WCW Thunder is Finally Coming to the WWE Network

We’ve got word on the latest classic content coming to the WWE Network and WCW fans will be thrilled.

After being rumored for months, WWE Network News has confirmed that WCW Thunder will be added to the WWE Network Vault on Monday, March 19. There was a delay because of a royalty lawsuit from former performers that included both Buff Bagwell and Raven, who were featured heavily on Thunder toward the beginning of the show’s run. That lawsuit has since ended.

WCW Thunder was launched in early 1998, over a year and a half before WWE launched their Thursday night show (SmackDown). WCW originally had plans of perhaps making Thunder its own brand, with the idea at one time being that new signee Bret Hart would be the face of the Thursday show. Bischoff wrote in his 2006 book, Controversy Creates Cash, that making Hart the face of Thunder was one of the reasons his signing was green-lit in the fall of 1997. Bischoff himself was hesitant to launch the show fearing it was too much television to produce, but Turner network executives wanted WCW to expand due to the monster ratings that Nitro was drawing at the time.

Thunder launched on January 8, 1998 with the main event of the first broadcast featuring Diamond Dallas Page defending the U.S. title against Kevin Nash. The first match of the broadcast featured Randy Savage taking on Chris Adams. Adams famously trained “Stone Cold” Steve Austin years earlier, as well as Scott Hall.

Other memorable moments from Thunder over the years included a young AJ Styles having a match on the show in early 2001, tons of great cruiserweight division matches, the debut of the nWo Wolfpack (with its classic theme being unveiled on an episode of Thunder in May 1998), and Bret Hart’s final appearance for WCW in September 2000.