In one week a viral video featuring an intergender match between controversial pro wrestler, Joey Ryan and Miranda Alize has become one of the most watched YouTube videos in wrestling history.
In fact, as of the writing of this article, in just seven days the video has been seen by a world-wide audience of 45 million people.
The video became a viral sensation almost immediately after its posting, surpassing the total viewership of WWE RAW and Smackdown in the same week.
So what could have caused such a stir that the YouTube channel featuring the match, challenged WWE’s billion dollar content machine for total viewership in a week?
Joey Ryan
Well for starters, whether you are a fan or not, one thing is for certain, Joey Ryan is a draw, in fact he may be the biggest draw in professional wrestling not signed to a major company (WWE, AEW, NJPW, etc.).
Ryan’s star power is well documented on YouTube with top 5 videos featuring him totaling over 150 million views and his top 10 reaching well over 200 million.
Call it the intergender effect, call it soft core, but whatever you call it, you must admit, it’s the most money content in the YouTube pro wrestling scene right now.
Ryan has been a trailblazer in professional wrestling, launching a very popular YouTube series called, “Bar Wrestling”.
The Los Angeles Based Professional Wrestling Show features a Standing Room Only, Concert Type Atmosphere with intergender matches that have featured the likes of Tessa Blanchard, Scarlett Bordeaux, Su Yung, Kiera Hogan and more.
Ryan’s style has obviously attracted its fair share of critics, none more vocal than Jim Cornette. Their twitter battles are also well documented, like this exchange from June of last year.
Ryan went on to offer to compare tax returns with Cornette and it was about that time when Cornette logged off twitter.
Miranda Alize
Miranda Alize was one of the best kept secrets in professional wrestling, but the secret is out.
Alize who broke onto the scene some five years ago at Booker T’s Reality of Wrestling, was featured in WWE’s Mae Young Classic, and has made frequent appearances in DTU Wrestling, Zelo Pro, and Title Match Wrestling’s Ladies Night Out series.
In the past year, Miranda has reinvented herself becoming one of the hardest hitting female athletes in professional wrestling. Her matches against Scarlett Bordeaux and Allie Recks at Ladies Night Out 5 & 6, are a blueprint for her new strong style aggressive approach.
Alize’s chemistry with Ryan is also evident in their match and it helped both of them tell an incredibly entertaining story at Hurricane Pro’s Queens of the Ring.
Miranda’s star power continues to rise and its not a bold prediction to think she’ll be on the radar of WWE and AEW after this match went viral.
2020 could be a banner year in her young career and we wouldn’t be surprised if she found herself competing on a larger stage signed to one of the big three, she’s just that good.
Telly Bistis and Title Match Wrestling
The creator of Title Match Wrestling, Telly Bistis, is rarely seen in the front of the camera, but his story is worth mentioning.
The award winning television producer, walked away from a 13+ year career in TV (Disney, ABC, NBC and FOX) in an effort to build Title Match Wrestling into its own 24/7 on demand content machine.
Title Match Wrestling, which now boasts over 500k subscribers on its YouTube channel, also has a premium service at TitleMatchNetwork.com.
Both the premium network and the YouTube channel feature thousands of titles such as the ultra-popular Ladies Night Out series, Stand Up for Greatness w/ Stevie Ray, Ladies Night Out Underground, and exclusive distribution of Battle Club Pro, Pro Wrestling Syndicate, WrestlePro and 120+ other promotions from around the globe.
Bistis has covered multiple Wrestlemania events on location, has covered live action for the Houston Texans, Astros World Series, and his work has been featured on Inside Edition, The View w/ Barbara Walters, including producing promos for Katie Couric, Alex Trebek, Deborah Norville, Jay Leno, Maury Povich, and others.
“I’m speechless at the reaction to this video, I was refreshing the page to make sure there wasn’t a glitch. Within an hour, we were almost at a million views, I have never seen a video watched that fast. I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who has supported my channel for the last 10 years. This is just an amazing feeling. It’s incredible how all this happened, just a few a months ago the channel had been demonetized and our future was in jeopardy. Now we’ve hit the biggest home run in the channel’s history.”
Bistis has also been a tremendous supporter of women’s wrestling, and since launching his extremely successful series, Ladies Night Out, some of the top unsigned female talents in professional wrestling have been seen by millions around the world.
Curtis Stratton and Hurricane Pro
With the assistance of Title Match Wrestling and Heel/Face Wrestling, Hurricane Pro live streamed its first ever all women’s pay-per-view, Queens of the Ring. Hurricane Pro is the brainchild of Curtis Stratton who grew up as wrestling fan and followed his passion by joining a wrestling school in Houston, TX.
Curtis transitioned into a referee traveling Texas and Louisiana and later launched his own promotion, Hurricane Pro.
Hurricane Pro was founded in 2002 and for 17 years has been putting on events in the Beaumont, Texas area, most recently at Ford Park. The promotion was once called Gulf Coast Power Pro Wresting and rebranded its name in 2013 to Hurricane Pro.
Queens of the Ring, instantly became the promotions most watched and talked about event, receiving international coverage and acclaim and now thanks to the viral match the wrestling world is talking about, Queens of the Ring has become one of the most viewed all-women’s shows in history.
We have a feeling after the success of this first all women’s event in Beaumont, that Queens of the Ring might be returning in the future.
Matt Topolski and the Commentary
The solo-man commentary which includes, “Miranda just turned that sucker into a tootsie-roll”, is the work of Matt Topolski, who for the past six years has been the play-by-play voice for Booker T’s Reality of Wrestling, which airs weekly episodic programming from their facility, the World Gym Arena, in Texas City, Texas.
Topolski started his career in wrestling as the voice of the National Wrestling Alliance, before its sale to Billy Corgan in 2017.
His credits include the NWA versus New Japan Pro Wrestling Invasion show in 2013 which featured Jushin Thunder Liger, Gedo, Watanabe, and Tenzan, as well as a host of events from Houston and San Antonio.
Topolski also hosted a controversial show with WWE Hall of Famer, one half of Harlem Heat, Stevie Ray, which can still be found on Title Match Network.
The show, Stand Up for Greatness, recounted the many stories from the locker room and on the road of Stevie Ray in World Championship Wrestling.
In addition to Reality of Wrestling, Matt Topolski is also the voice of Ladies Night Out and the new LNO Underground series.
His combat sports and broadcasting experience totaling over a decade, also extends into Boxing and MMA, where he hosted and provided commentary for a weekly Boxing series appearing on abc13 in Houston, titled, Prime Time Boxing.
Chad Cooper and the Thumbnail
Every great viral video needs a thumbnail, and no one captures the essence of the moment like photographer Chad Cooper.
Chad is an award-winning journalist/photographer who has worked in media for nearly two decades.
As the current Entertainment Editor of The Examiner for 17 years, Chad has been honored by the National Newspaper Association as well as the Press Club of Southeast Texas.
Chad is also a regular contributor on Flagged Sports, the author of the Degenerates series which pairs sporting events to betting lines for degenerate gamblers like a fine wine with a medium rare New York Strip.