Review: Black Wrestling Network

I originally learned about Black Wrestling Network from Joe at Ringside. He posted about them multiple times from 2010 to 2013 (link to his tagged posts). I was intrigued but never acted on my interest. At that time, they were only streaming and DVDs while I was 100% downloads. And I found their website confusing and intimidating, much like I do with Can-Am and Spotland Scrappers. If I don’t post much about a known group, their website user experience could be the main culprit.

I finally decided to dive into BWN.

When I started blogging, BWN did offer me a free month, but it wasn’t a good time. By the time it was, I felt bad letting them know. I just don’t like asking producers for free stuff. When they send videos unsolicited, I’ve been accepting and posting my disclosure notice if I review it. However, if I ask, I’d not only feel a responsibility to post about what they share, but any measure of objectivity would be lost.

Anyway, fast forward to last month when The Muscle Lover posted a YouTube video on the group which piqued my curiosity again. BWN has re-designed the website. And through Wrestler4Hire, I have become comfortable with streaming. I signed up for one quarter (oddly cheaper per month than semi-annual or annual), figuring that would give me enough time to decide what I think.

All right, guys, let's see what you've got.

BWN has been around a long time (18 years), so there’s a lot of history. And title belts. And there are storylines. And a lot of unfamiliar wrestlers. And factions for those wrestlers that drive the storylines. It’s a lot to grasp this early into my subscription. While I’ve barely tapped the surface, I think I’ve seen enough of the site to post my initial thoughts.

The Site

It’s simple to get to categories of wrestlers and videos. Once you get to one thing, they have a scroll at the bottom that leads you to related videos by wrestler and theme. That makes life easier. Since I’m streaming, I’ve been using a hunt-and-peck system where I just randomly click around and see who’s who and what’s what. That’s been fairly easy but I’m still overwhelmed by the choices. I’m no BWN expert, but I do think that I get most of the categories now. I’ve mostly checked out competitive and ignored the erotica.

Matches are divided into four categories:
New, Beatdowns, Competitive, Erotica

Wrestlers are listed in six categories with some overlap:
New, Champs, Beefy, Bodybuilders, Jobbers, Mature

The site itself doesn’t work great with my mobile technology. Navigation is fine, but both my iPhone and iPad have trouble once I make a choice. I can’t open all the videos and the ones that I can open often stop playing mid-video, forcing me to re-start then scroll back to where I was. If I haven’t looked at the time bar in a while, I don’t always know exactly where to go back to as it starts from 0:00. Since I watch a lot when I travel, that’s not ideal.

The Videos

So far, the videos I've watched are all very similar. They start out with trailers and background clips that catch you up on any history you need. That’s helpful. The action is mat-based, focused on grappling, mostly in a basement setting. I haven’t seen any pro-style or ring action yet. That'd be great give the number of big musclemen on the roster. There’s usually a face-off then once the wrestling starts, things seem to keep going for one long fall with extensive (and unnecessary for me) use of slo-mo during the hot match moments.

It's all mat action so far.

The videos are all long. Even without the trailers and background info. What you think of that is personal taste, but to be honest, I haven’t actually watched one from start to finish yet. I’m usually happy with 10-15 minutes of fast-paced action, so 45 to 60 minutes really drags for me from any company. It becomes repetitive, especially with limited mat action and only one fall. One rear choke looks a lot like another.

Of course the plus of streaming long videos is that you get more stuff. No one is forcing me to watch it all and I don’t. I’ve been getting good at scrolling around, able to find extended periods that interest me. And I usually scroll to the end to see who won. Using this system, I’ve been quite satisfied with most of the videos, even if I’m treating them as action clips more than matches.

I've been flipping around, looking for moments
and checking out the endings.

The Wrestlers

One of the most surprising things might be that BWN could be the most diverse wrestling video site out there. The roster features variety that you don’t see in most exclusively or predominantly white companies where there's an aesthetic philosophy. BWN features a really broad array of men from across the Black diaspora as well as wrestlers of different ages, body sizes, body shapes, skin tones, etc.

One of the first things I did was identify and fixate on two wrestlers that appealed to me: Sword and Cubano. A muscleman like Sword could probably have wrestled for most companies but Cubano evolves into a kind of plump muscleman you don’t usually see elsewhere.

Once you find a guy you like, it's easy to find all
his matches using the scroll bar.

Cubano fits under multiple categories,
but beefy + jobber is why I've liked him.

Sword is a stud. He's a champ who’s muscular and wears loincloth-style gear. He’s a beautiful man and a perfect fantasy. He’s part of a faction called 404Life (that’s defunct now, I guess), serving as an enforcer type. In spite of his muscles and title belt, he’s not the alpha which I learned quickly when he was ordered to kneel and kiss the foot of the real leader at the start of one video. Why he’s subservient, I don’t know, but it’s pretty hot.

The muscleman champ on his knees.

Sword's helplessness makes my day.

Sword’s a quiet guy who lets his muscles do the talking. I was surprised that he’s not more dominant. In fact, he’s not alpha on the mats, either. If not for being part of a villain faction, I’d describe him as a face wrestler. I haven't seen him cheat. He wins in the end (except when he finally drops the belt on his way out the door), but he doesn’t control his matches. Now you probably get why I like him. He’s a hot muscleman, bare-assed in a loincloth, who gets dominated. Yeah, that's my kind of guy.

Sword's loincloth flaps never cover much.

You can get Sword down, but keeping
him there has been a different story.

Cubano has been around for a while because a transformation like his from muscleman to meaty big man doesn’t happen overnight. He’s mostly an aggressive jobber, entering with big talk then through dirty tactics ending up on his back, unconscious. Like Sword, he seems like he should be alpha, but he’s not. Guys like to beat and humiliate him, which I like to watch. Even his thong gear choice was permanently imposed on him by a victorious heel as a condition of losing.

Early Cubano.

Cubano tries to be alpha, but ends up beta a lot.

Cubano's gotten a lot bigger but because
of a loss, his gear has gotten a lot smaller.

Guys love to humiliate the huge man.

In the end, I’m liking the BWN experience so far. I’ve found wrestlers and videos that I enjoy. I’m navigating it reasonably well. And it’s something different. I don’t know yet if I’ll keep an ongoing membership or just sporadically drop in and out. I’ll have to see how much I’m watching in a couple of months time. But for now, this has been worth it.

My plan moving forward is to do more specific reviews, but this seemed like a good start. Since I'm not really watching complete matches, I’m not sure if I’ll write about individual videos or maybe focus on wrestlers. Maybe a combination.

So that’s my take. What’s yours?

Alex