When WWE made a deal with Netflix to see its flagship show, Monday Night Raw, move from the USA Network to the streaming service beginning in January 2025, they also agreed to more than just the rights to Raw as the streamer will be the exclusive home to Raw in the US, UK, Canada, Latin America, and other territories.
WWE will also move its programming to Netflix outside of the US, where they will air SmackDown and PLEs. This replaces the WWE Network in many international markets, and as of January 1, 2025, the WWE Network will no longer be available.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that the WWE library will be limited to around 40 WWE pay-per-view events and not many archive events when they go to Netflix for international viewers. Fans fear that if WWE moves its US rights from Peacock to Netflix in 2026, the same could happen.
Meltzer said, “This is actuallyinternational, but it does have to do, perhaps, with long-term because People have been asking, internationally, when everything moves to Netflix, how much of the library are we going to see? And the answer is, not much. All the current shows, obviously, will be on every single week. This is international, not United States, United States is only Raw. All the pay-per-views are gonna be on Netflix. As far as your archives, there will be some, but very little. This is all international. On January 1, when everything starts, they’re gonna have about roughly 40 pay-per-views, will be the only thing up. Just intermittent. Some recent, some years ago. But like 40-ish pay-per-views, dating back to the Wrestling Classic and Tuesday in Texas, Rock Bottom, and there’ll be Royal Rumbles and WrestleManias, of course. Hell in a Cell. The Invasion pay-per-view. Evolution pay-per-view, the all-women’s show. Some of the ECW pay-per-views, December to Dismember’s gonna be up there.… I think they just blinded themselves and threw darts at a wall, and whichever name they picked up, because it’s not like they picked the best pay-per-views, or recent, or anything. Clash at the Castle’s gonna be on. The point is it will only be, when it starts on Netflix, there will be 40 pay-per-views. There’ll be no WCW. No WCW it’s all WWE. No Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, no Mid-South Wrestling, World Class Wrestling. None of that taped library stuff. People didn’t really watch a lot of it, so that’s what happened. But there will be a few WrestleManias. There will be some old episodes of NXT, Raw and SmackDown. All the new episodes airing live, of course.”
WWE has also started to upload a lot of old footage to the WWE Vault YouTube channel, with speculation that may be the direction they’re headed in, where instead of one platform having the entire library, they may upload footage in pieces to YouTube.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit F4WOnline.com with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. An F4WOnline.com subscription includes the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and daily audio shows in addition to thousands of hours of archived audio shows.
