JBL says WWE is right to cut anything questionable out of its Netflix replays, because the upside of leaving it in is small and the downside is enormous.
Netflix’s VP of Sports Gabe Spitzer told Richard Deitsch’s Sports Media podcast that conversations with WWE about blood and language do not happen often, and that Netflix tries to be looser than a broadcast network. Fans have noticed the opposite in practice, with material from live broadcasts disappearing from the replays. One recent example was a backstage segment between Paige and Nikki Bella where a line that drew a big live reaction was cut from the version on Netflix.
Conrad Thompson asked JBL on Something to Wrestle With whether the motivation is sponsors, encouraging people to watch live, or protecting a future rights deal. JBL said all three, in a clear order.
“I think all three of your points are all correct. The least out of those is number two, where you talk about you want fans to watch it live,” he said. “It’s much more important to have the TV rights. It’s much more important to have the sponsorship.”
His reasoning was a straight risk calculation.
“Think about the upside risk against the downside risk. The upside of leaving it in, what do you get from that? You get a very small percentage of fans who are going to be appreciative of it,” JBL said. “And most of the fans, my guess would be something around 80, 90 percent, and that’s just a guess, go, I don’t care. There was blood there. They’re not going to show it. Cool. I’m just here for the content anyway.”
The other side of the ledger is where he thinks the decision gets made.
“The downside is huge, because if one sponsor, just one, says this product is too edgy, because you’ve said something that was off colour or tasteless by a person being a heel, or you show blood or you show an injury, and a sponsor goes, I just don’t think that’s the right fit for us, the downside risk on that is massive,” he said.
His conclusion was that caution costs nothing.
“If you’re WWE, always err on the side of caution. That’s just business. If there’s any doubt whatsoever, take it out, because you’re talking about future sponsorships. You’re talking about future TV deals,” JBL said. “You’re not going to gain one of those future TV deals by showing five extra seconds of blood somewhere, but you could lose it by showing that five extra seconds of blood somewhere.”
The first Raw on Netflix in January 2025 included an unbleeped expletive from The Rock, which fans read at the time as a sign the show would run edgier on a streaming platform.
There is a second thing WWE is holding back, and JBL is on the wrong side of that one too. Nick Khan said on The Varsity this week that the creative for WrestleMania 43 in Riyadh is already finished, subject to injuries, and announced two nights of watch parties at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. What he did not give was a date. WWE still has not announced one.
Thompson spent a long stretch of the episode trying to get it out of JBL, who is on the AAA broadcast team and will be at one of those MSG nights.
JBL’s first answer was a dodge with a fact buried in it.
“It’s the day that you’re having the watch along party in Madison Square Garden, and you’re gonna have NXT. You’re gonna have NXT the one. Not doing that AAA the next night,” he said.
Told that WWE talent get their schedules through an internal app, JBL confirmed the system exists and that he has no part of it.
“They used to hand us calendar pages, like three or four months of calendar pages,” he said. “Conrad, I don’t even have a f***ing talent relations app on my phone.”
Asked to install it, he refused.
“No, I don’t want to go on my phone. I got some fing app,” JBL said. “How about you email me the calendar if you’ve got one, or I’ll call the person I know who still works there and say, hey, when is the travel for this or that? And then they email it to me. I don’t want to be on a fing app.”
Pushed on why the date matters, he narrowed it down as far as he was willing to.
“What are you so upset about? It’s a day that’s somewhere around March, April, May, June, July next year,” JBL said.
Thompson’s underlying point was practical rather than comic. WrestleMania 43 is the first held outside the United States and Canada, and anyone planning to travel to Saudi Arabia needs to book flights. WWE has confirmed the venue, the creative and the watch parties without confirming the day. The pair discussed why the company might be holding it back, with JBL suggesting a variety of reasons and Thompson floating the idea that announcing it gives rivals runway to plan around.
WrestleMania 43 was announced for Riyadh by Triple H and Turki Alalshikh in September 2025 and is expected in April 2027.
