Nikunj Walia on February 27, 2023
Tony Khan converted his passion for professional wrestling into buying into the business. The owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars founded AEW, turning his childhood dream of booking matches in his bedroom into a thrilling reality, with his flagship shows, AEW Dynamite and Rampage. Recently, AEW commentator Tony Schiavone clarified that their secondary show, Rampage is not similar to WCW’s show, Thunder.
AEW Rampage airs every Friday on the TNT network, serving as a one-hour show for AEW stars every week. Much like that, WCW used to air Thunder as their B show back in the day on the TBS network.
TBS network serves as the broadcaster for AEW’s primary programming, Dynamite, every Wednesday. However, it used to telecast WCW Thunder from January 8th, 1998, to March 21st, 2001, during the Monday Night Wars.
Tony Schiavone made a comparison between AEW Rampage and WCW Thunder. He spoke about this in the most recent episode of What Happened When, asserting that they are not the same.
“‘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.”
Tony Schiavone further stated the three-hour Monday Nitro show meant that WCW didn’t require an additional two-hour show. Moreover, that is not the case with AEW’s programming as Dynamite and Rampage serve as two-hour and one-hour-long programs respectively, proving to be an enjoyable experience for fans for a long time now.
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