A wasted tag-team opportunity

[Hollywood Naitch]

Justin Credible and Lance Storm were known in the original ECW as "The Impact Players" and became one of the most dominant teams in the history of the promotion, winning the tag-team titles and dominating the division until Storm left to join WCW.

When WWF bought out both WCW and ECW and started the "Invasion" storyline, both Credible and Storm were part of the Alliance. Storm had quite a bit of success, winning the Intercontinental Title while Credible was mainly ignored, and ended up jobbing for most of his WWE career.

While re-watching the Invasion PPV, the 1st match pitted Edge & Christian against the Alliance team of Lance Storm and Mike Awesome....now my question is...why the hell didn't they book E&C to work with The Impact Players?? Storm and Awesome worked together a little bit in WCW as part of Team Canada, but surely using an established, well known tag team like The Impact Players would have been a better option, and given an additional quality team to the WWF Tag Team division after the Invasion ended?

Awesome was big and strong enough to wrestle as a singles competitor, and if you were going to team Storm with anyone, surely it should have been Credible?

We did see a short Impact Players reunion at the 1st One Night Stand PPV, where Justin interfered in the Jericho v Storm match, nailing Y2J with a singapore cane and costing him the match. This got a great reaction.

Would you have liked to have seen an Impact Players together in the WWE? Should they have been a tag-team during the Invasion period? I think they could have had a great feud with the likes of E&C, The Hardyz and pretty much any other team.

Give me your thoughts

 

[El Pee]

Actually I think this could have been a pretty decent idea.

The Invasion did greatly lack in the tag-team department in that Kronik were, in a word, terrible when compared to the Brothers of Destruction, who in my opinion should have been kept as singles competitors, joining up later on for a REAL ass-whooping when needed. Kronik should have feuded more with APA, based on the similar gimmicks the teams had (I may be wrong but didn't Kronik coin the phrase 'Breaking Necks and Cashing Cheques to rip-off APA?).

Anyway I digress, a well rounded tag team such as the Impact Players could have seen a tremendous rivalry with Edge & Christian who were possibly at their peak around this time. The combination of great athletes with a hardcore edge (pun intended) would've been a great showcase of tag teams amongst all the 'big-time' rivalries and maybe could've rolled over once the Invasion angle finished and given Storm and Credible some momentum.

Further to this throw in such as Jindrak and O'Haire continuing the 'young up-starts' angle they had with the New Blood angle along with the Hardys and the whole tag team division around this time could have flourished.

Great thread, and a fine one for my first (non-LD) post.

 

[masonwade313]

is u bored....why would you put up an utterly useless blog talking about something so old it has no merit... the impact players..come on now..these blogs is getting more and more stupid... aldo montoya---oops i mean justin credible sucked and Storm was as dry and bland as any boring wrestler i ever saw. the team sucked..they sucked. nuff said. the greatest team was Perry Saturn and John Kronus "the Eliminators"

 

[Justin Satiable]

As you may have noticed, I'm somewhat of a Justin Credible fan...

I LOVED their work in ECW. The technical prowess was a welcome break from the extreme, and in all honesty, was actually very entertaining. Their pose was memorable, their presence was indeniable, and they got it done in the ring. So I guess I agree with you here. I'm marking huge for some reason, but I really did love a lot about the original ECW, including the technical displays of Lance Storm.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

As you may have noticed, I'm somewhat of a Justin Credible fan...

I LOVED their work in ECW. The technical prowess was a welcome break from the extreme, and in all honesty, was actually very entertaining. Their pose was memorable, their presence was indeniable, and they got it done in the ring. So I guess I agree with you here. I'm marking huge for some reason, but I really did love a lot about the original ECW, including the technical displays of Lance Storm.

I am glad you agree.

While Storm was undoubtably the better worker of the two- he was a fantastic technical wrestler, I always thought that Credible had the potential to do pretty well in the 'E, but was underused badly.

He was not anything special, but I thought he could have had some pretty decent feuds at around European Title level, and I was always a fan of his in-ring work.

Storm ended up in the Un-Americans tag team, and had a bit of success there too, but if he was going to be put in the tag-team division, it should have been in the Impact Players. They had "it" in my eyes, and could have been a very good addition to the Tag Team Division. If teams like Too Cool could get the straps, then the IP should too.

 

[Foshinzo]

is u bored....why would you put up an utterly useless blog talking about something so old it has no merit... the impact players..come on now..these blogs is getting more and more stupid... aldo montoya---oops i mean justin credible sucked and Storm was as dry and bland as any boring wrestler i ever saw. the team sucked..they sucked. nuff said. the greatest team was Perry Saturn and John Kronus "the Eliminators"

While I agree that Justin Credible wasn't ever exciting to me either, he and Lance Storm were good workers, which is what the majority of wrestling is based on. I'd even go as far to say Lance Storm is one of my all-time favorite pure-workers. Sure, his promos sucked, but I hate that people are so fascinated with mic skills, on the Internet. I guess it's not just enough for a guy to go out and put on good, sometimes great matches. We all have to be The Rock; we have to talk better than we..y'know, actually wrestle. I'm not saying that Lance Storm is better than the Rock, because I doubt even Lance Storm would say that, but let's not be so harsh.

I know I haven't stood up for Justin Credible much, but I kind of stopped getting ECW tapes probably before he even started wrestling. I was in college at the time and the tapes got expensive, at least where I was buying them from, so I didn't even really know who he was until the company was bought. Still, he too was a good worker and the duo probably could have carried tag titles on that premise alone, were it not for the fact that WWE had the Dudleys, E&C, and the Hardys during these years. I think they could have still been a good team, though, so I agree with the OP that the E probably missed a chance, there.

 

[El Pee]

is u bored....why would you put up an utterly useless blog talking about something so old it has no merit... the impact players..come on now..these blogs is getting more and more stupid... aldo montoya---oops i mean justin credible sucked and Storm was as dry and bland as any boring wrestler i ever saw. the team sucked..they sucked. nuff said. the greatest team was Perry Saturn and John Kronus "the Eliminators"

Please if you're going to make a comment don't make yourself look daft. Looking at the number of posts you've made we're both 'rookies' but it doesn't take much of a brain to see this is in the OLD SCHOOL SECTION, so your comment of 'so old it has no merit'....erm.... really has no merit.

Justin Credible didn't suck, he wasn't a sure-fire superstar but he was a very good tag team wrestler, as his time with Storm proved. With Storm, that was the purpose of his gimmick, he didn't go out to be flash and dance around, he was serious about his profession and went about his business in a direct and clinical way.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

is u bored....why would you put up an utterly useless blog talking about something so old it has no merit... the impact players..come on now..these blogs is getting more and more stupid... aldo montoya---oops i mean justin credible sucked and Storm was as dry and bland as any boring wrestler i ever saw. the team sucked..they sucked. nuff said. the greatest team was Perry Saturn and John Kronus "the Eliminators"

What are your talking about, this is the "OLD SCHOOL SECTION", where the whole point is to discuss wrestling from the past- WWF/WCW/ECW etc.

Justin Credible didn't suck. He wasn't great, and would never have been WWF Champion, but Lance Storm had real talent. He was a fantastic WRESTLER, and he did his entertaining in the ring, like Dean Malenko, like Chris Benoit.

If you don't appreciate his work then fair enough, I am guessing since you like The Eliminators (who were a great team) so much, that I suggest you go and watch Perry Saturn running around with a mop, and we will go and watch a quality Lance Storm match

 

[The Hardcore Kid]

Good call, and I agree. I've always been a big fan of the Impact Players. They were one of the most important tag teams in the original ECW, and Storm was awesome in WCW. No idea why they just didn't team them up at all. Maybe they thought it had been too long for them to team back up or something, since by that point Storm was a solidified singles competitor in WCW and Credible was still in ECW.

 

[Jeff]

Regardless if you liked or hated Lance Storm and Justin Credible the fact of the matter is they would of made a better team then Storm and Awesome.

However though, after doing some research (Wikipedia lol), you have to realize a few things. Justin Credible was a part of the WWF at the time the Invasion Angle started. On July 9th, he joined the Alliance as a part of the ECW side of things. Lance Storm was apart of the Alliance on the WCW side. Although we know the history of Lance Storm, the WWF audience wasn't really suppose to. In the average fans eyes Lance was a WCW guy and Justin Credible was a ECW guy, although in reality Lance should of been a ECW guy. Also WWE was clearly trying to keep the more Hardcore guys with ECW and the more traditional guys with WCW. Lance Storm never shouted out Hardcore wrestler for the average wrestling fan.

Now, A few weeks later Lance Storm won the Intercontinental Championship and was receiving a push, which may have been a reason why WWE didn't want to team them together.

Also as a side note, everyone is saying Edge and Christian should have feuded with Lance and Credible, remember that this was on the verge of Edge breaking out and becoming a top singles wrestler. A month earlier Edge won the King of the Ring and shortly after Edge and Christian will break up and feud over the Intercontinental Championship Edge won at SummerSlam, over none other then Lance Storm.

Also remember that Justin Credible just came out of a tag team with X-Pac in the X-Factor. I am sure WWE was also looking at Justin Credible and wanted to see what he could do as a singles wrestler.

What it comes down to is they were giving Storm the opportunity to potentially become a star rather then being stuck as a tag team wrestler. Now we all know Lance Storm never became that break out star but Edge certainly did. I think if WWE could go back in time and do it again, I think putting the Impact players together would of been the best bet and maybe have them feud against the APA or Too Cool.

Great post.

 

[bxbigshow]

What sucks is I believe there was a Sunday Night Heat or something, but defintiely not ONS, where they did have a match together. And they ended in the IP pose.

I remeber this because SNHeat also had the first WWE match between Jerry Lynn and RVD, and I was pissed that WWE was moving these great moments to the Sunday taped show.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

What sucks is I believe there was a Sunday Night Heat or something, but defintiely not ONS, where they did have a match together. And they ended in the IP pose.

I remeber this because SNHeat also had the first WWE match between Jerry Lynn and RVD, and I was pissed that WWE was moving these great moments to the Sunday taped show.

I was not aware that Credible and Storm tagged together on Heat. I used to watch that show quite often but must have missed that one. As far as I was aware the only time we saw them together was at ONS after Justin interfeared in Storm's match. I am glad that they did team together at least once though, they were a great team.

I did see the RVD v Lynn match, and while not being up to the standard of their ECW classics, it was still a good match and far above the usual quality of Heat. The WWF had the opportunity to bring that great feud to the masses and it WOULD have been a big success, but for some reason they decided to ignore it and just put the match on Heat, which is such a shame.

Jerry Lynn's WWF career was such a slap in the face for a talented guy. He never even made it onto a single PPV, and when he was healthy again they refused to put him in the Alliance, where all the other ECW guys were. He was injured at the start but when he was fit, he went to Vince and asked to be involved and was told there was no spot for him.

Guess Hugh Morrus, Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo were better options huh? Disgrace in my eyes, Lynn was a quality performer. Still is today.