Impact Wrestling Stream
Like most other things associated with professional wrestling, Impact wrestling’s streaming addition has had a volatile, tumultuous history. It’s a fascinating media story, one that follows the transition of pro wrestling from traditional cable outlets to their streaming cousins, the idea being to get control of the revenue stream while continuing to build the audience and the brand. And it’s worked.
Let’s start at the beginning. That would be May of 2019 for all intents and purposes, when Impact announced the beginning of its Impact Plus streaming service, which was priced at $7.99 a month. The move coincided with Impact leaving Pop TV to shift over to an outdoor network called Pursuit Channel. More important, there was a partnership with the streaming channel Twitch, which was followed several months later with another shift to ASX TV several months later in September.
Confusing? Maybe, but it turns out that the folks at Impact knew what they were doing. The price point for Impact Plus may have been a bit steep, but there was plenty to like about the initial 3,000 hours of on-demand content that also included monthly network specials.
The content spanned nearly two decades of Impact history, with the list of stars including the likes of Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Booker T, Sting and Rick Flair, among others, so there was plenty to appeal to the classics audience.
The specials included a nifty roster of current stars, with the names including Eddie Edwards and Alisha Edwards, Willie Mack, and so on. The four annual pay-per view events weren’t included, but they were available as an ongoing series of separate purchases, and they included both Bound for Glory and Slammiversary.
Overall, the results have been excellent. Impact has grown it roster and gathered momentum ever since, and Impact’s credibility has improved as a result.
But there has been controversy. This, of course, is part of the package with any wrestling outlet, and some of it has been spectacularly entertaining.
Start with the Twitch ban. This happened in back in January of 2020 due to a “wardrobe malfunction,” a phrase that has become a perpetual eye-roller.
In this case, the victim—or the perpetrator, depending on your point of view—was Rob Van Dam, who “celebrated” a win in a snippet scene with his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s girlfriend that featured whipped cream along with the inevitable blurred nudity.
Shocking right? Maybe, but the ban lasted all of a week. After supposedly violating Twitch’s terms regarding nudity and sexual content, the streaming channel changed course in mid-stream, so to speak, and announced that Impact was back on the air.
Impact’s announcement, meanwhile, added that the up-and-coming wrestling company’s Twitch channel was one of a lot of things that was “hard to kill.” And so are prearranged controversies, which have been a staple of pro wrestling for decades.
Tag Team Management
At this point in the story, it would be negligent not to mention the Impact team that’s been in charge of all the mayhem. Enter Don Callis and Scott D’Amore, the company’s executive VPs.
Neither has been with Impact long, but they have made a huge impact (sorry). They were appointed to their positions in December of 2017, shortly after Anthem purchased a majority stake in Impact, and one of the first things they did was to eliminate that clunky hexagonal ring and go back to the four-sided square that wrestling fans know and love.
That was just the start. Call it luck, brilliant timing or savvy business sense, but the addition of a streaming service with pay-per-view buys has worked out incredibly well, too.
The best evidence of this would be this year’s Slammiversary back in July. Impact teased the names of some major names prior to the event, including the Good Brothers, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. The roster got bigger and better shortly thereafter, when heavy hitters such as Heath, EC3, the Motor City Machine Guns and Eric Young were added.
Another title change quickly followed, with the Motor City Machine Guns toppling The North from the top spot. The icing on the cake was another roster-add on the media side, with Brian Myers, aka Curt Hawkins, appearing on that broadcast.
On paper, Covid-19 might have stopped Impact in its tracks, but the company’s response to the novel coronavirus has more or less been “what pandemic?”
Impact has basically conducted business as usual since March, and having the Impact PLUS streaming service in place at a time when many viewers have been stuck at home under lockdown has been a textbook case of perfect timing.
Moreover, Impact has been careful about staying up and running during the pandemic. The company has taped multiple episodes simultaneously, which gives the talent the opportunity to stay at home and rest up after arduous matches that feature plenty of close contact.
Impact has also asked wrestlers to self-isolate in separate hotel rooms when they are called in to compete, with constant tests run on the talent and social distance standards imposed and followed wherever possible.
The Pushback
As for the industry as a whole, suffice to say that Impact’s impact has been noticed, particularly when it comes to the talent. The morale of the existing base of wrestlers has been incredibly high, and the wrestlers definitely see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Impact is poised to cash in on.
Not surprisingly, the WWE has pushed back. Historically, the WWE has dominated wrestling by controlling the contracts of many of the top wrestlers. A recent news story had the WWE banning superstars and talent under contract from using third-party platforms like Twitch, YouTube and Cameo.
Cue the wrestler’s outrage. A number of high-profile wrestlers have pushed back against the pushback, including Mick Foley and Kevin Nash, and even the likes of former presidential candidate Andrew Lang have gotten into the act by commenting about the unfairness of this tactic.
The move seems strange, at the very least. These private platforms are here to stay, and their viability is likely going to expand, not contract or stay the same.
Impact seems to get that, and it’s not hard to imagine a wrestling future where these platforms are incorporated into the media package as a way to generate more revenue and give fans a wider array of choices.
It’s easy to groan at the bad jokes about Impact being Bound for Glory, but at the moment Impact is laughing all the way to the bank.