There has never been such a time where we have been so spoilt for choice with wrestling available to watch in the UK. With Impact Wrestling having been on free-to-air TV in the UK for a few years now, major promotions such as AEW and WWE have since followed suit in recent months along with others providing weekly formats through online services that have helped widen the scope of the products available to watch for free.
It might feel as though there is so much that you don’t even know where to begin with it all, but if you at least know where and when they are on then why not give one of these a try? Find your favourite show and enjoy it as much as you like:
WWE:
Since moving its premium viewing to BT Sport this year WWE has agreed to free-to-air showings of its weekly RAW, SmackDown and NXT UK shows on Channel 5 and its sister channel Paramount Network. There is yet to be a free-to-air deal arranged for the USA Network’s NXT in the UK however.
Monday Night RAW – Live on BT Sport 1 (Sky channel 413, Virgin channel 527) at 1am on Tuesday mornings or watch the hour-long highlight show for free on Channel 5 from 10:30am on Sunday mornings.
Friday Night SmackDown – Live on BT Sport 1 at 1am on Saturday mornings or watch the hour-long highlight show for free on Channel 5 from 10:30am on Saturday mornings. *Just to clarify, the SmackDown highlights feature the episode from the week prior, not the episode that aired live just hours before.*
NXT UK – BT Sport 1 at 10pm on Friday night or watch it for free the following week on Paramount Network (Freeview channel 31, Sky channel 150, Virgin channel 154) on Wednesday nights.
These shows are also available on-demand for free up to a month after their broadcast date via the My5 service.
All Elite Wrestling:
The largest competitor to WWE launched its weekly show towards the end of last year to much excitement from fans all over the world and, in particular, the UK where a TV deal was agreed with major broadcaster ITV. The live airing is only available through a FITE TV subscription, but the show is also viewable for free every Friday night on ITV4 just a couple of days later.
AEW Dynamite – FITE TV at 1am on Thursday morning or watch it Friday night for free on ITV4 (Freeview channel 24, Sky channel 120, Virgin channel 118). Also available on-demand via ITVHub.
AEW Dark – This supplementary show is uploaded every Tuesday night on the AEW YouTube channel.
Impact Wrestling:
Bolstering Channel 5’s network of wrestling coverage is the additional broadcasting of Anthem Sports’ Impact Wrestling. This deal has been in place since the better part of 2019, airing every Friday night on 5Star with the live show taking place from 1am Wednesday mornings on AXS TV in the US but simulcast to Twitch for free.
Impact – Twitch TV at 1am on Wednesday morning or watch it Friday night for free on 5Star (Freeview channel 30, Sky channel 128, Virgin channel 151). Also available on-demand through My5.
MLW:
One show that is maybe not a household name just yet but has been making waves is MLW Fusion. The FreeSports channel agreed on the deal with Major League Wrestling in April 2019 and has since broadcast regularly on the network every Monday night from 10pm.
Fusion – Airing on FreeSport (Freeview channel 64, Sky channel 422, Virgin channel 553) every Monday night at 10pm. New episodes are also uploaded for free on YouTube and FITE TV every week where you can watch it on-demand.
NWA Power:
Whilst this promotion is yet to find itself a tv deal, it is regarded as one of the best wrestling shows available for free right now. Owned by The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, this product of the reformed National Wrestling Alliance has received high praise within the wrestling world for its old school presentation similar to that of the territory days.
Powerrr – New episodes every Tuesday night at 11:05pm on the NWA YouTube channel and available on-demand the following Saturday on FITE TV.
*Broadcast times are subject to network schedule changes.*