Netflix promises WWE RAW will still be a “family-friendly” show once it debuts on the streaming platform next month.
RAW will move to Netflix on Monday, January 6. Fans have speculated that the 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 and WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque were among the panelists at the event. Becky Lynch was also reported to be seen at the event. Khan and Levesque promised that RAW will still be a family and advertiser-friendly show, unlike what has been rumored.
“It’s a safe place for families, for kids, for everybody, to be able to view the programming,” Levesque said (via Variety). “That will not change.”
“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 added. “It’s a family friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to stay that way.”
Khan said the only change, if any, is RAW 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. Netflix says those issues 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,” Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela 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.
Bajaria said that the next test would be Netflix’s Christmas NFL doubleheader, which features a performance by Beyoncé. “We’re totally ready and excited for the WWE,” she added.
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.
