The series premiere of “NWA Powerrr” surprised and impressed fans and writers on Tuesday, and suddenly the wrestling ring is even more crowded than we anticipated.
As of noon ET Wednesday, “NWA Powerrr | Episode 1” landed 144,000 YouTube viewers. Of the more than 2 million minutes watched, 22.1% of them came over as suggested viewing from those watching the series premiere of fellow pro-wrestling program “AEW Dark,” NWA Vice President David Lagana told TheWrap exclusively.
“AEW Dark,” an online companion series for TNT’s new weekly wrestling series “All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite,” premiered Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET, and has since racked up about 350,000 YouTube views.
“NWA Powerrr” began at 6:05 p.m. ET yesterday, leading the “All Elite Wrestling” YouTube show in some ways and following it in others.
Also as of noon ET today, the launch of “NWA Powerrr” scored 70,000 viewers on Facebook. The show’s live-viewing number on Facebook Live peaked at 3,300 simultaneous viewers — YouTube’s peak was nearly four times that (13,000).
Both peaks came during the main event, which featured Nick Aldis defending the company’s top title against former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Tim Storm. These days, the belt is referred to as The Ten Pounds of Gold.
Those top-end live-viewership numbers represent nice gains from where they began: On Facebook, the peak over the hour-long show’s first 20 minutes was 1,000 viewers. On YouTube, the largest simultaneous audience in that time span was made up of about 7,000 people.
Facebook wasn’t the only key social media platform where “Powerrr” thrived. On Twitter, #NWAPowerrr reached the No. 1 trending topic spot in the United States. Worldwide, it made it to No. 3.
The National Wrestling Alliance added 11,000 YouTube subscribers in the past 24 hours, according to Social Blade. The revived pro-wrestling promotion is now into the six figures there.
Readers can add to the overall YouTube tally by watching “NWA Powerrr” via the video above. It’s worth your while.
Lagana told TheWrap that “99%” of “Powerrr” Episode 1 was shot live-to-tape, in case you were wondering.
For those who don’t have an hour, below is a behind-the-scenes preview. This video is part of NWA’s “Ten Pounds of Gold” series.
The successful show generated plenty of instant fans, both from inside and from outside of the wrestling business.
Congrats Jim, the boys, crew etc. Stumbled across this show last night and enjoyed it. I grew up in territories and started my career at channel 5 in Memphis so I have a lot of love/respect for small scale, crowd tv shows. Cool vintage feel. Keep working hard boys. Rock
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) October 9, 2019
Checking out #NWAPowerrr on YouTube right now. Really fun throwback presentation. Old school in a good way.
👏👏👏
— Corey Graves (@WWEGraves) October 9, 2019
You should watch #NWAPowerrr. It is as advertised. Great, old school wrestling in a studio setting
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) October 8, 2019
Just finished #NWAPowerrr , great stuff for an 80's wrestling fan@like myself. It's like NXT meets Southpaw Regional Wrestling. @WrestlingInc
— Raj Giri (@TheRajGiri) October 9, 2019
Really enjoyed the first episode of #NWAPowerrr
All talent did a great job!!
Good character development and storytelling.
Give it a watch and let me know what ya think.@BustedOpenRadio https://t.co/kpQsiXWDuT
— Bully Ray (@bullyray5150) October 9, 2019
https://twitter.com/MrLARIATO/status/1181700812604612611
So needless to say, I really liked @nwa last night.
Read why I enjoyed it so much. #NWAPowerrr https://t.co/lW2nbAoVsD
— Voices of Wrestling (@voiceswrestling) October 9, 2019
Just checked out #NWAPowerrr and I was absolutely blown away by it. As someone that grew up with the territories it really brought me back to those days when I was young and dumb and loved wrestling for what it should be. Didn’t hurt that @TheJimCornette provided the commentary!
— Bobby (@augiedog31) October 9, 2019
https://twitter.com/JamesStormBrand/status/1181702388467605504
I'm not even ten minutes into #NWAPowerrr but I am so into this. Reminds me so much of the old school NWA Wrestling shows I grew up on watching TBS in the 80s. Seeing @TheJimCornette on my TV again is a national treasure.
— Timothy Farmer (@LCatsGaming) October 8, 2019
https://twitter.com/Crimson/status/1181711303112413184
The iconic NWA was founded in 1948, with a mission of unifying professional wrestling and having one true champion.
Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan bought the National Wrestling alliance two years ago.
The new NWA has shot “eight or nine” episodes, Lagana told TheWrap. With no TV schedule to adhere to, the league will run the “Powerrr” episodes sporadically leading up to a live pay-per-view slated for Dec. 14.