@@JGD185 Friday Nights for us in the UK. 9pm Nitro... 10pm Raw. My bro, and 2 close friends would watch every week. Sadly one of y good friends is no longer with us. I miss them days so much.
I don't know how people can't like Mike Tenay. Growing up I learned so much professional wrestling history and what moves were called by him. Mad respect for Tenay.
Right!? I never heard anyone say they didn't like "The Professor" Iron Mike Tenay! I always loved his commentary because he was just such a wrestling nerd encyclopedia! I enjoyed hearing all the names of the more exotic maneuvers, the wrestlers from Japan and abroad's bios and information, and Mike was always a highlight in the announce booth on Thunder or Nitro, or even Worldwide or Saturday Night! I also really enjoyed seeing him in TNA/Impact Wrestling later on, too, when I'd watch it on occasion!
WCW has the money could do anything sign who they feel like Have WCW without the stupid contracts and Poor creative it could of beat WWE and ECW. ECW was good with there working agreement With WWE getting Tazz, Al snow ect it was Hardcore but didn't have the big budget you could co promote Pay per views with WWE or WCW to make money
@@_Bruzzi Sting thrived when he was doing absolutely nothing other than standing in the rafters for eight months. When they had to actually book him, it went so badly.
Because most of the audience was compose of idiot jocks that like to fu*** their own american football helmet, because the cheerleader broke up with them.
I’ve seen countless...absolutely count. less. people refer to him as complete and utter feces, however I’ve always enjoyed his commentary for the most part. For example, he FAR outpaces M. COLE as a “play by play” wrestling commentator, and that’s by a lot.
Wwe did smackdown rite you diddent need cable to watch it upn network television all you needed was a antenna. For a poor kid that liked wrestling it was great.
As a poor kid growing up it was awesome to finally watchWWF on regular TV. Up until then friends would tell me what happened on RAW. There was a spanish channel segment of WWF on regular tv but it was a lot of unknown wrestlers and no audience lol.
Yeah in the beginning later when the brands split in like 04 it was so hard to watch smackdown had to buy a package with certain channels luckily I learned to find em online but in the beginning 00-01 it was great Mondays RAW/Nitro, Thursday Thunder,& Fridays Smackdown
The fact they at one point considered making Thunder the WCW show while Nitro is the NWO show just says a lot about how much NWO had overtook WCW in the worst way possible.
Die NWO hatte das Problem das sie sich nie weiter entwickelten. Betrügereien und schlechte Matches gingen über Jahre. NWO Nitro hätten funktionieren können wenn sie ,die NWO, wirklich alles geändert hätten ohne diese typischen Heel Manches mit endlosen eingriffen.Hogan als "Boss " von Nitro mit Hall und Nash als 2&3 die in harten Fällen eingreifen, einen neuen Team bei den Kommentatoren und ab und an Übergriffen von den WC Thunder Leuten.Aber ansonsten cooles Wrestling.Das wurde halt nie zuende gebookt.
@@Loewenzahnfanclub Die Tatsache, dass sich immer Leute von der nWo einmischten und die Matches dadurch größtenteils in einer Disqualifikation endeten war für mich einer der Gründe warum WCW unterging. Einmischungen in Matches passierten viel zu oft. Alles war vorhersehbar und man wusste als Fan schon, dass sich das Ende eines Matches in dieser Richtung (Disqualifikation) entwickeln würde. Fand das wirklich schade. Ich mochte WCW eigentlich sehr. Schade, dass es so kommen musste.
I always saw the breakdown of roles at the commentary booth as follows: Schiavone: corporate pitch man and straight man Tenay: covered the physical aspects and techniques Heenan/Zbyszko: covered the psychology The physical aspects can seem a bit dry to some viewers, so I can believe that some people didn't like Tenay, but it seems that that portion of the audience is larger than I would have thought.
In 1998 thunder was pretty good they had the big stars on it storylines progressing and great matches but by the beginning of 1999 it was an obvious filler show. I always thought the night time city set design and lighting was awesome
Thunder was taped on Tuesday nights at the next town WCW had a show. For instance; after Monday Nitro broadcast live from Atlanta, the next stop was usually Macon, GA. or Greenville, SC. and sometimes Chattanooga, Tennessee. Those shows would be taped and edited to air on Thursdays. That format solved the travel problems for the talent, since most of them would be at the next town anyway, contracted or not...😉👍
Yeah a lot of talent had contracts with limited dates or notices if they made thunder like a show like main event where young or veteran talent get used and work they back to nitro it would be cool
I just wanna say something. As a kid I was big on no interference and the actual clean finishers to end the match! So while Thunder lost touch near the end it was still pretty straight forward. Same goes for Sunday night heat, and Shotgun Saturday Night! I really liked the bottom tier shows cuz I guess I loved the traditional approach rather than the constant interference and what not you'd sometimes get on the main shows
Eric may have a point about about Thunder being the real beginning of the end. But with way Nitro was booked (NWO Nitro being given a test run after NWO Souled Out bombed) dilution and stagnation was already starting to set in without Thunder.
Regardless of what Bischoff says, the way he allowed the finish to Starrcade 97 to happen was the REAL beginning of the end. WCW's real run in terms of legit value was July 96 - Dec 97. That's it.
I slept *during* Thunder. You always knew the predictable outcomes, too. Some heel from nWo would finally lose their belt on the just occurred Nitro, and then 3 seconds after, you'd say to your friend or brother "yeah, he's dropping that to the guy he just won the belt from in the main event on Thunder."
I never understood the distaste for Mike Tenay. I've always loved the Professor. His knowledge of the game and quick on the trigger calls always made him one of the best at the desk. Especially his calls on cruiserweight matches. My guess on the hate is that he's always been at "the competition" and never in WWE, so folk probably hate on him for that.
@BxxDxx Hoodoo He wasn't color. He was the prototypical play-by-play guy. Knowledge was his draw. His personality didn't need to matter. That's what the color guy is there for.
Eric Bischoff may be someone who has mixed results when it comes to his creative direction, but the work he puts in when he’s involved in wrestling, especially WCW, cannot be denied.
Just a great video. I didn't have cable at this time. We were way too poor, so I could only hear about WCW from friends at school. Thank God Smackdown was on free TV at the time. Also, Bret getting startled by the pyro at 21:20 honestly cracked me up lol
I think Thunder would have been easier for WCW to produce if Thunder consisted of Monday Night Nitro highlights and matches that couldn’t make it onto the Nitro program that week due to the runtime.
I liked Thunder for one reason. It was basically the "Cruiserweights and Chris Jericho show". I remember putting Thunder on, and not caring about anything much, but would look up occasionally at the screen while I was working on things, just to get a glimpse of a good cruiseweight match, or to pay attention whenever Chris Jericho was doing something. The rest of the time, Thunder was just background noise.
2 hour Raws are part of what made the Attitude Era great. Nitro was 7-10 while Raw was 8-10 and so you could watch Nitro while waiting for Raw to start.
Man I'm waiting for wrestling bios to start doing some japanese wrestlers . Muta , chono , tanahashi, onita , baba, inoki, etc etc etc the list is endless for international talents that have graced the squared circle ⭕ 🤠
HEY YO! its survey time... How many of you are here to see WCW? How many of you are here for Wresting-Bios? ...survey says... one more for the good guys!!
It helps when Smackdown started that it was used to more people an opportunity and to actually continue many feuds to expand on them. The majority of Thunder was full of meaningless matches that were just put there to fill time.
@@freddiejohnson6137 Ya, Eric was just stretched to thin mentally. He had all the talent in the world to work with lol, WcW had soooooo many wrestlers, and personalities, had Vince McMahon been in that position Thunder probably woulda been amazing.
Nothing strange about a show with fresh action and all the stars outperforms a clear B-Show that does tons of recaps and that most of the stars try to avoid even attending.
Eric and the higher ups were all complaining about WCW being over exposed because of Thunder but that's just lame excuses. They had an enormous roster and still kept pushing NWO down our throats. Their was no ambition to even produce the show as a flag ship. How did Smackdown survived then. At one time SD was better than RAW on a weekly basis. Before the brand split u actually couldn't wait to watch SD that Thursday to follow up.
The reason smackdown was good because it finally came back to regular TV. if you look at on regular TV there was nothing that we had other than WWE Superstars / shotgun Saturday night slash Jack or metal whatever the hell they had.
@@attiepollard7847 Smackdown still produced good quality. We can have a promo on Raw and the 2 stars who did the promo would have a great match on SD. Or if a multiman match was taking place on PPV we'll see a few stars colliede on SD while the others might have appeared on Raw.
Man 1997 was such a huge year for WCW on TV, Luger headlining the main event to win the world title...just a couple weeks later they pulled a 5, unprecedented at the time. Do you know how WCW decided to treat the fans? To a no contest finish between Luger and Savage LOL That is why they failed.
Hey great idea! Eric Bischoff has gone over at length with this but there's still the glaring fact that if Bret was supposed to be the star to build Thunder around why was he there so little? Feels like it became an afterthought within the first few shows.
First match of Thunder - Chris Adams vs. Randy Savage w/Elizabeth My brain: Everybody involved in this match is dead. I really REALLY hate my brain sometimes.
I was watching a Radicalz match the other day and realized they're three dead guys and Dean Malenko. Much like how the Hart Foundation is four dead guys and Bret Hart.
you can't say that because many people didn't know that and it ruins the "they never met before" feeling. When Hogan faced Andre at WM 3 they made it look like as if they had never met before but they had had countless matches before
When WCW was around I didn't have cable, so the only TV Wrestling I could watch was WCW Worldwide on Saturday mornings (an later the addition of WWF Smackdown! on UPN). I looked forward to college so much primarily because the dorms had Cable, and I figured I could watch wrestling 7 days a week, with Thurnder being on Wednesdays at the time. Sundaynight Heat, Mondaynight Nitro (tape Raw and watch it on Tuesday), Thunder Wednesday, Smackdown Thursday, ECW on TNN Friday, and WCW Saturday Night. Alas I graduated HS in 2001 just when ECW and WCW had died. :-( Thankfully I still met my wife in the dorms because we both watched Raw.
One of the problems was that they filmed 2 episodes of Thunder at each taping. Which meant the following Nitro (which was live every week) had to work around what they had done for the taped Thunder that would be airing that Thursday.
I was in high school at the time and really enjoyed anything they put out. Looking back on it, it probably wasn’t good for WCW’s longevity. Two major shows was too much for them to handle.
HeAT in late 98/1999 was an EXCELLENT show. Better than Thunder. They didn't water down HeAT until after Y2K. In late '99 WWF was putting on 3 really good shows each week
I remember thunder and how wcw was testing the waters with it in January of 1998 to have almost a weekend show. And then went through with it in February. The craziest thing is the wwf did this with smackdown in 1999 in may with the pilot. Wwf wasn't sure if they wanted to do it consistently but they did in I believe September of 1999 or august and the rest was history
@Jonathan McCully Yes. The quality of Nitro went way down once they started 3 hour shows. So much of it was just filler. You certainly can have too much of a good thing sometimes. Then, obviously WWE didn’t learn from WCW’s mistake when they went 3 hours with Raw.
i loved thunder, especially back then when there was no youtube, i mean come on who couldn't love more wrestling? i never felt burned out, i always looked forward to nitro, raw, thunder, smackdown, ecw, wwf shotgun saturday night, wwf sunday night heat, xpw, etc i loved wrestling back then.
During this era I was straight WWF all day. I would literally get in arguments with my WCW friends on the bus to elementary school every morning about how WWF is way better and all the wash ups go to WCW.. but I will be honest I did watch Thursday night thunder just to get my wrestling fix until the next Monday night raw episode aired lol.
Great video. I was a WCW fan back in the day. I still think WCW had some good things going for them. I agree with Bischoff that Thunder was the beginning of the end. But I also think the NWO helped WCW and also hurt WCW. The NWO was overexposed, I remember watching Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio, having a match, great match in my opinion, and the commentators were talking about the NWO more than the match. But whatever just my own opinion. Keep up with the Bios, I really enjoy them.
I know at some point, I stopped watching WCW and started watching WWF. I don't remember exactly when that was, but I'm trying to figure it out through these videos!! Awesome stuff and a great nostalgia trip
Really want some international wrestlers bios, or even some pioneer days wrestlers. Or managers would great too!!! Ya got endless videos to make m8. Really love everything ya put out been watching for almost 2 and half years . DONT STOP 🛑 WITH EVERYTHING YA DOING M8 ! CHEERS FROM TEXAS 🥂 🍻
I've been waiting on this one and I was wondering after reliving the war can you do A WCW Thunder vs WWF SmackDown Series? But in a reliving the war type of way
@@adamclark9004 true. At least the reliving the war series with nitro and raw is still here. I just mentioned it because I haven't seen to much WCW Thunder.
To be honest, Thunder kind of became my favorite WCW show in it's last year. After WCW Saturday Night quit featuring fresh matches, switching to a recap show (before moving to the morning), and not having UPN (so Smackdown! didn't air in my area until Saturday night at midnight thanks to syndication😁), Thunder was the one WCW show I could watch with out having to wear out the recall button on my remote. I do remember it moving to Wednesday nights the last few months before WCW would get sold to WWF.
Wow. I don't have an MBA or anything like that, but to not invest in something as significant as another 2 hour live broadcast, whether you're in a ratings war or not with another company defies common sense. Eric deserves credit for surviving that pressure & stress load. It's weird to look back on RAW'S dated logo & stage presentation
Haven't watched this episode yet, but I know Wrestling Bios delivers everytime, so its a thumbs up from Benny Mac. Grand Rapids, Michigan rocks with you!
Great video. I always had that feeling of Thunder being some cheap knockoff, it didn't feel that far from those Saturday Night shows they had. Thank you for this.
love the intro song! I remember as a kid I would record Nitro or Raw on VHS and watch one the next day, or watch the ending if my parents didn't let me stay up late enough the night before. When I taped Nitro that week and saw the Hogan vs Sting match was cut off, I was sooooo pissed lol.
I remember racing out of the shower as a kid when the first episode of Thunder was about to air. Don't remember how long we watched, we never watched SmackDown as a kid either. 1 night of wrestling a week is more than enough.
You’re way off on how a lot of people felt about the PPV replays. Where I lived, that was what EVERYONE loved and talked about at school the next day. Not everyone could afford to buy the PPV events (where I lived, nobody could lol) so that was our favorite part. We couldn’t believe we got to see full PPV matches and it was the one part of the premiere that we all hoped would continue. I’m sure to someone who watched all the PPV shows without giving much thought to it wouldn’t like the format but I’d argue that you’re in the minority of that department. Love your stuff though. Keep up the great work!!!
Cool video buddy ... I remember watching the first episode of Thunder back in 1998 it was such an exciting time for a wrestling fan and I always thought the Thunder entrance looked like something from Legends Of The Hidden Temple 😂
To be fair, up until 1997, WCW did a recap show every year after Starcade. They did this to get people excited about what's to come for the new year, and might even give a sneak preview of the year to come. It was usually on Saturday night, but by this time, fewer people were watching WCW Saturday Night.
Only having TNT on sky, and no way to watch ppvs, I loved Thunder, I loved the recaps. No it wasn't as good as Nitro, but rural Ireland with not even the other throwaway shows from wwf or wcw, it was great.
I remember enjoying thunder. I feel like I remember seeing guys that weren't nwo as much which was fun. For some reason I associate malenko and some other talent with it, which was great. It might be that I'm completely wrong but that's just my fuzzy memory from that time
Thank You again Wrestling Bios for this video. Some people may not like Eric Bischoff, but I at least hope that after viewing this video, they have a newfound appreciation or respect for him. on the 83 Weeks podcast with Eric Bischoff, Eric goes into detail about the downfall of WCW starts with Thunder. Because of a Hulk Hogan lawsuit, there are LOADS of PDF's around (from around 98-2000) detailing wrestlers pay structures, contracts and internal memos (referencing re-negotiations with talent to save money by reducing dates/appearances or just by firing people. It's surprising which wrestlers they'd give pay-rises to and which ones they'd happily release or give a pay reduction.
I enjoyed thunder. Raw aired too late on Monday nights on TSN. We didn't have UPN or TNT, but TBS was accessible (eventually) so I could watch thunder on Wednesdays while playing tanarus or doing homework
As a 14/15 year old; anything they would produce I’d watch,
Me too.
@BxxDxx Hoodoo Born 1985. Love my teenage wrestling years.
@@Tweet_Wrestling it was so good switching back and forth to nitro and raw
@@JGD185 Friday Nights for us in the UK. 9pm Nitro... 10pm Raw. My bro, and 2 close friends would watch every week. Sadly one of y good friends is no longer with us. I miss them days so much.
I was 11 and i wanted all the WCW i could get at that time. The first time i ever heard Sting speak was on Thunder.
The moral of the story is "Don't get greedy".
I don't know how people can't like Mike Tenay. Growing up I learned so much professional wrestling history and what moves were called by him. Mad respect for Tenay.
There were so many greats before him. So he was the worst if you watched before tenay
I liked Tenay
I liked him more than someone like Michael Cole
He and Jim Ross are the G.O.A.T.S.
Right!? I never heard anyone say they didn't like "The Professor" Iron Mike Tenay! I always loved his commentary because he was just such a wrestling nerd encyclopedia! I enjoyed hearing all the names of the more exotic maneuvers, the wrestlers from Japan and abroad's bios and information, and Mike was always a highlight in the announce booth on Thunder or Nitro, or even Worldwide or Saturday Night! I also really enjoyed seeing him in TNA/Impact Wrestling later on, too, when I'd watch it on occasion!
Mike was the best, I love that guy
WCW and ECW had basically the best cruiserweight matches and division and it's what made me love cruiserweight division
WCW has the money could do anything sign who they feel like Have WCW without the stupid contracts and Poor creative it could of beat WWE and ECW. ECW was good with there working agreement With WWE getting Tazz, Al snow ect it was Hardcore but didn't have the big budget you could co promote Pay per views with WWE or WCW to make money
@@declangaming24true sadly
Listening to Bischoff talk about Thunder on 83 Weeks is great. Thunder was such a waste of time/money and really was the beginning of the end for WCW.
@@richardnash6111 Disagree, Sting, DDP and Booker T all thrived during Bischoffs time.
@@_Bruzzi Sting thrived when he was doing absolutely nothing other than standing in the rafters for eight months. When they had to actually book him, it went so badly.
Listening to bischoff is great? 5 different wrestling promotions went bankrupt listening to bischoff
@@BloodBoughtMinistries1 what promotions would those 5 be?
@@BloodBoughtMinistries1 name the 5 mark
"Goldberg doesn't get paid by the hour." I can't stop laughing 🤣🤣
😂🤣
😃😀😃😀
That's unfair! 🤣🤣🤣
That's good that he didn't get paid an by the hour
The fact that anybody could boo an Ultimo Dragon match, especially back then is baffling to me
Because most of the audience was compose of idiot jocks that like to fu*** their own american football helmet, because the cheerleader broke up with them.
@@BreadHart as opposed to basement dwelling losers who don't work and don't have a GF?
Wait people don't like Tenay? I've always enjoyed him on commentary because he's knowledgeable
Yeah he's cool. Surprising...
Ikr? That's really surprising
Me too. I thought he was great in TNA
He’s one of the best.
I’ve seen countless...absolutely count. less. people refer to him as complete and utter feces, however I’ve always enjoyed his commentary for the most part. For example, he FAR outpaces M. COLE as a “play by play” wrestling commentator, and that’s by a lot.
Thunder was the Smackdown Before Smackdown 🟦
wwe copied thunder. Like wcw copied raw.
@@jasperbudiono295 Meanwhile, WWF claps back with the "house show" PPV series, "In Your House".
Wwe did smackdown rite you diddent need cable to watch it upn network television all you needed was a antenna. For a poor kid that liked wrestling it was great.
I never got UPN in my neck of the woods :( However my WB affiliate would carry Smackdown on Saturday afternoons by 2001.
As a poor kid growing up it was awesome to finally watchWWF on regular TV. Up until then friends would tell me what happened on RAW. There was a spanish channel segment of WWF on regular tv but it was a lot of unknown wrestlers and no audience lol.
No doubt, still to this day!
Yeah in the beginning later when the brands split in like 04 it was so hard to watch smackdown had to buy a package with certain channels luckily I learned to find em online but in the beginning 00-01 it was great Mondays RAW/Nitro, Thursday Thunder,& Fridays Smackdown
I agree honestly as a poor kid growing up we didn’t have cable just an antenna and maybe a handful of channels
The fact they at one point considered making Thunder the WCW show while Nitro is the NWO show just says a lot about how much NWO had overtook WCW in the worst way possible.
Die NWO hatte das Problem das sie sich nie weiter entwickelten. Betrügereien und schlechte Matches gingen über Jahre. NWO Nitro hätten funktionieren können wenn sie ,die NWO, wirklich alles geändert hätten ohne diese typischen Heel Manches mit endlosen eingriffen.Hogan als "Boss " von Nitro mit Hall und Nash als 2&3 die in harten Fällen eingreifen, einen neuen Team bei den Kommentatoren und ab und an Übergriffen von den WC Thunder Leuten.Aber ansonsten cooles Wrestling.Das wurde halt nie zuende gebookt.
Absolutely, I see it that and I just smh
Agreed
@@Loewenzahnfanclub Die Tatsache, dass sich immer Leute von der nWo einmischten und die Matches dadurch größtenteils in einer Disqualifikation endeten war für mich einer der Gründe warum WCW unterging. Einmischungen in Matches passierten viel zu oft.
Alles war vorhersehbar und man wusste als Fan schon, dass sich das Ende eines Matches in dieser Richtung (Disqualifikation) entwickeln würde.
Fand das wirklich schade.
Ich mochte WCW eigentlich sehr.
Schade, dass es so kommen musste.
@@Loewenzahnfanclub no one here understands what you just wrote.
Without the creation of Thunder, there will not be SmackDown. Just like the WCW Power Plant was the precursor to the WWE Performance Center.
Hey how you doing
And?
straight facts. no thunder no smackdown!
Nah Vince created everything.
@@CrZY_DnKS shut up
The amount of talent in wrestling at that time will never happen again. Once in a lifetime. Dozens of main event top tier talent! Insane.
No lie "Iron Mike" was very informative way ahead of his time honestly especially when it came to Lucha Libre matches move names back stories etc.
There wasn’t one commentator that I didn’t like in WCW. They all had their own flavor and added value to the show.
I just started watching wcw. So this was a good video. Will begin watching Nitro on Monday and Thunder on Thursdays!
hey thats a fun idea!
@@eucalipto9724 I'll wait until I reach 1998 on Nitro, because that's when Thunder started.
I was a child when WCW was on. 2001 I turned 12. I wonder what I would remember.
As a kid La Parka was one of my favorites.
@@SRC267 best bet. you had to watch thunder to keep up with nitro at some point
Where can Thunder be watched these days? I know peacock has the WWE channel which I've seen nitro on, but it's thunder in there too?
I always saw the breakdown of roles at the commentary booth as follows:
Schiavone: corporate pitch man and straight man
Tenay: covered the physical aspects and techniques
Heenan/Zbyszko: covered the psychology
The physical aspects can seem a bit dry to some viewers, so I can believe that some people didn't like Tenay, but it seems that that portion of the audience is larger than I would have thought.
In 1998 thunder was pretty good they had the big stars on it storylines progressing and great matches but by the beginning of 1999 it was an obvious filler show. I always thought the night time city set design and lighting was awesome
I went to a thunder in 98 in philly as a kid. Great show that night
accurate!
Yeah, I thought Thunder was initially awesome. Granted I think I switched over to Wwf around the time Sting joined red and black nwo
I think rick flair was born looking at his mid 40s... That guy always looked old.
Not true. But he looked 45 from 1990-1999
My dad who is nearly 65 now, always said Flair looked old when he first saw him in at shows in the south... NWA I assume
@@CoinSlotKitty definitely NWA in either Crockett, Georgia or Florida.
Same for hogan
Lol
Glad this channel is blowing up.Your content is of a certain quality
This was beginning of WWE’s Smackdown show.
WWF smackdown at the time
I wonder if The Rock gets a check every week, for WWE turning his catchphrase into a TV show..
They did have Sunday Night Heat also
@@jrmop0965 shotgun Saturday too
@@heelspawn8023 it wasn't even his catchphrase. He just popularized it in pop culture, but it existed long before he ever set foot in the ring.
I remember being so excited for the Thunder PS1 game. It was a different time.
Thunder was taped on Tuesday nights at the next town WCW had a show. For instance; after Monday Nitro broadcast live from Atlanta, the next stop was usually Macon, GA. or Greenville, SC. and sometimes Chattanooga, Tennessee. Those shows would be taped and edited to air on Thursdays. That format solved the travel problems for the talent, since most of them would be at the next town anyway, contracted or not...😉👍
Yeah a lot of talent had contracts with limited dates or notices if they made thunder like a show like main event where young or veteran talent get used and work they back to nitro it would be cool
I just wanna say something. As a kid I was big on no interference and the actual clean finishers to end the match! So while Thunder lost touch near the end it was still pretty straight forward. Same goes for Sunday night heat, and Shotgun Saturday Night! I really liked the bottom tier shows cuz I guess I loved the traditional approach rather than the constant interference and what not you'd sometimes get on the main shows
Yeah, like 90% of the matches on Nitro would end in DQ. It's like, you had to order a PPV if you actually wanted to see legit finishes.
Eric may have a point about about Thunder being the real beginning of the end. But with way Nitro was booked (NWO Nitro being given a test run after NWO Souled Out bombed) dilution and stagnation was already starting to set in without Thunder.
Regardless of what Bischoff says, the way he allowed the finish to Starrcade 97 to happen was the REAL beginning of the end. WCW's real run in terms of legit value was July 96 - Dec 97. That's it.
WCW Thunder was heavily slept on I actually liked it
I slept *during* Thunder.
You always knew the predictable outcomes, too. Some heel from nWo would finally lose their belt on the just occurred Nitro, and then 3 seconds after, you'd say to your friend or brother "yeah, he's dropping that to the guy he just won the belt from in the main event on Thunder."
Yes
I did too
Especially when Kev got on commentary
I never understood the distaste for Mike Tenay. I've always loved the Professor. His knowledge of the game and quick on the trigger calls always made him one of the best at the desk. Especially his calls on cruiserweight matches.
My guess on the hate is that he's always been at "the competition" and never in WWE, so folk probably hate on him for that.
@BxxDxx Hoodoo He wasn't color. He was the prototypical play-by-play guy. Knowledge was his draw. His personality didn't need to matter. That's what the color guy is there for.
@BxxDxx Hoodoo Proving my point.
I’ve just never seen why Tenay is a professor of anything except third-rate wrestling.
Tenay was awesome
Eric Bischoff may be someone who has mixed results when it comes to his creative direction, but the work he puts in when he’s involved in wrestling, especially WCW, cannot be denied.
Just a great video. I didn't have cable at this time. We were way too poor, so I could only hear about WCW from friends at school. Thank God Smackdown was on free TV at the time. Also, Bret getting startled by the pyro at 21:20 honestly cracked me up lol
I think Thunder would have been easier for WCW to produce if Thunder consisted of Monday Night Nitro highlights and matches that couldn’t make it onto the Nitro program that week due to the runtime.
They also could have featured the U.S. and cruiserweight titles on Thunder, leaving the world and tag titles on Nitro.
I agree the roster was too big. They should have split it up like raw and smackdown
The amount of effort you put in to your videos is incredible 👏
I love how you seem to have relaxed and input your true personality into your videos. You are actually very easy to listen to. Thank you.
I liked Thunder for one reason. It was basically the "Cruiserweights and Chris Jericho show". I remember putting Thunder on, and not caring about anything much, but would look up occasionally at the screen while I was working on things, just to get a glimpse of a good cruiseweight match, or to pay attention whenever Chris Jericho was doing something. The rest of the time, Thunder was just background noise.
3 hour Nitros was the straw that broke the camel's back
I had to put ice cubes down my shirt just so I could stay awake to watch the main event.
Raw hasn't learned the lesson.
2 hour Raws are part of what made the Attitude Era great. Nitro was 7-10 while Raw was 8-10 and so you could watch Nitro while waiting for Raw to start.
3 hours killed Nitro and its been killing Raw since 2012... ratings for Raw are in the toilet
Ultimo dragon was my favorite cruiserweight back then. Would you ever consider doing an ultimo dragon video?
Man I'm waiting for wrestling bios to start doing some japanese wrestlers . Muta , chono , tanahashi, onita , baba, inoki, etc etc etc the list is endless for international talents that have graced the squared circle ⭕ 🤠
@@acidkyledaLSDj he’ll have to have Dave from Dave Knows Wrestling back on, Ryan says himself that he’s not super knowledgeable on Japanese wrestling.
I love Ultimo Dragon
He done Muta in the U.S, but I'd like to see ones about Ultimo Dragon, Eddie Guerrero, Liger in the U.S
Dude I give u mad props for your time and research on these videos just for our entertainment. Thank you
HEY YO! its survey time...
How many of you are here to see WCW?
How many of you are here for Wresting-Bios?
...survey says... one more for the good guys!!
Thunder was the Scott Hall show.
Yeah the wrong good guys...
@@michaelhoule2134 ok Larry
The strange thing is SmackDown came after Thunder and it became more successful than Thunder.
The main event was lit. Rock vs hhh with Shawn as ref.
It helps when Smackdown started that it was used to more people an opportunity and to actually continue many feuds to expand on them. The majority of Thunder was full of meaningless matches that were just put there to fill time.
@@freddiejohnson6137 Ya, Eric was just stretched to thin mentally. He had all the talent in the world to work with lol, WcW had soooooo many wrestlers, and personalities, had Vince McMahon been in that position Thunder probably woulda been amazing.
Yea but the wrestlers was only doing 180 shows per year including house shows. Wwf at the time expected you to do 300 dates pee year
Nothing strange about a show with fresh action and all the stars outperforms a clear B-Show that does tons of recaps and that most of the stars try to avoid even attending.
I loved Thunder! We didn’t have cable so I could only watch Saturday Night to catch up on Nitro, so when they came out with Thunder I was very happy!
You do such amazing work wrestling bios thank you for your content
Eric and the higher ups were all complaining about WCW being over exposed because of Thunder but that's just lame excuses. They had an enormous roster and still kept pushing NWO down our throats. Their was no ambition to even produce the show as a flag ship. How did Smackdown survived then. At one time SD was better than RAW on a weekly basis. Before the brand split u actually couldn't wait to watch SD that Thursday to follow up.
The reason smackdown was good because it finally came back to regular TV. if you look at on regular TV there was nothing that we had other than WWE Superstars / shotgun Saturday night slash Jack or metal whatever the hell they had.
@@attiepollard7847 Smackdown still produced good quality. We can have a promo on Raw and the 2 stars who did the promo would have a great match on SD.
Or if a multiman match was taking place on PPV we'll see a few stars colliede on SD while the others might have appeared on Raw.
Man 1997 was such a huge year for WCW on TV, Luger headlining the main event to win the world title...just a couple weeks later they pulled a 5, unprecedented at the time. Do you know how WCW decided to treat the fans? To a no contest finish between Luger and Savage LOL That is why they failed.
That happened all the time in wrestling. Not uncommon at all
Thunder was a great show and had some very memorable moments!
Hey great idea! Eric Bischoff has gone over at length with this but there's still the glaring fact that if Bret was supposed to be the star to build Thunder around why was he there so little?
Feels like it became an afterthought within the first few shows.
Everything Eric says is a lie. He has such a revisionist memory and spins everything with the power of hindsight
@@michaelkeller5927 completely agreed. If anything Thunder was the Scott Hall show.
just wanna say this is the first WrestlingBios video i watched, less than a month ago. Now you're one of my favorite channels. God bless
These videos are beautiful Man
First match of Thunder - Chris Adams vs. Randy Savage w/Elizabeth
My brain: Everybody involved in this match is dead.
I really REALLY hate my brain sometimes.
I have the same thought when I watch old Raw shows with the Hart Foundation and the original DX 🙁.
@@Azriel1932I feel ya.
I was watching a Radicalz match the other day and realized they're three dead guys and Dean Malenko. Much like how the Hart Foundation is four dead guys and Bret Hart.
@@Emporkommling Well now I'm depressed.
@@Emporkommling Um, Perry Saturn isn't dead, dude.
Love the Q Tip intro..
You'd think Bret could've pointed out that he beat Ric Flair for that first WWF title
you can't say that because many people didn't know that and it ruins the "they never met before" feeling. When Hogan faced Andre at WM 3 they made it look like as if they had never met before but they had had countless matches before
He did on the following Nitro.
Sat in the row behind raven's flock that first Thunder in Daytona, had a BLAST! "How many people came to see dubya C dubya?" Loved Hall and Nash LOL
If WcW Thunder could talk: “I’m fooked”
But Bret couldnt make it into anything good this time.
You're bizarre.
How about "Thunder fell flat on its ass!"?
When WCW was around I didn't have cable, so the only TV Wrestling I could watch was WCW Worldwide on Saturday mornings (an later the addition of WWF Smackdown! on UPN).
I looked forward to college so much primarily because the dorms had Cable, and I figured I could watch wrestling 7 days a week, with Thurnder being on Wednesdays at the time.
Sundaynight Heat, Mondaynight Nitro (tape Raw and watch it on Tuesday), Thunder Wednesday, Smackdown Thursday, ECW on TNN Friday, and WCW Saturday Night.
Alas I graduated HS in 2001 just when ECW and WCW had died. :-(
Thankfully I still met my wife in the dorms because we both watched Raw.
One of the problems was that they filmed 2 episodes of Thunder at each taping. Which meant the following Nitro (which was live every week) had to work around what they had done for the taped Thunder that would be airing that Thursday.
I might be in the minority, but I liked Thunder.
same
Thunder was awesome
I loved this show
I enjoyed it, too.
I was in high school at the time and really enjoyed anything they put out. Looking back on it, it probably wasn’t good for WCW’s longevity. Two major shows was too much for them to handle.
Looking Back Wcw Thunder is More like a Velocity or Sunday Night Heat than a Smackdown
Least Heat back than was good show for a Sunday
HeAT in late 98/1999 was an EXCELLENT show. Better than Thunder. They didn't water down HeAT until after Y2K. In late '99 WWF was putting on 3 really good shows each week
@@TRJ2241987 agreed. I actually forgot how much I like Heat. Heat actually made me like minor shows .
Shootgun Saturday Night
@@davisdomain2071 Haha I remember shotgun Sat night
My favourite TH-cam channel meets my favourite musician!
WRESTLING BIOS X Q-TIP
I remember thunder and how wcw was testing the waters with it in January of 1998 to have almost a weekend show. And then went through with it in February. The craziest thing is the wwf did this with smackdown in 1999 in may with the pilot. Wwf wasn't sure if they wanted to do it consistently but they did in I believe September of 1999 or august and the rest was history
Thunder was the beginning of over saturating the wrestling market.
@Jonathan McCully Yes. The quality of Nitro went way down once they started 3 hour shows. So much of it was just filler. You certainly can have too much of a good thing sometimes. Then, obviously WWE didn’t learn from WCW’s mistake when they went 3 hours with Raw.
i loved thunder, especially back then when there was no youtube, i mean come on who couldn't love more wrestling? i never felt burned out, i always looked forward to nitro, raw, thunder, smackdown, ecw, wwf shotgun saturday night, wwf sunday night heat, xpw, etc i loved wrestling back then.
During this era I was straight WWF all day. I would literally get in arguments with my WCW friends on the bus to elementary school every morning about how WWF is way better and all the wash ups go to WCW.. but I will be honest I did watch Thursday night thunder just to get my wrestling fix until the next Monday night raw episode aired lol.
But man, this was that sweet spot where I loved both companies. Being a teenager in the late 90’s was just awesome.
I'm still dreaming of watching a documentary of ecw
Great video. I was a WCW fan back in the day. I still think WCW had some good things going for them. I agree with Bischoff that Thunder was the beginning of the end. But I also think the NWO helped WCW and also hurt WCW. The NWO was overexposed, I remember watching Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio, having a match, great match in my opinion, and the commentators were talking about the NWO more than the match. But whatever just my own opinion. Keep up with the Bios, I really enjoy them.
You spelled Budgets wrong in Eric Bischoff's quote lol. Great video as always sir.
The torture rack was the least looking painful submission I've seen in wrestling history
I always thought if I could get him to do both sides it would be probably a nice re-alignment
Cmon the torture rack was just Lex's excuse to fondle his opponents balls
@@CoinSlotKitty 😀😀😀😀
Awesome Kong made it look good!
Idk man ... I got put in that thing when I was smaller 🤣🤣
I know at some point, I stopped watching WCW and started watching WWF. I don't remember exactly when that was, but I'm trying to figure it out through these videos!! Awesome stuff and a great nostalgia trip
That breathe and stop remix at the beginning was hard af
Really want some international wrestlers bios, or even some pioneer days wrestlers. Or managers would great too!!! Ya got endless videos to make m8. Really love everything ya put out been watching for almost 2 and half years . DONT STOP 🛑 WITH EVERYTHING YA DOING M8 ! CHEERS FROM TEXAS 🥂 🍻
Would love the story of WCW Saturday Night
From being A show to an afterthought :(
I watched Thunder and I enjoyed it a great deal it turned me into a huge WCW fan.
I would love to see you cover ECW on TNN. Keep up the great work 👍
And Sunday Night Heat and WCW Saturday Night
another brilliant video, love your work brings back a lot of good memories
I've been waiting on this one and I was wondering after reliving the war can you do A WCW Thunder vs WWF SmackDown Series? But in a reliving the war type of way
Smackdown came more than a year after thunder was created and by then wwf was destroying wcw so it wouldn't be too interesting
@@adamclark9004 true. At least the reliving the war series with nitro and raw is still here. I just mentioned it because I haven't seen to much WCW Thunder.
I think it can still be done
@@adamclark9004 It still would be fun. Just like Raw vs. IMPACT being one-sided, it still was great to relive.
i love your channel bro. thank you for this and everything!
The nWo/WCW revenge menu music in the background 🔥
@XxMoney3DxX the nostalgia is real man. Still my favorite wrestling game
Mike Tenay was one of the most underrated guys to ever call a match when I was a kid. Im glad hes getting his respect now.
I just wanna know who is making the intro themes for your videos because they're straight BANGERS!
Mate, your knowledge and the way you narrate is unmatched on TH-cam.
Q-Tip?! Ahhhh man!!! Get in there!!! 🙌🏾
To be honest, Thunder kind of became my favorite WCW show in it's last year. After WCW Saturday Night quit featuring fresh matches, switching to a recap show (before moving to the morning), and not having UPN (so Smackdown! didn't air in my area until Saturday night at midnight thanks to syndication😁), Thunder was the one WCW show I could watch with out having to wear out the recall button on my remote.
I do remember it moving to Wednesday nights the last few months before WCW would get sold to WWF.
Wow. I don't have an MBA or anything like that, but to not invest in something as significant as another 2 hour live broadcast, whether you're in a ratings war or not with another company defies common sense. Eric deserves credit for surviving that pressure & stress load. It's weird to look back on RAW'S dated logo & stage presentation
Haven't watched this episode yet, but I know Wrestling Bios delivers everytime, so its a thumbs up from Benny Mac. Grand Rapids, Michigan rocks with you!
Great video.
I always had that feeling of Thunder being some cheap knockoff, it didn't feel that far from those Saturday Night shows they had.
Thank you for this.
love the intro song!
I remember as a kid I would record Nitro or Raw on VHS and watch one the next day, or watch the ending if my parents didn't let me stay up late enough the night before. When I taped Nitro that week and saw the Hogan vs Sting match was cut off, I was sooooo pissed lol.
This was 🔥 as Usual ...
I remember racing out of the shower as a kid when the first episode of Thunder was about to air. Don't remember how long we watched, we never watched SmackDown as a kid either. 1 night of wrestling a week is more than enough.
the work ethic on this guy tho!👌
You’re way off on how a lot of people felt about the PPV replays. Where I lived, that was what EVERYONE loved and talked about at school the next day. Not everyone could afford to buy the PPV events (where I lived, nobody could lol) so that was our favorite part. We couldn’t believe we got to see full PPV matches and it was the one part of the premiere that we all hoped would continue. I’m sure to someone who watched all the PPV shows without giving much thought to it wouldn’t like the format but I’d argue that you’re in the minority of that department. Love your stuff though. Keep up the great work!!!
Nice n64 sountrack during most of your descriptions.
I thought that’s what I was hearing in the headphones lol
Cool video buddy ... I remember watching the first episode of Thunder back in 1998 it was such an exciting time for a wrestling fan and I always thought the Thunder entrance looked like something from Legends Of The Hidden Temple 😂
Will there be a Thursday version of Reliving the war? Thunder vs Smackdown?
Love That q-tip/tribe called quest intro my brotha!!! Amazing video as well... as always...
"You wanted garbage. Well you got it." 🎤Forget the....🎶
To be fair, up until 1997, WCW did a recap show every year after Starcade. They did this to get people excited about what's to come for the new year, and might even give a sneak preview of the year to come. It was usually on Saturday night, but by this time, fewer people were watching WCW Saturday Night.
I always liked WCW Thunder, plus the Videogame adaptation was the first WCW game I owned (and still have)
Great game!
Same. I still have the disk somewhere for that game too
Only having TNT on sky, and no way to watch ppvs, I loved Thunder, I loved the recaps. No it wasn't as good as Nitro, but rural Ireland with not even the other throwaway shows from wwf or wcw, it was great.
This channel is the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be for wrestling content
I remember enjoying thunder. I feel like I remember seeing guys that weren't nwo as much which was fun. For some reason I associate malenko and some other talent with it, which was great. It might be that I'm completely wrong but that's just my fuzzy memory from that time
Same. I remember seeing Booker T and Billy Kidman a lot on thunder as well.
Great content. Still choose Thunder over any modern day Raw/Smackdown
Thank You again Wrestling Bios for this video. Some people may not like Eric Bischoff, but I at least hope that after viewing this video, they have a newfound appreciation or respect for him.
on the 83 Weeks podcast with Eric Bischoff, Eric goes into detail about the downfall of WCW starts with Thunder.
Because of a Hulk Hogan lawsuit, there are LOADS of PDF's around (from around 98-2000) detailing wrestlers pay structures, contracts and internal memos (referencing re-negotiations with talent to save money by reducing dates/appearances or just by firing people. It's surprising which wrestlers they'd give pay-rises to and which ones they'd happily release or give a pay reduction.
I actually liked thunder it was more Wrestling what more could I ask for as a kid/pre teen
You said it. I liked Thunder too and more wrestling the better, especially in that era.
I even watched that one hour show of house chow slips or whatever it was they aired late night/early morning on Saturday or Sunday
I enjoyed thunder. Raw aired too late on Monday nights on TSN. We didn't have UPN or TNT, but TBS was accessible (eventually) so I could watch thunder on Wednesdays while playing tanarus or doing homework