Thunder Academy

The Thunder Academy is a professional CAW wrestling school founded by Tommy Thunder in Denver, Colorado. In operation since 2005, the school has produced multiple internationally successful wrestlers. It is common for Thunder Academy graduates to appear on AWS and FORCE Wrestling programming, due to it's close affiliation with the TGA. It is also notable for providing full year-long housing at the Nicholson Ranch for it's selected students.

A training season at the Thunder Academy commonly starts in the first week of January, and ends before the holiday season in December. Since the very beginning, the school has held a live event approximately every three months for it's students to display their talents. At the end of the year, an additional ceremonial show is hosted to celebrate the graduation of that's years class of graduates.

In January 2020, it was announced the live events would be broadcast on YouTube. In follow-up, it was also revealed that a TGA neXt Championship would be created for contention. At the end of each season upon that year's class' graduation, the championship is vacated.

The annual number of students selected for training was originally five, which was later increased to eight and then to 10. Since 2020, 16 students have been accepted annually. As of today, every officially accepted trainee has also graduated successfully.

The current head trainer of the Thunder Academy is Ryan Rostock. While nowadays working as a full time wrestling promoter, Tommy Thunder himself still owns the promotion and teaches on occasion. The school's staff also includes a Thunder Academy graduate in the former FORCE Intercontinental Champion Ryan Henderson, while several guest trainers feature often.

Current students
This is a list of the current Thunder Academy students, who begun training at the school in January 2020.

Notable graduates (2005-2016)

 * Ryan Henderson (2005)
 * Mike Dubois (2006)
 * Dante Salazar (2008)
 * Jack Logan (2008)
 * Joe Omega (2010)
 * TJ Nicholson (2011)
 * Sam Stonewood (2012)
 * Sebastian Quinn (2013)
 * Shane Saxton (2013)
 * Dylan Frost (2014)
 * Jayce Flame (2015)

2017

 * Alec Alvarez
 * Bastian Tillschweiger
 * Eddie Nicholson
 * Erik Haugen
 * Jonathan Gable
 * Maxwell Mathers
 * Nicholas Gambina
 * Niklas Sorensen Junior
 * Tristan Kilkenny
 * William Emkins

2018

 * Alex Rivera
 * Anthony Cooper
 * Axel Reed
 * Cristiano dos Santos
 * Craig Martin
 * Daryl Cox
 * Jason Hawke
 * Liam O’Neill
 * Marcel Cienfuegos
 * William Skarsgård

2019

 * Ambroos Dirk
 * Brian Cole
 * Daiki Ryoyu
 * Ezio Hachiro
 * James Flynn
 * Leonard Janus
 * Marcel Cross
 * Pasi Holm
 * Siim Kaspar
 * Zlatan Dragovic