On the latest episode of his What Happened When podcast, Tony Schiavone defended AEW Rampage against claims that the show has become a copycat of WCW Thunder.
While both Thunder and Rampage stand as the secondary show for WCW (Nitro) and AEW (Dynamite), Schiavone claims the two shows are completely different despite sharing a handful of similarities. He said,
“‘Thunder’ we didn’t want to do, ‘Rampage’ we do want to do. ‘Rampage’ is important for us because we have such a big roster and not everybody gets TV time. Back then, we didn’t need it. We had a three-hour show. It’s just too much. Right now we’re doing three hours of TV and two of it live.”He added that WCW didn’t need an extra two hour show with the three hour Monday Nitro. He noted the creation of Thunder added a lot of stress for the WCW talent and production crew.
Schiavone concluded that WCW didn’t need Thunder with the flagship three-hour Monday Nitro. The creation of WCW Thunder stressed out the WCW talent and production crew.
