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Netflix promises WWE RAW will still be a “family-friendly” show once it debuts on the streaming platform next month.
WWE RAW will move to Netflix on Monday, January 6. Fans have speculated that the show’s move away from cable will allow for a “grittier” show that might allow more swearing and adult-skewed content. WWE hosted an event at Netflix headquarters on December 3, which answered some of those questions about the show’s new rating.
WWE President Nick Khan, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria, Netflix non-fiction series and sports VP Brandon Riegg and WWE commentator Michael Cole were on hand at the event to detail some of the plans for RAW’s live launch on Netflix. Becky Lynch was also reported to be seen at the event.
“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,” Nick Khan said (via Variety). “It’s a family friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to stay that way.”
“It’s a safe place for families, for kids, for everybody, to be able to view the programming,” Levesque added. “That will not change.”
Khan said that the only change, if any, would be RAW now being available to customers around the world through one app. He teased that countries outside of the United States are priorities for Netflix and in turn, for WWE.
Netflix says buffering issues have been resolved
Netflix’s move into live content has not come without issues. Last month’s Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight was plagued by buffering issues, which Netflix says have been worked out ahead of the RAW premiere.
“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.”
Levesque has addressed that issue before, claiming he would be “good” with the buffering if it meant WWE still had an audience of 60 million people. He echoed these comments on Monday, telling reporters that “if it blinks a couple of times and we do 60 million, I’m good with that.”
Thankfully, it sounds like Netflix has worked everything out ahead of the January premiere.
Roman Reigns is one of the WWE Superstars who doesn’t see the need for a “grittier” WWE product on Netflix. Read more about how he views the shift to Netflix here.
