Lance Storm believes WCW missed an opportunity to turn him into a “god in Canada” with the booking of his Canadian Rules match against Mike Awesome.

Speaking with Denise Salcedo, Storm explained why he disliked his match against Awesome at the WCW New Blood Rising pay-per-view in Vancouver on August 13, 2000. Storm retained his United States Championship, which he had renamed the Canadian Heavyweight Championship, after special referee Jacques Rougeau repeatedly invoked “Canadian Rules” to restart the match after Awesome had seemingly won.

Storm feels the booking of the match would have made far more sense had it taken place in the United States.

Storm said:

“Well, the thing was if we’d had done it in the States, I’d have been all for it. But they did it in Vancouver and we drew a really good house full of people that wanted to cheer me as a babyface. And they did a gimmick where I went out there and got beat like four times in one night, completely buried by Mike Awesome, and then cheated to win at the end. And it’s like, no one here wants this.

“And it’s like if they’d had done it in the States and everyone in the building hated me and it would have gotten heat, then I’d be all for it. But it was in the wrong place. And to be perfectly honest, because it was in Canada and we had the Bret Hart thing at the end and the fact that Mike Awesome was about three weeks away from going to That ’70s Guy, if I’d had just gone into Vancouver and if they just let Mike and I have the match we could have had in 20 minutes on pay-per-view and I just beat him clean and Bret Hart came out to endorse me, I’d have been a god in Canada.”

However, Storm also mentioned that the night was one of the biggest moments of his career.

He continued:

“That was the most over-responsive crowd I’ve ever worked in front of. Like the reaction when I came through the curtain in Vancouver, and then the ovation Bret got. I couldn’t even hear Jacques beside me talking in my ear, and I can’t hear him from the ovation Bret got. And then just the three of us standing in that ring in Vancouver, like it was, as far as a real emotional, ‘Holy crap, this is really cool,’ it was one of the biggest moments of my career.

“So it’s not like I hate the whole experience, but there is the, if it wasn’t for this goofy booking and doing it in the wrong country, because they’re like, ‘Oh, it’d be great heat.’ I’m like, ‘Not to anyone here.’”

Storm regularly co-hosts Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez, Tom Lawlor and others. 

The New Blood Rising pay-per-view drew a reported 6,614 fans to the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. The main event saw Booker T retain the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Jeff Jarrett.

Storm’s full interview with Denise Salcedo is available below. The video is queued to his comments about New Blood Rising.