Impact Wrestling is the latest promotion to have its own streaming service, and Josh Matthews says that the timing was there for it.
Matthews recently was a part of the weekly conference call Impact Wrestling hosts. When WrestlingINC asked a question about the timing of the launch of the Global Wrestling Network, Matthews says something like this was in the pipeline for a while.
I think it was ready to go. (laughs) If I'm being candid with you, it was just one of those deals where we knew we wanted to do it. Our president Ed Nordholm knew he wanted to do this service and he needed to talk to the different partners. There's so much that goes into this, that I've learned along the way. You have to work with people who build the app, and then you have to test it, and then you have to make sure that it's right. This is a process that's been going on for some time, it could've launched back in August but it wasn't ready. Now it's ready and up and going and the demand is there, we saw that last night on social media and the numbers that we got today. Everyone's super-excited and it's just one of those things I mentioned the last time I've been around the media, we got knocked down that day by Sports Illustrated for no reason, and now here we are launching a worldwide app today.
When asked about content like Ring Ka King and Impact Wrestling footage from its short Destination America run, Matthews says that in time, they would be avaliable.
I think that's just a matter of time, a matter of when all those things get uploaded. Last night, 2017 wasn't uploaded and then it was up a little while later, so I think it's just a matter of feeding the beast and loading all of these things. I'm super-excited to see the Destination America and Pop stuff too because I think that when we left Spike, a lot of people didn't get to see what Impact was doing during those years. So it's a good time to sign up, get the app and see all those things that you may have missed."
Global Wrestling Network launched earlier this month, featuring Impact Wrestling footage as well as footage from independent promotions like Border City Wrestling. After a 30 day free trial, it will be $7.99 per month.
