Former WWE star Shane “Hurricane” Helms is wrestling’s superhero, and while he may not have plans on making the leap to the silver screen like some of his colleagues have, he knows what comic book franchise he’d like to join.
With former WWE Champion Dave Bautista nailing his role as Drax the Destroyer, John Cena landing a part in Bumblebee, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson dawning a cape as Black Adam, it’s a good time to be a wrestler looking to hop into the world of comic book movies.
For someone like Helms who grew up a comic fan, he thinks he could make the leap into the movie industry, but he’s not sure it’s something he’d want to do. To many fans, hearing Helms turn down a possible superhero role might seem a little odd. He owns over 1,800 comic books, has a green lantern tattoo, and he performs as an in-ring superhero on a nightly basis, but he’s happy where he is in life.
“I’ve got a big family farm out here in North Carolina and for me to take myself away from that would be very difficult at this point,” says Helms.
Coming to prominence in the late 1990’s in WCW as part of the boy-band wrestling faction Three Count, Helms made an even bigger splash debuting in the WWE as The Hurricane, a superhero-like character who could be a little goofy, but always entertaining. He picked up his first victory over The Rock, and the rest was history. It solidified him as a household name—one that most wrestling fans recognize. He worked with the WWE for a decade before moving on to Lucha Libre USA, and IMPACT, but now, at the age of 43, he’s working the independent scene. While he’s happy plying his trade around the world, if a role came knocking on his door, he knows exactly who he’d want to play.
“They just announced a Green Lantern Corps movie, not just one of the Green Lanterns but the entire corps, and I think I should at least get a cameo in that,” says Helms. “ When I first started with the WWE and they didn’t have any T-shirts for me, fans would show up wearing Green Lantern shirts because of my tattoo. So Green Lantern shirts sales went up, and DC comics… saw someone was representing one of their characters on TV, so I developed a good relationship with some of the guys [there] and they took me to their office in New York and they just dumped all this swag on me, like boxes and boxes of stuff.”
Interestingly enough, that tattoo—along with the keen eyes from fans–landed him his first official WWE shirt as the company saw fans trying to support their new favorite wrestler by wearing Green Lantern merch. His logo is a clear nod to the comic series as well.
While we probably won’t see Helms dawning a lantern, fans of his can catch him in Ring of Honor as he makes his debut for the promotion. He’s announced for three shows where fans can see a series of fresh match-up they’ve never seen in his two-decade-long career. His first appearance is on June 15, 2018, in San Antonio, Texas, when he teams with Cheeseburger and Delirious. Then on June 16, 2018, in Dallas, Texas, he will team with Delirious again to take on Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian. After that, on June 30, 2018, he’ll appear at ROH’s show in Fairfax Virginia.
