‘WWE Raw’ Will Still Be Family Friendly on Netflix, Execs Say, While Promising Live Buffering Issues Have Been Resolved: ‘We’re Totally Ready’

Don’t expect to see a rawer “Raw” as the flagship WWE series moves to Netflix next month. That was the message Tuesday from WWE president/chief revenue officer Nick Khan and chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, who told reporters that “WWE Monday Night Raw” would maintain a “TV-PG” content rating in its new home.

“It’s a safe place for families, for kids, for everybody, to be able to view the programming,” Levesque said. “That will not change.”

Khan said he’s seen speculation that being on a streamer will allow “Raw” to push the content boundaries more, but said there’s no reason to believe it: “There’s some online chatter about how it’s going to be ‘R’ rated or, for us old folks, ‘X’ rated. That’s definitely not happening,” he said. “It’s a family friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to stay that way.”

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If there is any change, Khan added, it will center on the fact that “Raw” will now be available across the globe in one place via Netflix. That might allow for more “global flair,” he said: “The countries outside of the United States are as important to us as the United States are. We have certain targeted countries that are priorities for Netflix. They’re priorities for us. You’re going to see more of that.”

Khan, Levesque, Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria, Netflix non-fiction series and sports VP Brandon Riegg and WWE commentator Michael Cole met with the press to lay out their plans for the sports entertainment franchise on Netflix — which kicks off on Monday, Jan. 6, with the live launch of “WWE Raw” from the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. Pat McAfee will return as commentator (having been off the show since August) alongside Cole.

According to Khan, the Jan. 6 Netflix premiere show at the Intuit Dome has “already broken our United States arena ticket record, and that is in six weeks from now, and it’s not even close to being sold out. What are the components for that? It’s Netflix. People are excited for this show.”

Meanwhile, besides the question of whether the content would change at a streamer, the WWE and Netflix execs were also asked about the possibility of technical difficulties like the ones that popped up during the recent Mike Tyson/Jake Paul bout.

“Whenever we do any live events, obviously, we want it to go very smoothly for every single one of our members,” Bajaria said. “That’s really important, I think, also to put it in perspective: It was 65 million concurrent streamers. The scale was very big, which is great. There was a lot of interest in it. When you test and push something to 65 million [streams] at the same time… you can’t learn these things until you do them.

“So you take a big swing, and our teams and our engineers moved super quickly, stabilized it, and many of the members really had it back up and running pretty quickly,” she added, noting that Netflix’s Christmas NFL doubleheader will be the next test. “We learned from those things, and we’ve all obviously done a lot of stuff to learn and get ready for the NFL and Beyoncé. We’re totally ready and excited for the WWE.”

From the WWE side, Levesque said, “I’ll just say, if it blinks a couple of times and we do 60 million, I’m good with that.”

As for viewership expectations, Bajaria pointed out that the WWE has shifted networks several times through the years with its signature shows like “Raw” and “Smackdown,” and that viewership hasn’t been impacted by those moves.

“The WWE has been able to keep their audiences coming back week after week, year after year, and whenever they’ve moved from Syfy to Fox to USA Network, the audience has always followed,” she said. “Their ratings are incredibly stable. In 2020, the WWE averaged almost 2 million total viewers on USA. Four years later, the numbers are almost identical. Do you know how rare that is?

“It’s the first time ‘Raw’ is leaving linear television since it premiered there more than 30 years ago,” she added. “But if the past is any indication, WWE fans will follow, and millions of fans around the world will be able to experience it all on one service, which has never happened before, where we also hope that we can bring in new fans.”

Khan noted the timeline of different WWE deals over the past two decades — particularly the moment in 2000 when “Raw” moved off USA Network to TNN. (It returned to USA in 2005.)

“WWE was on The Nashville Network, which became The National Network, which became TNN, which became Spike, which is now Paramount, which is now wholly irrelevant,” he quipped.

Meanwhile, with “WWE Smackdown” moving to USA Network this fall and “WWE NXT” now on The CW, the wrestling entertainment company continues to produce product for multiple outlets — and its premium live events (formerly known as pay-per-view) and library content lives on Peacock. That deal with Peacock expires in 2026, and most expect that package to move over to Netflix after that.

“Peacock is our incumbent partner on what was always going to respect our incumbents rights in the relationship we have there,” Khan said. “So we’ll have those conversations with them in 2025 and we’ll see what shakes up.”

Netflix already has the international rights to the rest of the WWE content, including the premium live events, moving forward.

“So outside of the U.S. we’re going to have WrestleMania and Royal Rumble and so many more,” Bajaria said. “We just can’t even imagine, fans of WWE who’ve been looking and have to find in different places, the easy access is going to be exciting.”

Said Levesque: “I don’t think people understand truly what that means,” Levesque said. “Outside of the U.S., the rest of the world, we’re getting everything on that date all at once. I can watch anything at any given time. It’s a game changer.”

Bajaria and Riegg also said they plan to put documentaries and other series about the WWE into production. And on the scripted side, they’re about to produce the new movie “Little Brother,” featuring WWE star John Cena and also starring comedian Eric André. The film is timed to Cena’s WWE farewell tour, which will be a major part of the 2025 WWE gameplan.

“We would have done the John Cena movie even if we didn’t have the WWE,” Bajaria said. “There’s definitely opportunity to do kind of more of that, as long as it’s always the driver of, we think it’s going to be somebody’s favorite show or somebody’s favorite movie. It has to be good.”

But, added Riegg — perhaps tongue only partly planted in cheek — “We might have a WWE episode of ‘Is It Cake?’ though. I think that would work well.”

Khan credited Riegg for putting the WWE deal in motion early on, before Netflix was even in the live TV business. Back then, around 2018 or 2019, Riegg advised Khan to line up the WWE’s international rights for the day that Netflix might be in the market. “And then, boom, a year ago, we sat down together, and within a month, we all had the deal done. It was in short order,” Khan said.