Don Callis was recently on Figure 4 Daily with Lance Storm and discussed working promos with talent. He spoke about seeing Johnny Impact as a world championship level talent back when he was first starting out, and said he’s not sure why he never got to the top level with WWE, but has always felt like Johnny was an elite level star:
“I really enjoyed working with Johnny IMPACT a lot. He is a guy, it’s funny you know like there’s very few things in that kind of gap of like 12 or 13 years when I never watched wrestling when I was off, he was always one guy that I remembered from like whatever year it was that I first saw him as Johnny Nitro and I always went like, ‘Man that guy has just got everything. He is for sure gonna be heavyweight champion’. And then he wasn’t and I don’t know what happened along the way with WWE or whatever but I always felt like this guy is a can’t miss.”
Callis went on to address Johnny’s critics, talking about his lack of ability to cut a good promo, but he said labels like a ‘bad promo’ can stick with a talent. He compared the situation to Storm and Justin Credible in ECW, saying you need to take time to learn about talent and have things be more reality based than trying to create a false character for them.
“He’s got everything and it’s like ‘oh people don’t like his promos’ or whatever. I just think sometimes the promo thing is about letting people be who they are and getting people comfortable, because as soon as you label someone, ‘oh the promos aren’t great’ then all of a sudden that gets in their head and it’s hard. And I saw it in ECW with PJ Polaco and to a lesser extent you (Lance Storm) where it’s like you guys weren’t great promos and Paul (Heyman) tried very hard and worked… I was there for most of those late nights of take 30 and part of what I try not to do, and it’s not a knock on Paul, but it’s like sometimes I would find Paul would tell you guys what to say and he would almost do it in your voice or in PJ’s voice. So I try to stay away from that. When I work with talent I try to kind of get to know them and sometimes that takes some time.”
“It’s just kind of those little things that as you kind of get to know the person, because I am a big believer, it has to be kind of based in reality. You could never have taken Lance Storm and said, ‘okay, I want you to talk like Chris Jericho or Ricky Morton or whatever’. That’s not you. That’s stupid. So you have to find what’s real and you have to get people comfortable and you have to gain their trust and for me, my thing is look, if I can work with, me who is supposedly a good promo, if I can work with someone and make them better in that area as an example and not make it my vision for them but make it a collaboration in terms of how they actually are in real life then it’s going to become real. That to me is fun. Uncovering those things.”
Read More: Lance Storm On Fans Wanting Everyone To Be A Top Guy, Why Lower Card Talent Still Have Value
The full show can be seen here.
Transcription credit to Himanshu D via Wrestlezone.com
