Why There is Life Beyond the WWE Universe

Habits, routines, we all get into them. See why there is lie beyond the WWE Universe.

It’s Monday night, better click on WWE’s Monday Night Raw, Wednesday night, better click on NXT, Thursday night better- no, nobody still watches SmackDown, do they? Actually, that joke might be more appropriate for Raw, since last week was their lowest rated (non-holiday) 3-hour show, ever. You might say it’s viewer fatigue, or the lack of “star power” with Cena, Lesnar, Orton, and Rollins all suddenly off WWE TV. While those reasons are certainly valid, I think it comes down to their shows are at best, inconsistently entertaining, and at worst, downright boring with vanilla stories that are a chore to follow.

For whatever reason, Creative has always had a tough time developing multiple quality angles – especially outside of the main event – at one time; this includes multiple layers so that they might spill over to one another, to help push the feeling of unpredictability. It seems like WWE is less concerned with quality, and more focused on just filling up a ton of TV time, which for me, makes it extremely difficult to watch every single week.

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Maybe that’s the problem, there’s just too much WWE, in a recent interview with Wrestling Inc (h/t Cageside Seats) Daniel Bryan spoke on wrestlers trying to deal the issue of “overexposure”:

"“Realistically, if you take wrestlers from the previous generations, and if they had wrestled as much on television as we have, they would be overexposed. But then, you won’t like them as much.That’s one of the biggest battles our generation faces; the previous generations’ battle was getting exposure, trying to get exposure. Now our battle is overexposure, and those who can handle overexposure the best are the ones who are popular.”"

As a wrestling writer, this is where my problem comes along; I have to write about the WWE, they are “the recognized leader in global sports entertainment” and they are what get the most readers, hands down. As a wrestling fan, I would much rather expand my horizon to focus on just about any other notable promotion, and so should you.

Thanks to technology, it’s becoming a whole lot easier to check out other wrestling organizations, so, here’s a few to look at, and where to go:

Ring of Honor – As the number two promotion in the U.S., it’s quite easy to get into ROH. They allow fans to purchase their PPVs via multiple PPV providers, stream their PPVs live, and have a Video On Demand library that goes back about a year. You can always pick up DVDs from previous years, as well.

New Japan Pro Wrestling – Consistently, one of the most entertaining promotions has made watching their shows much easier, thanks to Google Translate. Once you get to their site, at the top you should see a Google drop-down box, click that, and then English. Signing up should be pretty straight forward after that. They do live streaming of bigger events, and have nearly their entire library ready to be streamed, all for around $9 a month. During the G1 Climax: 25 tournament, I picked up the service, and it worked beautifully, video was clear, and it will be something I pick up again, in the future. If you needed somewhere to start, a big supporter of NJPW, Senor Lariato, put together a recommended viewing (with links) from their library.

Chikara – For $7.99 a month you can stream a huge amount of their events to your laptop, iPad, or Roku. It looks like the most recent show is from about 8 months ago, which I assume is due to Chikara wanting fans to buy DVDs from their most recent events. For those of you who wanted to start at the beginning – like I do – and work your way to present day, this is the perfect way to do so.

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla – They have stuck to the tried and true tradition of DVDs, but they have their entire catalog on their site, costly, but it’s there. Their incredible 2015 Battle of Los Angeles event is still being talked about, a show that I must see, and don’t mind dropping the $50 to get it.

Lucha Underground – Unless your cable/dish provider carries the El Rey Network, the next easiest way to watch is picking up Sling TV ($20 a month), which you can stream to your TV. The service also carries a bunch of other channels (AMC, ESPN, TBS, HGTV), and worked nicely when I used it to watch Lucha Underground, which will be back sometime in early 2016, and that means the return of one of my favorites; Pentagon Jr!

via ElReyNetwork.com

EVOLVE – Finally, we have the new “feeder promotion” to the WWE, while not everyone on here will necessarily be moving on, but this is the place to be to show off their skills to the WWE. EVOLVE is also connected to the popular World Wrestling Network (WWN) which streams their live shows. The WWN also works with other companies like Shine, FIP, Dragon Gate, and SHIMMER, just to name a few. With a fairly simple process of signing up, WWN will show you upcoming events, just purchase the ones you want (they take PayPal!), and watch on your computer, iPad, or Roku. Their roster includes a variety of styles, but if you enjoy technical/submission style wrestling, this promotion is definitely for you.

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So there you go wrestling fans, be brave, venture outside the safe, PG world of the WWE. Who knows, you may just find something new to feed your hunger for pro wrestling.

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