told Satin. “Just go out on good terms. Good business, ya know? Then that show got cancelled for the NWA, and then it kept snowballing.”
After WrestleMania, he was preparing to make his WWE debut and for WWE’s pre-signing physical and bought new gear.
The deal had been done, and he had signed. However, he was told by management that things were being put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Storm debuted in NXT during the October 2015 tapings and later appeared on a December episode before deciding against signing with WWE NXT to instead return to Impact Wrestling.
