Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Throughout the history of pro wrestling bookers and promoters have always tried to come up with new, creative and innovative ideas to generate interest in their product. Some ideas have not only succeeded but flourished. Others were DOA from the get-go. Then there are those ideas which initially were innovative but for various reasons, faded away. Those are the focus of this latest series of posts titled ‘Great Ideas That Didn’t Last’. Today’s piece focuses on TNA’s ill-fated faction the Death Crew Council aka The DCC.
The Death Crew Council or the DCC for short was a very short-lived faction in TNA wrestling starting in 2016. The gimmick was the brainchild of both Billy Corgan and James Storm. The backstory was that the ‘Cowboy’ James Storm was suspended indefinitely by TNA president Billy Corgan for threatening to physically harm Corgan. The news was spread to various wrestling news outlets that Storm had some legitimate heat backstage and left the company. The only problem was Billy Corgan had a falling out with Dixie Carter and left TNA before the angle really got started.
TNA management then had to alter the entire gimmick and how it was to be presented. The DCC were introduced with a series of extremely cryptic vignettes building up to their arrival. Their voices were altered and they wore black suits and very creepy white masks.The DCC would tease that they weren’t heels or faces but rather a group that would restore order in TNA. For the next couple of weeks, the DCC came out and viciously attacked the TNA tag team champions the Broken Hardys and the TNA world champion Eddie Edwards.
In November of 2016, the DCC unasked and revealed themselves to be Bram, newcomer Eddie Kingston and none other than James Storm. They would feud briefly with the Hardys causing Matt Hardy to suffer amnesia after falling off a forklift. They also went after Eddie Edwards in a couple of matches. The thing was, after Billy Corgan had left TNA, the gimmick was dead in the water.
The DCC began falling apart after a series of botched matches that left infighting within the group. Ultimately, James Storm was turned babyface when both Bram and Kingston blamed their problems on Storm’s leadership. Eddie Kingston would spit in Storm’s face and the Storm would take out the other two members. In doing that, the gimmick was abruptly ended after roughly only five months together.
According to James Storm, the original plan for the gimmick was James Storm getting suspended by Corgan and Storm would assault TNA producer ‘Big’ John Gaburick backstage. Storm would be then be arrested by police and disappear for a few months. Storm also said that the DCC was originally going to have four members. The mysterious fourth member would be revealed at the Slammiversary pay per view. James Storm was to challenge Bobby Lashley on the show and the fourth masked member would interfere on Storm’s behalf, helping him win the TNA world title.
After Storm won the belt, the fourth member was going to be revealed as former TNA founder Jeff Jarrett. All of those plans were scrapped once Corgan left the promotion and TNA management wanted to distance themselves away from Corgan’s creative ideas. While we will never know how or if the Death Crew Council gimmick would have truly worked, we do know it never had a real chance to succeed. That is a shame considering that there were such big plans for it initially.