What happens when creators don’t want to pay for Guinness World Records?

Guinness World Records really digs content creators. It’s crowned numerous YouTubers with their own records: MrBeast has one for running the world’s most-subscribed-to YouTube channel, JackSucksAtLife has one for running the most channels with over 100,000 subscribers, the Velázquez siblings have one for earning the most Diamond Play Buttons in a single family, Airrack has two–one for making the world’s largest pizza, and one for visiting the most fast food restaurants in 24 hours.

And creators like Guinness, too. Creators often feature the book’s record certifiers in their videos, and the record is a sort of badge of honor–an undeniable “I did this first” for people who have spent their careers innovating online video.

But in case you didn’t know, we’ll let you in on a somewhat little-known fact of the Guinness record process: Anyone can submit a potential record for free, but if you want your record verified fast and/or by a specific date (such as, for example, in time for a YouTube video or Twitch stream), then you have to pay. Fees range widely, from $12K base to several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So, what happens when creators don’t want to pay those fees?

That’s the question the organizers behind a recent wrestling livestream had to contend with. Canadian pro wrestler Evil Uno, his org Mystery Wrestling, and Ottawa-based C4 Wrestling set out to raise money for charity by holding the world’s longest wrestling match.

Sixteen wrestlers competed in a match that lasted 21 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds, before former All Elite Wrestling pro Stu Grayson was declared winner. Per Dexerto, the event’s Twitch stream had over 400,000 unique viewers drop in, and peaked at over 15,000 concurrent viewers. Evil Uno hosted alongside expert guest commentators like Nyla Rose

The match very narrowly beat Guinness’ current world record of 21 hours, 44 minutes, and 34 seconds. That was set in 2021, by Japan’s Ehime Pro Wrestling. But, if Mystery Wrestling and C4 wanted their record recognized in real-time, they would’ve had to pay $16,000, Evil Uno said on X (formerly Twitter).

“We were in contact with Guinness World Record to make our attempt official,” he said. “BUT…they’ve just told us it’s a minimum of 16000 USD to do so. We just can’t spend that in good faith. All to say, this will be an unofficial attempt at the world’s longest pro wrestling multiman match!”

That being said, their successful attempt can still be recognized. They would just have to wait in the queue for the standard application review process, which Guinness World Record says currently takes a max of 20 weeks.

But while Mystery and C4’s event was record-setting, setting the record wasn’t actually their goal. They set out to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society, and viewers came through, donating nearly $27,000 for the Toronto-based research org.

The viewership their match achieved further shows how much of a foothold live sports have on platforms like YouTube and Twitch–and on streaming, too. We’ve talked about golf and Formula 1‘s popularity online, but wrestling is seeing a golden age, too. Paramount just paid nearly $8 billion for exclusive rights to stream all American UFC events on Paramount+, and Disney (through ESPN) bolted down a similar deal that has it paying $1.6 billion for rights to WWE.