Toni Storm Discusses What It Was Like For Her To Begin Her Wrestling Career At 13-Years Old
It’s Toni-time whenever she steps in the ring.
The 22-year old punk-rock enthusiast Toni Storm has her face and skills showcased all over the wrestling scene at the moment. Storm is a part of the Mae Young Classic and she will be in the finals of the tournament with Io Shirai at WWE ‘Evolution’ on October 28th. Storm is also a part of the NXT U.K. brand and she competed on the very first episode of NXT U.K. this past Wednesday and picked up a victory over Nina Samuels. Storm is also regularly featured in PROGRESS Wrestling in-which she was the promotion’s first-ever Women’s Champion.
At the age of 22 things are moving fast for Toni but she has everything down packed and with everything on the up and up for her, ESPN profiled the Aussie and asked her what was it like to begin training to become a pro wrestler at the age of 13.
“I was a fan when I was about 10, to begin with. I found a school that let you start training at 12. When I was 13, I found it and I begged my mom for ages to let me go, and she wasn’t letting me go and it was expensive to train and everything but then eventually she let me do it.” Toni shared. “She would pay my fee by selling hot dogs at the shows that they would run. I wrestled in a little shed, I wrestled in front of moms and dads. It was borderline backyarding, but it was still a company. I got started then, and it was ridiculous and a silly age to start, but I’m glad I did it because now I have all of this experience and that helps.” She continued speaking about what exactly she was doing in the ring at that young age, “It was mainly matches, but when I was 14 or 15 I did loads of hardcore matches and stuff like that. I wrestled with the guys most of the time, because there weren’t many girls. Street signs, chairs — all kinds of crazy stuff. Then I got older and realized I need to kind of save my body if I’m going to be doing this for a long time, so I stopped doing all that kind of thing. But there was a time when I was growing up where I would do hardcore matches and death matches and that type of stuff.” Toni revealed.
Toni Storm was a part of the STARDOM roster in Japan for two years and work a physical style in the promotion and in women’s wrestling promotions all over the country. Toni was asked about her physical style of wrestling and she stated that women have been doing this for years and further elaborated on her comment.
“Women have done that kind of stuff for years all over the world. You only need to watch the Japanese wrestling to know how brutal it is and see that women can follow the guys. It’s fine — we’re just as brutal sometimes.” She laughed. “You only need to watch a Meiko Satomura match to know how physical and how brutal it is. Women have been doing that for years and now finally people are going to start seeing how we’re tougher than the guys.”
Toni Storm also spoke about the possibility of competing at WrestleMania or women main-eventing the spectacle, and more. To read the full interview with Toni, click here.
On a related note, Toni is storming through the Mae Young Classic tournament and over at the Fightful Select service, Mr. Warren Hayes is reviewing every episode of the M.Y.C.
