Fresh off premiering NXT on the CW this week, WWE kept the momentum going from that show to formally announce their premiere on Netflix in 2025. Monday Night RAW on Netflix will kick off the year on January 6, which happens to be the first Monday of the year. There was a ton of speculation that the WWE premiere on Netflix would be later in January or beyond, but that is all a moot point now that we have an official premiere date.
It was January of this year when the WWE announced the deal with Netflix worth at least 5 billion for the next ten years. At the time of the announcement, Netflix couldn’t be happier to secure the WWE for an extended period of time, and they expressed their excitement in a statement by their Chief Content Officer, Bela Bajaria.
“We are excited to have WWE Raw, with its huge and passionate multigenerational fan base, on Netflix,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria. “By combining our reach, recommendations, and fandom with WWE, we’ll be able to deliver more joy and value for their audiences and our members. Raw is the best of sports entertainment, blending great characters and storytelling with live-action 52 weeks a year, and we’re thrilled to be in this long-term partnership with WWE.”
She really launched that shoe at her! 😂👟💥 pic.twitter.com/ULKhFCIye9
— WWE (@WWE) October 2, 2024
It’s no secret that keeping John Cena at least one more year was part of this deal as he makes his final lap before hanging up the boots. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is also a big part of this rollout as he sits on the Board of Directors for TKO and will certainly make his way onto a few RAWs in 2025, whether to wrestle or just cut a promo.
The timing of this announcement is also a way to one-up their rival, AEW (All Elite Wrestling). The smaller wrestling company based out of Jacksonville, FL, announced their new distribution deal with Warner Bros. Discovery less than 24 hours prior, and this felt like the WWE one-upping them. Although WWE is four times the company, AEW has been the closest thing to a competitor for WWE since the Eric Bischoff/WCW days. There have been verbal and virtual jabs on social media about one another, and it has created a real divide among wrestling fans, as you are either with WWE or AEW. One could only hope they could find some middle ground to work together in the future, but that seems more of a pipe dream than anything else. For now, WWE has an official launch date on Netflix, which looks like to be a spectacle of its own.
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