iPPV Streams Aren't Perfect
I wanted to get the one major complaint I have about indie wrestling out of the way right off the bat. IPPV service – or "Internet Pay-Per-View" – isn't a perfected art form just yet. There are so many things that can, and often do go wrong. Sometimes smaller companies don't have decent enough equipment. Sometimes smaller services don't have the bandwidth. Sometimes it can be as simple as a bad WIFI connection. There are few things more frustrating than getting hyped for a show, and then having the stream die in the middle of a title match. You should have seen my fit of rage at last year's ROH Death Before Dishonor iPPV.
That being said, not every show has streaming issues. More often than not indie shows run smooth about 97% of the time, with light bumps in the road throughout the night that usually just require you to refresh the stream. It's the ones that go horribly wrong that you hear the most about. Ring of Honor is the biggest of the independent promotions – I'm actually not sure we're supposed to label them as such anymore – and they have, unfortunately, had some issues with iPPV that turn a lot of people off towards the service in general.
Fortunately, a lot of companies have turned to on-demand content and DVD-only business to fix these issues. You might have to pay a little bit more for a physical disk, but it's almost always worth it. Some shows, like 2CW, even put on a handful of Free-For-View shows to get fans interested in their product. Many companies, like FWE, give away some stream keys on social media. And in the event that there are major iPPV issues, the vast majority of promotions will fix the situation and make it right for the customer.
