Toni Storm (born Toni Rossall on October 19, 1995 in Auckland, New Zealand) is an Australian professional wrestler trained by Dean Allmark, currently signed to AEW.
She debuted on October 9, 2009 at her home country's Impact Pro Wrestling promotion while she was 13 years old, and five years later made the move to the United Kingdom to improve herself, though she performed across most of Europe. In 2015, she signed for PROGRESS Wrestling and became the first-ever women's champion after defeating Jinny and Laura Di Matteo in May 2017. She also performed on the Japanese joshi promotion World Wonder Ring ST★RDOM. In addition, she is a 1x AAW Women's Champion, 1x BEW Women's Champion, 1x IPW Australia Women's Champion, 1x IPW Australian Cruiserweight Champion, 1x IPW Australian Hardcore Champion, 2x PWAQ Women's Champion, 1x PROGRESS Women's Champion, 2x wXw Women's Champion, 1x SWA World Championship and 1x World of Stardom Champion. She also won several tournaments and ranked in 19th place in the 2018 PWI Female 50's category of "Female Singles Wrestlers".
Her story with the WWE began during the 2014 Australian tryouts of the company while it was touring on the country. She also took part in the 2015 WWE UK Tour. In June 2017, she was announced as one of the competitors for the inaugural edition of the Mae Young Classic tournament, where she eliminated Ayesha Raymond, Lacey Evans and Piper Niven before losing in the semifinals against eventual winner Kairi Sane. A year later, she was announced as a new signee for the company and became the #1 contender for the NXT Women's Championship, defeating both Killer Kelly and Isla Dawn. In that same year, she became the winner of the second MYC tournament (defeating Io Shirai at the highly-lauded WWE Evolution PPV), and in 2019 became the second NXT UK Champion after defeating Rhea Ripley at NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool. Sadly, after her reign in NXT UK ended, she fell off the planet in terms of use on the main roster, and then after a brief period of intense misuse, she asked for her release from WWE, which was granted on December 29, 2021.
On the March 30, 2022 episode of Dynamite, Storm made her debut for AEW. That September at All Out, she claimed the interim AEW Women's World Championship, which had been vacated due to lineal champion Thunder Rosa being injured. Storm dropped the interim title to Jamie Hayter that November at Full Gear. Several days later, Thunder Rosa vacated her claim to the title, and Storm's interim reign was retconned into an official reign. Storm defeated Hayter at Double or Nothing in May 2023 to reclaim the title. She then dropped the title to Hikaru Shida in August 2, 2023 on the 200th episode of Dynamite. In the weeks following this loss, Toni, having suffered a mental breakdown in losing her title, started calling herself "Timeless" Toni Storm, and started seeing her life as a motion picture, an homage to Norma Desmond complete with a butler. At Full Gear on November 18, 2023, she defeated Shida to win the title for a record-tying third time, and she is currently the title's holder.
"Chin up, tits out, and watch for the tropes!"
- Action Girl: By age 23, Toni had already proven herself to be one of the best women's wrestlers on the planet. She even won the second Mae Young Classic by beating Io Shirai, who many claim may be the best female wrestler in the world.
- Amazonian Beauty: While she looks like a Cute Bruiser, she has visibly toned muscles.
- Ass Kicks You: Uses her (not insignificant) butt against a seated opponent.
- Awesome Aussie: Though born in New Zealand, she grew up in Gold Coast, Queensland, having moved there when her parents separated when she was 4.
- Berserk Button: Afger becoming "Timeless", she becomes furious whenever somebody upstages her.
- Character Catch Phrase:
- "It's Toni time!"
- Since becoming "Timeless," she's ended her interviews with "Chin up, tits out, and watch for the shoes!" with a peculiar enunciation of "shoes".
- Deliberately Monochrome: After going "Timeless", Toni's entrances and pre-taped segments have been rendered in black and white, and remain so even when it cuts back to other wrestlers in the same segment (such as Hikaru Shida) who remain in color. Her match graphics also have her in black and white, with only red lipstick as the sole color.
- The Dragon: Became one to Saraya upon both of them turning Heel in 2023.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- On the November 25, 2020 episode of NXT, Toni attacked Ember Moon, thus turning heel, and joined the Candice LeRae team with Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez for NXT WarGames.
- Happened again in AEW, with herself and Saraya attacking Willow Nightingale. This got cemented as both Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter have turned Face.
- Facial Markings: She used to have black war paint beneath her right eye.
- Finishing Move:
- A Tiger Driver called "Storm Zero". She also has the Air Raid Crash.
- Back in Stardom and on the indies, her finisher was a piledriver called "Strong Zero." It was changed to the aforementioned "Storm Zero" (which was called the "Strong Zero" for a bit before changing it) because the piledriver is banned in WWE and their developmental system (with exceptions for the Tombstone Piledriver and the Canadian Destroyer). Storm went back to the "Strong Zero" piledriver in her AEW debut, but it was renamed "Storm Zero" as the Best Friends already have a move named "Strong Zero".
- In a match against Zoey Stark on the May 18, 2021 episode of NXT, she debuted a new finisher which is a modified version of the Ruby Cutter, a move that is innovated by her mentor, Dean Allmark. The difference is that Toni's version drops into a DDT instead of a cutter. She then uses the regular Ruby Cutter as her finisher (now called the "Storm One") in her WWE SmackDown debut.
- As "Timeless" Toni Storm, she's adopted an ankle lock called "Break a Leg".
- Genki Girl: For a while, she smiled in almost every picture of her and usually appeared very hyped. This ended with the introduction of her "Timeless" gimmick, which is The Comically Serious.
- Large Ham: Her "Timeless" character is this in spades, being so gloriously over the top with her prima donna rants and antics. Just watch her Portrait of a Star interviews here
. - Ms. Fanservice: She's a good-looking woman with gear that shows quite a lot of skin similar to Paige's but with more emphasis on her large backside. And this was before she got released from WWE. After her requested release, she infamously opened an OnlyFans account and proceeded to make enough money off the ensuing subscriptions to eclipse most female wrestlers' yearly contracts in a single day.
- Occidental Otaku: Studied Japanese in high school.
- The Prima Donna: Became one after losing the Women's World Champion title to Hikaru Shida on the 200th episode of Dynamite, regularly throwing temper tantrums and acting overdramatic during interviews as a result of being dethroned for a second time. By All In a month later, her gimmick had evolved into a Marilyn Monroe-esque Hollywood starlet (with a few cues taken from Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard as noted above) who, among other things, throws shoes at the backstage interviewers.
- Punk Rock: Essentially what her persona was when she was with The Outcasts. Leather jackets, bandannas, sunglasses and studs were usually included in her entrance gear.
- Shorttank: Her Outcasts persona was Genki Girl with a blatant Tomboyish get-up complete with guitar riffs as her entrance theme.
- Sanity Slippage: Toni did not take losing the AEW Women's World Championship at Dynamite 200 well at all, eventually turning into the shoe-throwing White-Dwarf Starlet she's now known as.
- Signature Move: A Double Underhook Powerbomb, a Fisherman's Suplex onto Knee combo, a German Suplex, a Guillotine Legdrop, a Hip Attack and a Suicide Dive.
- Tomboyish Baseball Cap: Used to wear one in her entrance (see page image).
- Tournament Arc:
- Won PROGRESS's "Natural Progression Series IV", STARDOM's "Cinderella Tournament 2017" and "5-STAR Grand Prix 2017", and wXw's "Femmes Fatales 2017" tournaments.
- Competed in and won the 2018 Mae Young Classic.
- Came up short in the NXT UK Women's Championship Tournament, however, losing to Rhea Ripley.
- Use Your Head: Headbutts are some of her most frequent forms of striking.
- Vocal Evolution; In the switch to "Timeless", Toni's accent went from Australian to Mid-Atlantic.
- We Used to Be Friends:
- Used to be roommates and best friends with fellow wrestler Jamie Hayter. However, upon Jamie Hayter's return to AEW, she allied up with one of Toni's enemies, Britt Baker, which led to their friendship to fall apart.
- After losing her title and going full starlet, an accidental assault to Sweet Saraya as well as some cheating by Saraya at Toni's expense at All In London drove a wedge between her and the Outcasts. This eventually culminated in Toni completely betraying them at All Out, stopping Ruby from cheating in her match against Kris Statlander and officially leaving the faction.
- Used to be best friends with Deonna Purrazzo years prior to either of them coming to AEW. However, after Deonna joined the promotion, Toni's drastic change in personality and Deonna's intentions to take Toni's title as Women's World Champion has led to them becoming bitter enemies.
