WWE And Netflix Get Us Ready For Their Raw Debut In January

WWE, or World Wrestling Entertainment, has been known for decades for its ability to adapt and continue to grow. From regional to weekly live shows, and now, starting in 2025, Raw will move to Netflix, in other words streaming—just another chapter in the wrestling company’s will to evolve with the times.

To tell us more about this huge change for WWE, executives from the wrestling company and Netflix came together at the Netflix headquarters in Los Angeles to share some of their plans for the upcoming debut of Raw live from the Intuit Dome in Inglewood on January 6 exclusively on the streaming giant. Some of those executives included WWE President Nick Khan and Chief Content Officer, Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque. Along with Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria and VP of Nonfiction Series and Sports, Brandon Riegg. Also in attendance to pump up attendees were several superstars.

To recap, in late January, WWE and Netflix announced the landmark agreement to move Raw to the streaming service in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Latin America, and other territories. Outside of the states, Netflix will also be the new home for SmackDown and NXT. The deal was worth $5 billion for 10 years.

ALSO SEE: WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW DEBUTS ON NETFLIX THIS JANUARY

GETTING READY FOR WWE

In the meantime, Netflix has been getting their house in order by hosting several live events. These include Chris Rock’s comedy special “Selective Outrage!”, followed by “The Roast of Tom Brady”, and most recently their biggest live event, the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson boxing match. While many like to talk about some of the technical issues of that night, Bajaria looks at it a little differently.

“We want it to go smoothly for every single one of our members. That’s really important—also, to put it in perspective, it was 65 million concurrent streams, right? It was a very successful night. A lot of people [watched], the scale was very big, which is great. There’s a lot of interest in it,” Bajaria said.

Levesque added to that sentiment by saying, “if it blinks a couple of times and we do 60 million, I’m good with that.”

Bajaria praised her engineers and talked about how sometimes you can’t learn from these experiences until they happen. Now they are looking ahead to first hosting two NFL games on Christmas day, followed by the debut of Raw in January. Netflix has been able to stay atop the streaming world as other services have struggled to stay afloat and keep subscribers engaged. Similarly, WWE was able to survive a pandemic, to which they adapted. As well as controversy with their former boss and the not-so-threatening rise of another promotion. This is a fantastic partnership.

WILL THERE BE A CHANGE IN RATING?

There have been a lot of rumors about some of the possible changes that we can see on Raw. One of the biggest ones is the change in rating, implying that things could be headed back to what we had once seen during the Attitude Era where things got pretty wild. During the event, Khan confirmed that they are not changing the rating of their program.

“It’s family-friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to stay that way. I would look for more global flair, especially as the relationship continues to develop”, said Khan.

THE ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES FOR EXPANSION

They also talked about what they made seem like endless possibilities of IP expansion for their superstars and some of the celebrities who are also big fans of the product. These include familiar faces like Bad Bunny, Travis Scott, and Jelly Roll. Levesque shared with everyone that there will be more celebrities involved on Raw. Bajaria also added that they are also looking forward to possibly doing documentaries as well as some scripted and unscripted content.

Currently, WWE is firing on all cylinders, and on January 6, we will see the dawn of a new era for both them and Netflix. One that will include John Cena’s farewell tour, a bloodline feud that could end with The Rock vs Roman Reigns (crossing our fingers), and so much more. The question is, “ARE YOU READY?”.