WWE’s Netflix Move Means Classic Wrestling To Disappear
WWE fans in the US have already lost a lot of classic wrestling content and now fans across the globe face missing out as Netflix looms large.
WWE Raw will move to Netflix in January 2025 as part of a multi-billion dollar deal between the sports entertainment and streaming giants.
International fans will get even more WWE content with their Netflix subscription as SmackDown, NXT, and premium live events will also make the switch as the WWE Network comes to an end after a decade.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained that this could be bad news for fans of older content as so far only 40 WWE pay-per-views will be available when the Netflix switch happens:
Everything moves to Netflix, what are we going to see? How much of the library we’re going to see? The answer is not much. All the current shows obviously will be on every single week. […] As far as your archives, there will be some but very little. So on January 1, when everything starts, they’re going to have I think roughly 40 pay-per-views, some recent, some years ago.
Only WWE Content Heading To Netflix
Meltzer added that there didn’t seem to be coherent reasoning behind what shows are moving to Netflix straight away and also explained why the move is bad news for fans of classic content as a lot of old promotion’s shows won’t be making the switch:
I think they just blindfolded themselves and threw darts at a wall and whichever name hit they picked up because it’s not like they picked the best pay-per-views or recent or anything.
There’ll be no WCW, it’s all WWE. No Mid Atlantic Wrestling, no Mid South Wrestling, World Class Wrestling, none of that tape library stuff. Again, people really didn’t 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 owns the tape library of many old promotions meaning unless they find another outlet for that content or plan on selling it, it might not be seen for quite some time.