10 Times Backstage Politics Ruined WCW

7. ‘Make Thunder As Good As Nitro Or Else’

There's a common misconception that Eric Bischoff wanted Thunder to expand his increased dominance in the ratings over Vince McMahon. To be clear, Bischoff did not want Thunder. Bischoff thought that the new show would be a hindrance that'd only dilute the vibrance of the Nitro brand he'd spent over 2 years building by that point.

However, the edict came down from the top: Turner top brass pushed a new show onto Eric. Thunder debuted on 8 January 1998, and it was a weekly nightmare Bisch didn’t need. Initially, the boss wanted to split his roster into 2 distinct sides and build the new weekly around Bret Hart, but then those on the TBS front complained that they might not get all of the larger than life nWo stars seen on TNT's Nitro.

Erm...couldn't somebody have explained to TBS that they worked on the same team as TNT?! Both stations were under the same corporate umbrella, so manufacturing some 'us vs. them' war for the sake of it was thick considering they should've been tag-teaming McMahon and the WWF's core product Raw.

As usual, WCW suffered from politics rearing their ugly head behind the scenes. Bischoff was told to deal with Thunder. Not only that, but Turner execs warned him to make it every bit as important as Nitro without increasing his production budget to give the wrestling side of things more breathing room.

What a joke. Thunder was skippable from its first episode, certainly when compared to the can't miss prospect that was Nitro on Mondays.