FIVE OF THE BEST PLACES TO STREAM OFF-THE-BEATEN-TRACK WRESTLING

5 of the best places to stream off-the-beaten-track wrestling

Time was, if you wanted to watch wrestling and you couldn’t get to a match, you’d swap tapes, wait up for dead-hours matches on TV, and sit through snow-blizzards of static and watch with an ear cocked for the sound of a VHS finally chewing up a tape that was worn nearly see-through anyway.

Off the beaten track? You were lucky to get last year’s WWF highlights.

Not any more.

Now, you can stream vast quantities of wrestling whenever you want.

There’s some good material available for free on YouTube and to a lesser extent, on Vimeo, but if you wanna see the latest and best, you have to sign up to a streaming service.

The obvious place to start is the WWE network. But if you’re here reading this, you don’t need  me to tell you about that.

Instead, let’s look at some of the more interesting places to stream wrestling that’s a bit more off the beaten track.

1. NJPW World

Japan’s finest, NJPW World brings you some of the slickest and most athletic matches out there. Any time you get to watch Kenny ‘Best Bout Machine’ Omega and Kazuchika ‘The Rainmaker’ Okada go at it is a good day, and NJPW has a multiyear, multilocation storyline that left Japan-focused fans hyperventilating.

That’s not all: feats of strength, manic, explosive posturing and a wrestler with a stuffed kitten called Daryll? Where do you sign?

NPJW costs about $9.99/mo (the price is in Yen, so currency changes might affect it a bit) and you can get it on Amazon Fire TV, Android, Chromecast, iOS, and web browsers. One problem is that some of its content is geolocked, but if you’re traveling and still want access, you can try using a VPN to access matches on the move.

2. Chikaratopia

Chikaratopia is a strange one. Operating out of Philadelphia, it’s both the most family-friendly wrestling you’ll see, and some of the weirdest. A masked luchador ant faction calling themselves ‘the Colony’ stands out; so do the athletic and gymnastic XyberHawx 2000.

Pricing is a little lower than WWE, $7.99/mo, and the service is available on Android, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS, Roku and web browsers.

3. Riptide

 

Riptide is almost the opposite of Chikaratopia in some ways. Where Chikaratopia is stripped down and athletics-focused, Riptide is more like a high-end TV series. Imagine if the crew behind Luke Cage was doing a wrestling show.

Dark and moodily-lit, the promotion attracts both an enthusiastic audience and some big names: Jimmy Havoc, Zack Saber Jr. and Jinny, as well as  Austrian giant Walter and Witchita Falls, TX's Keith Lee.

It’s $7.50/mo, available on Android, Chromecast, iOS and web browsers.

4, Stardom World

All-female wrestling from Japan, Stardom World is home to international talent - it’s where Toni Storm, Deonna Purrazzo and Kris Wolf went to grow their skills and careers - and homegrown stars like Mayu Iwatani and Saki Kashima, Momo Watanabe and Hazuki Wonder.

Overblown and glitzy, with a distinctly Japanese take on the Luchador esthetic, it’s filled with explosive, scrappy matches and while the wrestlers aren’t typically presented in a highly-sexualized light, this is fight-centric wrestling.

Priced at around $6.50 a month - again, pricing is in Yen so it’ll vary slightly - Stardom World is available for iOS and web browsers.

5. CZW Studios

If you actively prefer your wrestling unsafe looking, this is the streaming service for you. Less story, more gory, CZW is the home of some of the most combative wrestling around, named by Vice as ‘America's Most Violent Wrestling Deathmatch.’

With stars like Scotty O’Shea, Mike Rollins and Brandon Kirk, you won’t find wrestling more brutal anywhere.

CZW is priced at $9.99/mo, and it’s available on Chromecast, Roku, and web browsers.

 

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