Company owner Brett Lauderdale announced Tuesday that moving forward, all future live GCW events will be available on the FITE+ service in addition to their entire back catalog.
While the back catalog is available starting today, their first live event will air on November 12th with the Nick Gage Invitational in Chicago.
FITE+ costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 for a year and includes catalogs from companies like the NWA, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, Top Rank, and more.
Talking to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Lauderdale said that in talking with FITE, the company is willing to make the investments into their platform and service to the point GCW is ready to commit to them and leave their pay-per-view model behind.
He sees this as an opportunity to expand to new fans who are subscribers to FITE+ and to make past shows available to newer GCW fans.
It also appears as though the annual Collective shows during WrestleMania weekend will also be part of the FITE+ service. Lauderdale said they have to work out some of the details as there are different organizations involved from around the world, but he expects all the events that weekend to be available.
Though NJPW is returning to the United Kingdom for Royal Quest II this weekend, the shows won’t be airing live.
Fite TV confirmed to John Pollock of Post Wrestling that it won’t be airing this weekend’s NJPW Royal Quest events. The shows also aren’t airing live on NJPW World. They’ll instead be available to watch on NJPW World on demand in October.
Crystal Palace National Sports Center in London is hosting Royal Quest night one this Saturday and Royal Quest night two on Sunday. It’s the first time NJPW has been to the UK since the first Royal Quest event in 2019.
Night one of Royal Quest II will be headlined by Will Ospreay vs. Shota Umino. The card also includes FTR defending their IWGP Tag Team titles against Aussie Open. It will be FTR’s first title defense since becoming IWGP Tag Team Champions at Forbidden Door this June.
The main event of Royal Quest II night two will see Tetsuya Naito face off with Zack Sabre Jr.
The full cards for both nights are available below:
NJPW Royal Quest II night one —
Will Ospreay vs. Shota Umino
IWGP Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) defend against Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher)
Jay White, Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows & Gedo vs. Tama Tonga, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hikuleo & Jado
Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii vs. JONAH & Bad Dude Tito
Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado & DOUKI
Jazzy Gabert & Kanji vs. Ava White & Alex Windsor
Great-O-Khan & Gideon Grey vs. Ricky Knight Jr. & Michael Oku
Gabriel Kidd vs. Dan Moloney
NJPW Royal Quest II night two —
Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Tomohiro Ishii vs. JONAH
Kazuchika Okada vs. Bad Dude Tito
Jay White, Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows vs. Tama Tonga, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Hikuleo
Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler, Shota Umino, Gabriel Kidd & Ricky Knight Jr. vs. Will Ospreay, Great-O-Khan, Mark Davis, Kyle Fletcher & Gideon Grey
IWGP Women’s Championship tournament first-round match: Jazzy Gabert vs. Ava White
SANADA & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ethan Allen & Luke Jacob
NJPW announced Wednesday that their May 14th Capital Collision show will be available via pay-per-view on FITE.tv, promising what they call “significant improvements” that will help avoid the technical issues they had with April’s Windy City Riot.
For that Chicago-based PPV on April 16th, there were technical issues throughout the show that plagued both the audio and video. The problems were so bad that NJPW issued an apology and FITE issued refunds to those who complained to their customer service department.
In their announcement Wednesday, NJPW again addressed the problems and the fixes they made in order to gain faith back from potential buyers:
“NJPW sets the highest of broadcast standards, and is very aware that Windy City Riot, through no fault of FITE, fell short of those standards. We deeply appreciate fans showing their passion for NJPW events; as a mark of that appreciation, every viewer of Windy City Riot on FITE who purchases Capital Collision will receive 5 FITE credits, applied automatically at checkout. More details below.
For Capital Collision, significant improvements and restructuring to our production pipeline will ensure the best possible quality viewing experience that our fans expect and deserve. Refunds will be made available with no questions asked for any technical issues encountered.”
The PPV will cost $19.99 and will feature a four-way IWGP U.S. title match between Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jon Moxley, Juice Robinson and Will Ospreay; Eddie Kingston vs. Tomohiro Ishii, and Brody King vs. Minoru Suzuki.
NJPW has issued an apology for the technical difficulties that plagued the FITE TV stream of Saturday’s Windy City Riot event.
In a statement released on their website, the promotion apologized “for the persistent technical issues and poor video and audio quality of the Windy City Riot live stream on FITE.”
NJPW said that a rectified archived replay of the event “…will be made fully viewable in its entirety as soon as possible,” and announced that show will also be made available for NJPW World subscribers beginning on Wednesday, May 4.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling deeply apologises for the persistent technical issues and poor video and audio quality of the Windy City Riot live stream on FITE.
A rectified archive of the event will be made fully viewable in its entirety as soon as possible. The archive will also be viewable on NJPW World from May 4.
Last Sunday’s Wrld on GCW pay-per-view on FITE.tv was its most successful yet on the combat sports streaming service.
The news was first reported Wednesday by Post Wrestling’s John Pollock via an email confirmation from FITE COO Michael Weber.
While the event was the best in GCW’s history with FITE, it was not the biggest for FITE in general as Weber noted they had 700,000 buys for the Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. exhibition boxing match last year.
There is still no word on how many buys GCW had for last Sunday as it aired both on FITE and traditional pay-per-view for the first time. Final numbers from traditional providers can take months to figure out.
The Wrld event was GCW’s highest profile show to date as it came from the sold-out Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City where WWE and ECW have run before.
Pollock said he is also following up with state commission officials on whether there is an enforceable age limit for pro wrestlers as 16-year-old prospect Nick Wayne was unable to compete on the show as planned due to someone reportedly contacting the commission about his age.
GCW owner Brett Lauderdale tweeted that while the show was successful business-wise, he thinks they could do better and “got played and I shoulda known better.”
Sunday was a smash hit business wise for gcw. All records shattered and its not even close. But im not happy at all. Feel like I let a lot of people down. Got played and I shoulda known better. Big time learning experience. Gonna work harder than ever to get a 2nd chance.
The NWA announced some changes in their partnership with FITE.tv that will see the creation of their All Access pass, two new pay-per-views for their schedule, and their flagship Power show returning to YouTube two days after it first airs on FITE.
The All Access plan is available now, giving fans the ability to stream all six pay-per-views on the 2022 calendar, debut episodes of Power, and the new NWA USA show after it first airs on YouTube — all for one yearly price of $49.99. Monthly plans are also available for $4.99.
Purchased separately, the PPVs would be $24.99 each.
Power will continue to debut on FITE Tuesdays at 6:05 PM. Exclusive specials like their ‘Ten Pounds of Gold’ docu-series will also be part of the pass.
As part of the deal, Power will air on YouTube for free on Fridays at 6:05 PM with NWA USA debuting both on NWA and FITE’s YouTube channel every Saturday morning at 12:05 AM Eastern. They will be then be available for All Access members on Sundays at 6:05 PM Eastern.
NWA USA begins this Saturday, January 8th with the revival of the NWA Junior Heavyweight title via a tournament.
Terminus revealed today that their debut show will stream live on FITE TV, plus the commentary team for the show has been announced.
Terminus tweeted today that the show will air live on FITE at 6 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, January 16, with veteran announcers Lenny Leonard and Dave Prazak on commentary.
Two different versions of the ROH World title will be on the line on the show. ROH World Champion and Terminus founder Jonathan Gresham will defend his ROH title, represented by the original ROH belt. Bandido, who was stripped of the ROH Championship after a COVID-19 diagnosis prevented him from defending the title at Final Battle, will defend the modern version of the Championship that he never lost in the ring.
Impact Wrestling’s Digital Media Championship will be up for grabs as well, with Jordynne Grace defending. Talent from AEW, NJPW, and Impact will appear on the Terminus debut.
Atlanta, Georgia’s Kroc Center will host the debut event. Tickets for the event are on sale now. Here is the announced card:
ROH World Championship: Jonathan Gresham vs. Josh Alexander
ROH World Championship: Bandido vs. Baron Black
Impact Wrestling Digital Media Championship: Jordynne Grace vs. Kiera Hogan
Moose vs. Alex Coughlin
Liiza Hall vs. Janai Kai
Terminal eliminator match: Daniel Garcia vs. JDX vs. Invictus Khash vs. Adam Priest
Tracy Williams vs. Fred Yehi vs. Dante Caballero vs. Joe Keys
AAA Triplemania Regia will air on FITE TV pay-per-view.
FITE made the announcement that the Monterrey stadium show will be available to stream on Saturday, December 4. The cost will be $19.99, and both Spanish and English commentary will be available for the broadcast.
TripleMania Regia will be headlined by a five-way for the AAA Mega Championship vacated by Kenny Omega due to injury. Hijo del Vikingo will face Jay Lethal, Samuray Del Sol and two participants to be announced for the vacant title.
Cain Velasquez will also make his AAA return in the show’s semi-main, teaming with Psycho Clown and Pagano against LA Park, Rey Escorpion and Taurus.
Here is the full lineup:
AAA Triplemania Regia, Saturday, December 4, 9 p.m. Eastern time on FITE TV —
AAA Mega Championship: Hijo del Vikingo vs. Jay Lethal vs. Samuray Del Sol vs. TBA vs. TBA
Cain Velasquez, Psycho Clown & Pagano vs. LA Park, Rey Escorpion & Taurus
AAA World Tag Team Championship: FTR (c) vs. The Lucha Brothers
Murder Clown, Monster Clown & Dave the Clown vs. Puma King, Sam Adonis & DMT Azul
Dragon Lee & Dralistico vs. Laredo Kid & TBA
Tito Santana, Carta Brava Jr. & Mocho Cota Jr. vs. Abismo Negro Jr., Arez & Psicosis vs. El Cuatrero, Sanson & Forastero
Marvel match: Leyenda Americana & Gran Mazo vs. Venenoide & Enganso
Faby Apache, Lady Shani & Sexy Star II vs. Lady Maravilla, La Hiedra & Flammer
AEW Rampage will be available live through AEW Plus and TSN’s streaming services starting this Friday.
COO of Fite TV Mike Weber, through a statement obtained by John Pollock of Post Wrestling, confirmed that AEW’s new show will be available live on Fite’s AEW Plus streaming service.
“Rampage will be available Live on AEW Plus in all markets that AEW Plus currently is available,” Weber said in the statement.
Additionally PWInsider has confirmed that Rampage will stream live in Canada through TSN’s website and on the TSN Direct streaming service.
Rampage is set to debut in the United States this Friday at 10 pm ET on TNT. The show will be held in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The only match announced so far is AEW Women’s World Champion Britt Baker defending the title against Red Velvet.
Two live editions of Rampage are already set for the next month. The First Dance will take place at The United Center in Chicago, Illinois on August 20. Another live edition is set to take place on September 3 prior to All Out on September 5, also in Chicago.
Triller — the promoters of last year’s successful Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. boxing exhibition and this Saturday’s Ben Askren vs. Jake Paul boxing match — has acquired FITE.tv.
FITE.tv is known for being a primary location for pay-per-view wrestling, MMA and boxing events worldwide in addition to both live concerts and soccer. A press release for the announcement revealed FITE has four million registrants, over 10 million users, and more than 5000 streamed live shows over the last five years.
FITE will be the exclusive distributor of all Triller Fight Club shows starting this Saturday. Following the success of the Jones-Tyson event which the two companies partnered on, Triller announced a deal with Snoop Dogg for “The Fight Club,” a series that will run five-to-eight times a year, mixing boxing with entertainment.
Parent company TrillerNet has been on an acquisition run, acquiring a live music streaming platform (Verzuz) last month. The release mentions they will continue to invest in “new lifestyle and entertainment programming” with FITE helping to “greatly expanding the reach of Triller’s fast-growing AI-powered content and distribution ecosystem.”
It’s unknown how, or even if, this will affect their streaming deals with AEW, Impact Wrestling, GCW or any of their current partners.
Based in both New York and Bulgaria, FITE launched in May 2012.
The National Wrestling Alliance is set to return later this month on FITE TV with new episodes of NWA Power and a new pay-per-view event, Back for the Attack.
In an interview with the Associated Press, NWA owner Billy Corgan announced that Back for the Attack will air on FITE on March 21, with new episodes of NWA Power starting on March 23. FITE will also offer Back for the Attack to cable and satellite providers. Power will be on FITE via a low-cost subscription bundle. All events for the NWA going forward will be without fans, and without artificial crowd noise.
The article noted that the videos removed from the NWA’s YouTube account over the weekend was a part of the move to FITE.
“We were never in any financial peril,” Corgan said. “We were totally on a growth pattern. The plan for last year before things kind of hit the skids was to start pivoting. We were in discussions with Live Nation about running live events to help bring in revenue and expand who was watching the product. It was more about growing pains stuff, but we didn’t have any problems internally with the product.”
The NWA spent most of 2020 shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the last new episode of Power airing on January 26. In the fall, some of the NWA talent appeared on UWN Primetime Live. However, those shows were put on hold back in December due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WWE and Fite TV are partnering together for another pay-per-view option for WrestleMania 36.
It was announced today that both nights of this year’s WrestleMania will be available via Fite TV in the United States and select international territories. That’s in addition to WrestleMania being included with a WWE Network subscription, available on traditional PPV, and available on PPV through the FOX Sports App and FOX Sports’ website.
Both nights of WrestleMania are priced at $34.99 when purchased individually on Fite TV. It’s $59.99 for the weekend package with both nights included.
WrestleMania 36 will air on Saturday (April 4) and Sunday (April 5). The main cards for both shows will begin at 7 p.m. Eastern time, and there will be pre-shows on both nights starting at 6 p.m. Eastern.
Fite TV’s full announcement is available below:
NEW YORK: March 31, 2020: FITE, leading digital sports platform offering prestige boxing, pro wrestling, MMA and martial arts programming, announced the Pay Per View carriage of WWE’s annual pop culture extravaganza, WrestleMania. FITE will offer the special event in the U.S. as well as select international territories.
WrestleMania, for the first time ever, will be held as a two-night event airing this Saturday, April 4 and Sunday, April 5 at 7 pm ET.
The event, “Too Big For Just One Night” will be hosted by three-time Super Bowl Champion Rob Gronkowski. As WWE previously announced, only essential personnel will be on closed sets at multiple locations, including WWE’s training facility in Orlando, during the production of WrestleMania.
FITE will offer the event on PPV via a beautiful HD digital stream, in English and Spanish, along with its custom live chat, so viewers from across the world can enjoy the live discussion of the event, together.
AEW’s Dynamite television series will be airing weekly on Fite TV.
Fite TV made the announcement day in a press release. The show will be available to purchase for $2.99 an episode a la carte for viewers outside of the United States and Canada
A subscription service called AEW Plus was also announced. For $4.99 a month, subscribers will get to watch the show live and will also have access exclusive programming including behind-the-scenes footage. The service will not include pay-per-view events such as Full Gear, as those types of events will be separate.
The news comes as AEW announced the initial framework of their television deal in the United Kingdom, where as of right now it will not be airing live. It will air in full on ITV 4 on Sundays at 8:20 a.m., with a one hour highlight show airing on ITV Mondays at 11:45 p.m..
AEW Dynamite will air live for the first time starting on October 2 at 8 p.m. EST on TNT.
Broadcast details for this month’s NJPW Royal Quest show have now been officially confirmed.
NJPW and Fite TV announced today that Royal Quest will air live on Fite as an iPPV. The show will later be made available on New Japan World.
The price for Royal Quest on Fite is listed as $24.99. The show is taking place at the Copper Box Arena in London, England on Saturday, August 31 and will begin at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time.
NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff and AEW All Out are both also taking place on August 31.
NJPW’s Southern Showdown event in Melbourne, Australia aired live via Fite this June, with Fite having a 72-hour window of exclusivity.
Here’s the full card for Royal Quest:
IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada defending against Minoru Suzuki
RevPro British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr. defending against Hiroshi Tanahashi
NEVER Openweight Champion Tomohiro Ishii defending against KENTA
IWGP Tag Team Champions Guerrillas of Destiny defending against the winners of the RevPro Road to Royal Quest tournament
Tetsuya Naito & SANADA vs. Jay White & Chase Owens
Will Ospreay & Robbie Eagles vs. Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo
Kota Ibushi & Juice Robinson vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Hikuleo
Joseph Currier recaps Extreme Rules, which saw Brock Lesnar cash in to again become Universal Champion.
Sunday’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view ended with Lesnar cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase on Seth Rollins to win the Universal title. After Rollins & Becky Lynch defeated Baron Corbin & Lacey Evans in the main event, Lesnar and Paul Heyman came out with the briefcase. Rollins charged at Lesnar, but Lesnar gave him two German suplexes. The bell rang to start the match — and Lesnar hit an F5 to again become Universal Champion.
Rollins will get his rematch for the Universal title at SummerSlam next month. He won a number one contender’s battle royal on the post-Extreme Rules edition of Raw, defeating Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, Corbin, Rey Mysterio, Sami Zayn, Big E, Bobby Lashley, and Cesaro.
Rollins’ three-month reign as Universal Champion ended up being pretty lackluster. It started strong with a great defense against AJ Styles, but Rollins’ matches were only as good as his opponents allowed them to be. It’s difficult to succeed when the majority of your PPV title defenses are against Corbin.
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TUESDAY NEWS UPDATE
by Joseph Currier and Bryan Rose
WWE
WWE.com’s preview for tonight’s SmackDown is teasing whether or not Daniel Bryan will make his “career-altering announcement” that was promised for last week. Ember Moon is also scheduled to face Charlotte Flair, while Shane McMahon will address Kevin Owens. Shawn Michaels will also be on the show as a guest commentator.
Cruiserweight Champion Drew Gulak will face Isiah “Swerve” Scott (Shane Strickland) in a non-title match on 205 Live tonight. In what’s being billed as another 205 Live vs. NXT match, Kalisto & Gran Metalik will face Humberto Carrillo & Raul Mendoza. Drake Maverick and Mike Kanellis will also sign their match contract.
WWE tweeted a picture of MMA fighter and Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison backstage with Kurt Angle at Raw Reunion.
Impact announced that they have renewed their agreement with Twitch: “IMPACT Wrestling, a subsidiary of Anthem Sports & Entertainment and one of the world’s largest professional wrestling organizations, announced today it has renewed and expanded the scope of its agreement with Twitch, one of the world’s largest live streaming video platforms, which includes the weekly premiere of the flagship two-hour show IMPACT!, streaming on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET. The renewal will include the production of more exclusive content on the Twitch platform, including original weekly programming, pre and post-shows, live monthly specials, weekly airings of Xplosion which features never-before-seen matches, IRL (in real life) first-person streams, and much more. To support Twitch’s development of its co-streaming features, IMPACT Wrestling will facilitate co-streaming of the weekly flagship show and will be announcing details of a contest featuring co-streamers in the near future.”
Impact tweeted after RVD’s appearance at Raw Reunion: “@TherealRVD makes his opponents feel the #IMPACT each and every Friday night!”
AAA’s show at Madison Square Garden on September 15 and their event at The Forum in Inglewood, California on October 13 will be available to purchase as live iPPVs on Fite TV.
This week’s MLW Fusion episode is now available on YouTube. LA Park & El Hijo de LA Park faced Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. in the main event.
Jungle Boy paid tribute to his father Luke Perry on Instagram.
UFC/MMA
UFC 243, which will be headlined by middleweight champion Robert Whittaker vs. interim champion Israel Adesanya, will take place at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia on October 5 (October 6 in Australia).
The UFC uploaded episodes one and two of Embedded for Saturday’s PPV. Max Holloway will defend the featherweight title against Frankie Edgar in the main event.
Ariel Helwani is reporting that Corey Anderson is currently in the running for Jon Jones’ next title defense.
Hannah Goldy has signed with the UFC and will face Miranda Granger at the UFC Fight Night event in Newark on August 3.
Angela Hill vs. Istela Nunes has been set for UFN 159 in Mexico City on September 21.
Movsar Evloev, meanwhile, is challenging Mike Grundy at UFN 157 in Shenzhen, China on August 31.
UFC on Saturday averaged 957,000 viewers, with the prelims scoring 540,000.
