What Toni Storm Needed From WWE During “Very Lost” Run
Toni Storm has lifted the lid on her ill-fated time in WWE and what she needed the company to give her.
Toni Storm has reached the level of a bona fide superstar in AEW as she embraced her inner “Timeless” movie star. Storm has gone on to unparalleled popularity with fans while also claiming unrivalled success in the ring as a four-time AEW Women’s World Champion. Storm has more reigns with that title and more days as champion than any other woman in All Elite Wrestling’s history. A stat that is all the more remarkable given that she didn’t debut in AEW until March 2022.
Prior to becoming All Elite, Toni Storm was part of the WWE roster, graduating from NXT UK and NXT before landing on SmackDown in July 2021. Storm’s time in the company came to a shocking end when she asked for her release after flying herself home from a show in December 2021.
Toni Storm Craved Direction In WWE
Speaking on the Marking Out podcast, Toni Storm gave some insight into what she lacked during her time in WWE, as she wished the company had given her some direction:
In the WWE, I don’t think I was told what to do enough. I wasn’t told to do anything, actually. I wasn’t told like, I mean, obviously you were told what to do under certain circumstances. But overall, I don’t feel like I was told what to do enough. I was very lost.
I mean, there’s direction in things like, ‘This is how you do it, this is what you do, this is what you do on television, this is cameras.’ But then, I guess in regards to a character — I was never like, I mean they write promos, but like I was just kind of — just did it. I wasn’t really told like, ‘Do this. Today you’re a cat and this is your character. Your name’s bloody Tori Smith.’
No one told me anything. And I kept my name the whole time, and it was like I had complete creative freedom to be honest. I saw where others didn’t and others were given things. So it’s a very difficult thing for me to grasp. Am I getting too deep?
As far as her character went, Storm admitted that she’d have tried anything WWE came up with:
I would have done anything, to be honest. That’s the weird thing about this. If they had just given me some mad off-the-wall thing, I would have just 100 percent gone with it. I can honestly say that.