The wrestling landscape in 2019 is like nothing we’ve ever seen. Various promotions have now secured TV deals, or simply bought time in local markets in an effort to secure their piece of the wrestling pie.

But with all the focus on TV ratings, how do your favorite companies fare on YouTube? YouTube has become the second largest search engine in the world, behind only Google (which happens to own YouTube).

Courtesy of Bleacher Report

Fans from around the world have turned to YouTube in order to access wrestling content which was previously unavailable to them, and while WWE remains the top dog by a longshot, the hierarchy of wrestling promotions is drastically different than you might have imagined.



For example, can you guess which of these companies has the highest number of overall views outside WWE?

Try ranking just the shows that appear on TV: AEW, Impact, ROH, NJPW, NWA, MLW & WOW.

What if we told you that many of these promotions fail to rank in the Top 20 wrestling channels worldwide?



Some of the companies that appear to be doing the best “on-air” are actually suffering from total indifference in the digital world.

If a wrestling program is truly popular on TV, the fans will naturally seek it out online.



The truth however, is that many of these companies are getting dominated in the numbers game by promotions that are operating on a shoe-string budget.



In order to properly compare and contrast, we compiled two different YouTube lists.

The first features active wrestling promotions (ran at least 1 live show in 2019) & streaming services only.

The second includes all wrestling-related channels (podcasts, list videos, commentary, etc).



Since YouTube updated their policies, we can only see abbreviated subscriber counts.

All channels have been ranked by lifetime views. This list was finalized on Oct 1, 2019.

Few observations from the Top 100 list.



WWE is by far the most dominant wrestling channel on YouTube.

It’s not even close. For comparison, Impact Wrestling comes in at #2 but has 1/20th the amount of overall views. Impact, however, does have the distinction of the being the only other wrestling promotion with over 1 billion hits.



Would you have guessed that Beyond Wrestling has nearly 7x the traffic that Ring of Honor does?

ROH has been around since 2002, on TV for years and is backed/funded by Sinclair, one of the largest broadcast companies in the world. Yet, even if you totaled all of ROH’s viewership on-air, it still wouldn’t touch Beyond wrestling.

Mia Yim appearing for Beyond Wrestling

Take Title Match Wrestling for example. Through original programming like Ladies Night Out & Stand Up for Greatness w/ Stevie Ray, Title Match now has more overall views than New Japan Pro Wrestling.



NJPW is the largest wrestling promotion in Japan & the 2nd largest in the world next to WWE. They also air in the states on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV.

Alex Gracia vs Miranda Alize from Ladies Night Out 7 on Title Match Wrestling YT

Let’s look at the case of Joey Ryan, owner of Bar Wrestling. His channel alone has amassed more views than ROH, NJPW, CMLL, NWA, MLW & WOW combined. Ryan is an independent contractor who has turned down deals from WWE & AEW.

Joey Ryan appearing live on MLW TV. Ryan has more views than most of the top promotions combined.

MLW has one of the slickest looking wrestling TV products and they don’t even crack the Top 30 on YouTube. It’s the same case with Evolve, a company that WWE frequently partners with for events.

WOW on AXS TV looks to be the top women’s promotion in the world. But a closer look at their YouTube analytics tells a different story. WOW might boast 26 million overall views but that’s because 1 single video counts for 21 million.

There is a dramatic drop-off after that. Even if you factor in TV viewership (which has not been publicly released), it is very unlikely they would crack Top 10 on YT.



FITE TV presents itself as a streaming giant but on YouTube they are a non-factor. Statistically, FITE loses the YT numbers game to their streaming rivals Title Match, NJPW, Highspots & RF Video.



Other companies that boast nationwide TV deals like Championship Wrestling from Hollywood don’t even crack the Top 50 in YT viewership. Championship Wrestling from Hollywood currently pays for air time on abc13 in Houston.

Courtesy AEW/CBS Sports

It’s fair to estimate that AEW will grow their YT dramatically over the next several months. They already have one of the largest subscriber counts and will be soon be adding AEW: Dark to their channel.

Other companies like NWA may also see a boost if their new vision, NWA: Power, proves successful.

NWA Power just started airing weekly on YT.

Now that we’ve sorted through the Top 100 active wrestling promotions, what happens when you factor in all wrestling-related channels? The results are even more mind-blowing. Channels like Grims Toy Show have more views than the Bella Twins (owned by WWE).



For an even deeper dive, we ranked the Top 250 wrestling-related channels. The only type not included is gamer channels.



All channels have been ranked by lifetime views.



What do you think of the lists? Sound off and if you believe we missed someone please let us know in the comment section.

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