WCW Thunder

[MrRant 0]

I hope they continue to throw in some episodes of Thunder monthly as it was interesting seeing the opening again after so many years. I forgot how irritating of a set they used along with all the constant "lightning" that happened all the goddamn time.

 

I completely blocked out the whole NWO Wolfpac thing as well.

 

And WCW has the *worst* local jobbers. Why could they never bring in someone who doesn't look like a complete doofus? Wait, maybe that was Nitro.

[shadylpete 0]

I don't see them showing Thunder that often after this one. This was only shown because of this month's theme. It was interesting though to see how WCW has changed in a year because the monday night wars are now on aug. 97 and this thunder is from aug. 98

[cabbageboy 0]

If they show more Thunders I want them to show some really horrible ones from mid 1999. This one was almost too decent.

[King Kamala 0]

Was there ever a good episode of Thunder. The best episodes were probably servicable diversions. Even during WCW's relative boom period in '98, Thunder was pretty meh. WCW may have had the talent to put on nine hours of solid wrestling each week in '98 (3 hours of Nitro, 2 hours of Thunder, 2 hours of Saturday Night, 1 hour of Worldwide, and the occassional Pro exclusives) but they sure as hell couldn't.

[bob_barron 0]

I think WWE 24-7 putting random out of context Thunder episodes up would be amazing

[King Kamala 0]

Would it be fair to call Thunder the worst major league wrestling show of all time? It's worse than ECW on TNN which occassionally whipped out matches that were better than what they were doing on PPV. It was worse than C list shows like Shotgun, Jakked, and Worldwide if only because there were higher expectations and it's always fun to watch squash matches and third rate gimmicks (The Gambler FTW). I have a feeling there may be a show worse than Thunder but I'll be damned if I can think of one.

[JHawk 0]

Would it be fair to call Thunder the worst major league wrestling show of all time? It's worse than ECW on TNN which occassionally whipped out matches that were better than what they were doing on PPV. It was worse than C list shows like Shotgun, Jakked, and Worldwide if only because there were higher expectations and it's always fun to watch squash matches and third rate gimmicks (The Gambler FTW). I have a feeling there may be a show worse than Thunder but I'll be damned if I can think of one.

Some of the AWA shows post-SuperClash III were just painful to watch.

 

But as far as a full run goes, your probably right.

 

I remember one episode of Thunder where four "unscheduled" matches were set up during the show to make 11 total matches, and the show went off the air five minutes early. How's that for a shitty wrestling show?

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I seem to recall really enjoying an episode of Thunder in the summer of 98 that involved Ric Flair vs. Chris Jericho. The match wasn't great shakes but something about the overall show sticks out in my mind as "good" even though I can't seem to remember a thing about it.

[King Kamala 0]

I just watched that match a month or two ago on YouTube! Your assesment of the match is pretty spot on. 'Twas a fun TV match while it lasted though.

 

AWA on ESPN was the show I was forgetting. Yeah, those shows were pretty much as bad as Thunder especially the stuff after Curt Hennig jumped ship. Egads! Incidentally, both had Lee Marshall on color commentary for a time. Easily, the worst announcer in professional wrestling. Worse than latter day Tony Schiavone, worse than Michael Cole. Maybe not worse than the guy who did Heroes of Wrestling but closer than you'd think.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Lee Marshall is very much like Mike Adamle - they have very great broadcasting voices but you don't really want to hear what they have to say.

 

Lee does a good job as Tony the Tiger though.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

I seem to recall really enjoying an episode of Thunder in the summer of 98 that involved Ric Flair vs. Chris Jericho. The match wasn't great shakes but something about the overall show sticks out in my mind as "good" even though I can't seem to remember a thing about it.

 

I think you may be referring to the debut of Thunder in Jan 98. Jericho was still working on his heel turn and presented Penzer w/ another tux "This isn't a tape?!?" gasped Lee Marshall. A solid match which had Flair win and Jericho ruin Penzer's tux again. I believe Flair was kahpoot in the summer of 1998 . . . at least if the "10 Years Ago in the Observer" articles are accurate.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Well you're right, it couldn't have been the summer since Flair was indeed gone. Maybe the spring? Either way it couldn't have been TOO early because it was when Thunder had already developed a reputation for being pointless.

 

You know, maybe it wasn't even Jericho vs. Flair (because like I said, I don't really remember it) but something Jericho centric. It was a "oh neat, Thunder has a storyline and it's good!" deal I believe.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

Eh, by the time JJ Dillon overturned Chris Adams's victory over Randy Savage, it became pointless.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah Flair was gone for a long time in 1998 and didn't resurface until Sept. or so. From watching the AWA shows on ESPN Classic I'll be damned if those are as bad as Thunder. No way. Mind you, the 1987 output from the AWA is really dull stuff (no Scott Hall, no Midnight Rockers, few Lawler appearances...but it DID have a very young Jeff Jarrett at times). But the 1986 shows were pretty good stuff and the 1988 shows are quite good. It was after the disaster known as SuperClash III that the AWA completely tanked and wasn't afraid to suck hard.

 

Thunder proved that it's simply impossible to book 7 hours of first run wrestling a week. WCW somehow managed to do it with Nitro and Saturday Night and both stayed strong, but Thunder started severely watering the product down. They had 3 hours of bad Nitro, 2 hours of bad Thunder, and 2 hours of mundane Sat. Night.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

The more I think about it (and read results!), I think it was a fall 98 episode where Jericho beat Bill Greenberg that I enjoyed. I don't even know if that entire episode would stand the test of time though.

[King Kamala 0]

All this Thunder talk has put me on a quest to find...THE WORST (SOUNDING) EPISODE OF THUNDER.

 

ddtdigest will be my guide...

 

I THINK IF FOUND IT (2-2-00)!!!

I actually watched that episode "live" and indeed it was terrible. I remember them hyping The Machine (Emory Hale under a hood) and in one of my first smark moments thinking "Wait a second, they haven't talked about this guy before tonight and all of a sudden they're hyping him? I bet he gets squashed!" And what happened? He got squashed by DDP!

 

Reason #1 for this show sucking: Three Sid matches!

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Without me reading the recap, please tell me that's the Thunder where Sid beat the Harris brothers in a cage using the worst Crossface ever.

[King Kamala 0]

Yes it is that Thunder. For some godforsaken reason, Sid used that godawful Crossface as a second finisher during that time period. He also beat Tank Abbott and Kevin Nash with it IIRC.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah but that show had that goofy Machine/DDP match with Machine literally jumping from the top rope to the middle of the ring to crotch himself. That was hilarious. So that can't be the worst Thunder ever. Neither can anything involving The Dog in early 2000.

[King Kamala 0]

Yes, it can be the worst Thunder ever. Sid wrestled three times!

 

And amazingly the next week's episode was just as bad!

 

I know I'm going off on a tangent but Sullivan's reign with the book in early '00 is the worst era in WCW history. It's beyond argument really. Worse than Russo because at least Russo failed in a semi-interesting way.

[The Big Wiggle 0]

And at least Russo finally made Thunder matter. While agreeing that Sullivan's reign was the worse for WCW in its entirety, Thunder was at its absolute nadir in the summer of 1999. Bischoff had lost interest in everything by that point and head booker Nash didn't give a shit about a show he wasn't going to bother to appear on. You would get really random matches and team-ups based on which workers would show up. In fact, that's how the whole Jersey Triad thing with DDP/Kanyon/Bigelow started. One of them didn't attend to defend the tag titles, so they just stuck another in his place.

[cabbageboy 0]

Kamala, you act like Sid wrestling three times is a bad thing.

 

At least with that next week there was Kidman vs. Crowbar, which could potentially be decent pro wrestling but I can't remember it.