The Rise of Wrestlers on YouTube

I’ve been a fan of professional wrestling since I was a little kid. I remember the Warrior beating Hogan. I fondly remember Bret Hart’s reign as champion and rooted loudly for Shawn Michaels as he trained to beat Hart under Jose Lothario. I remember the local call-in shows on public access being electric with debates on whether wrestling was real or fake. It was just a different era and there was a lot more emphasis on keeping kayfabe rather than acknowledging it’s a scripted event with performers taking real bumps and doing genuine damage to their bodies. It was just the outcomes that were scripted. Even then, one could argue that outcomes weren’t scripted but rather subject to the whim of Vince McMahon on every single pay-per-view they ever had back then. If he had a feeling about a wrestler two seconds before the match, then the entire scripted outcome went out the window and his choice ending would be the result. 

Nowadays everyone knows that wrestling is a form of entertainment. While genuine and real-life issues will be used in the production, almost everyone in the business is trying to protect themselves and their opponent so everyone can have a long and successful career. Marketing has led to new opportunities for wrestling stars to have podcasts or shows on YouTube, radio, Peacock, or TV. Fans can now purchase actual replicas of any title from any era — some may have slight adjustments due to the older titles having WWF on them — and connect with their favorite stars in ways that were never available to me in the past, at least not without paying an absurd amount of money or being lucky enough to spot a wrestler in public. 

With all the options available to current and former wrestlers, one of them has emerged as a favorite and has led to a proliferation of wrestlers all joining that one app. I am, of course, talking about YouTube. A good chunk of the wrestlers I watched as a child now have at least some content on YouTube. There are even a good number of managers who have YouTube channels. The entire purpose of this article is to provide wrestling fans with a list of channels and wrestlers they can opt to support on YouTube, complete with links to their channels. So, let’s get to it. 

Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway — We’re starting with the best because the Undertaker was, is, and always will be my favorite wrestler. Not only did I find his gimmick to be absolutely amazing when I was a child, but I also loved Paul Bearer. I even loved the match against the Underfaker. He’s using his real name for the podcast because he didn’t want to pay the absurd fee to license his own name from the WWE, and I don’t blame him. His YouTube show covers all his old matches and he frequently brings on other wrestlers to share back stage stories and road tales. His recent episode with Diamond Dallas Page was incredible. 

DDP YOGA with Diamond Dallas Page — Speaking of DDP, nobody in wrestling is having a better second act than him. Not only has DDP become beloved for helping wrestlers straighten out their lives and get healthy when everyone else had told them to stop calling, but he’s also done it for everyday people. DDP doesn’t help people for the clicks, he helps them because he feels called to action. It’s earned him a ton of respect and perhaps more importantly for him, it’s also provided him with many new relationships and a rather amazing second act in life, maybe even a third since DDP’s second job was wrestling. His work with Lex Luger is nothing short of phenomenal. 

Maven Huffman — The winner of WWE’s first-ever reality competition Tough Enough, Maven Huffman enjoyed a small run in WWE before he left wrestling to return to go into finance. Even though Maven was only in the WWE for a short amount of time, the amount of knowledge he has to offer and the stories he’s able to tell have made him one of the most popular YouTubers and even Undertaker said that Maven was his most requested guest since he began doing his own podcast. Mark told that story on Maven’s June 2024 appearance on Six Feet Under. 

KanaChan with Asuka — It’s not easy being a foreign wrestler in the WWE, especially if English isn’t your first language. One of the biggest aspects of being a professional ability is being able to connect with fans through promos and in-ring speeches. Several WWF/WWE wrestlers could have been bigger if they spoke English a little better. Guys like Dino Bravo, Haku, and Ultimate Warrior really struggled when speaking English. Asuka’s popularity on YouTube is a testament to her ability to connect with fans in both English and Japanese. Not only is she one of the most entertaining wrestlers in the women’s division history, she’s incredibly relatable to her fans and often finds really creative ways of connecting with them. 

Official Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru — Jim Cornette was one of the best managers in the late-80’s and 90’s for WWF. He managed folks like Yokozuna, Owen Hart, The British Bulldog, Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, and the Midnight Express. He always carried a tennis racket with him. His show is a little different than the rest in that it’s a podcast without much video, if any at all. He also covers everything from politics (very Democratic Socialist mindset) to Hulk Hogan’s history of lying through his teeth on just about everything. His takedowns of Hulk Hogan are some of the funniest in the industry and you can tell he hates that man with every fiber of his being. 

Stevie Richards Show — Remember the wrestling tag-team in the late-90s called Right to Censor? Stevie Richards was a member of that group and even managed it. The group included Val Venis, Bull Buchanan, Ivory, and The Godfather (The Goodfather, at the time). They feuded with Chyna and her onscreen boyfriend Eddie Guerrero when Chyna did the Playboy shoot at the height of her popularity. Steve covers all aspects of wrestling and comments on how the shows went down, both from a technical perspective and a fan perspective with his co-host, James Romero. Romero is a major name within the wrestling YouTube world. Both he and Conrad Thompson do a number of shows with major talents. 

Eugene Behind the Scenes — We are gonna wrap up here with the channel of Eugene. If you don’t remember Eugene, he was Eric Bishoff’s “nephew” and he was “looked after” by Lord William Regal. Eugene’s gimmick was that he was very… different. But when the bell rang before a match, he turned on and became a savant inside the ring. The basic idea was that Eugene was autistic with an inability to communicate and who wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was often always trying to please his heroes only to usually be mocked and abused by several of them until he beat them convincingly. The man who played Eugene, Nick Dinsmore, has a charming channel where he interacts with fans and tells Eugene stories and lore. He also seems to be a really good dude and tries to work with other wrestlers to benefit them both in the content space.

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