Earlier this week, Prestige Wrestling held their “Black Sunshine” event live from The Globe Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The venue known by wrestling fans to be the home of another California based promotion, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.
The Globe Theatre has been the homebase of PWG since the shut down of their previous venue the American Legion Post in Reseda, California back in 2018. Reseda played home to PWG from 2008 to 2018.
PWG has been in existence for 20 years. The match announcements for their events, which are tweeted out on their official Twitter page, gets Wrestling Twitter filled with excitement. Fans also await match results to be tweeted out on the night of every event. But is this just nostalgia? How many people are actually watching these events?
PWG has a dated mindset when it comes to the way they release their events to the world. The promotion has yet made an attempt to live stream their events. In a world where if you’re running an independent wrestling promotion, it is a necessity to live stream events. In the very least, get the VOD of the show released that very same week. Every week(end) there are a ton of events that live stream through both major streaming platforms for independent wrestling, IWTV and FiteTV, as well as others such as Titlematch Network, and Premier Streaming Network, just to name a few. There’s so much content that if you’re not live streaming, you run the risk of being irrelevant in the wrestling world outside of your local fanbase.
So if PWG doesn’t live stream, how can I seek out their product? The promotion uses a very dated business system where they release blu-ray discs of their events. Nowadays, because of the rise in streaming services and streaming devices such as Roku and Amazon Fire Sticks, most households don’t even own a blu-ray player.
If I pre-order a PWG blu-ray, when will I receive it? The average turnaround time for PWG blu-rays to begin shipping is two months. Things are moving so fast in the independent wrestling world that 2 months could feel like a lifetime. Game Changer Wrestling runs up to 6 events per month, all of which live stream on FiteTV’s subscription service FITE+. In the two months of waiting for a PWG blu-ray, you could have watched up to 12 GCW events.
Does PWG have a streaming service? PWG does not have their own branded streaming service but their catalog is on Highspots TV. Highspots TV is the home of several promotions and shoot interviews, but the main promotion being Illinois promotion AAW. Their events are also live streamed when they occur. Highspots TV will cost you $14.99/month or $149.99/year, which is costly if you compare it to other streaming services.
What does the $14.99 monthly payment get you? As mentioned before, AAW live streams their events and have an up to date catalog on there, but other than that, most of the wrestling events are dated. Their most recent upload from Wrestling Revolver is the May 6th “Mayhem For All” event. The reason for this being is that Wrestling Revolver live streams their events on FITE+.
But what about PWG events? PWG events are uploaded to the service a full 6 months after they occurred. A FULL 6 MONTHS!!! PWG’s most recent shows, the 2023 Battle of Los Angeles Nights 1 and 2, which took place on January 7th and 8th, have yet to hit the service. But you can watch their show “DINK” from November 2022.
As mentioned, the 2023 Battle of Los Angeles were their most recent events. It has been radio silence since with no mention of future shows.
Recently taking PWG’s place at The Globe Theatre has been Prestige Wrestling. The promotion based out of the pacific northwest, and more specifically Oregon, made their Globe Theatre debut, as well as Los Angeles debut, back on March 31st with “Nervous Breakdown.” The event that took place during Mania week, live streamed with a card full of bright young stars such as Titus Alexander, Michael Oku and Robert Martyr; as well as huge names such as Alex Shelley, KUSHIDA, Ultimo Dragon and Aja Kong.
The promotion made their return to The Globe Theatre this past Sunday June 18th with the show live streaming on IWTV. Their sophomore event from that venue titled “Black Sunshine” had Prestige bringing a PWG level card with what some are calling the show of the year.
- West Coast Pro Championship Match: Titus Alexander (c) vs. Nick Wayne
- Team Filthy (Tom Lawlor, Royce Isaacs, and Jorel Nelson) vs. Vinnie Massaro, Jordan Cruz, and Tyler Bateman
- Alan Angels vs. Kidd Bandit
- Rina Yamashita vs. Sandra Moone
- Roderick Strong vs. Kevin Blackwood
- Four Way Match: Galeno Del Mal vs. Destiny vs. Rey Horus vs. Sonico
- Zack Sabre Jr vs. Kevin Knight
- Taya Valkyrie vs. Killer Kelly
- Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) vs. The Rascalz (Trey Miguel and Zachary Wentz)
With two events in the books and a third show announced for September 24th titled, “The Respect Issue,” it seems as if Prestige has made a new home with The Globe Theatre. With these events also live streaming, it’s about time we say, “we no longer need PWG.”
🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨
BREEZE will be in action at #TheRespectIssue!
September 24th, 2023
Los Angeles, CA
The Globe TheatreTickets on sale THIS FRIDAY (6/23) at 10:00 AM PST.
All ages // Live on https://t.co/4FRdj0XWsz
🎟 https://t.co/923RtPRI1t pic.twitter.com/YjYhA8kkR1
— Prestige Wrestling (@WrestlePrestige) June 19, 2023
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