WWE's Netflix Era has kicked off with a show billed as not only the biggest WWE Raw of all time, but also an event arguably more worthy of a PLE. Streamed live around the world from the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, and in front of a huge crowd, Raw brought together current superstars with The Undertaker (as the American Badass), John Cena and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for a packed episode.

And even with the message of change ringing around the arena, one thing remained the same. promo narrated by Triple H, before Johnson cut an opening promo celebrating the launch of the new partnership in front of a record-breaking crowd of more than 17,000. Putting aside questions of how his corporate-sponsored speech fits with any of the last year's stprytelling, as The Rock walked to the ring, he paused to greet commentators Michael Cole and Pat McAfee, and Netflix briefly cut the audio.

Why Netflix Censored The Rock On Raw

The reason for the audio dropping was immediately obvious for anyone paying close enough attention: a visibly excited Johnson hyped up Cole and McAfee saying "let's f*cking go!", as the crowd matched his energy.

Later in the same promo, The Rock got away with dropping a "bullsh*t" without the audio dropping, but clearly, even on Netflix, the Standards and Practices department still has lines that can't be crossed. Oddly, that sits at odds with what Triple H seemed to promise on The Pat McAfee Show back in June 2024, when he said censorship would not be an issue on Netflix:

Right now, just as an example of us being on Fox, if the crowd chants ‘Holy sh**,’ or something much worse, they just take that audio. Sometimes they take the picture and the audio off, and it’s just black screen... We won’t have those issues with Netflix. The ability to be live globally, the ability to have everything seen all at once everywhere, it’s a game-changing moment.

Ironically, of course, McAfee's line of questioning about censorship was prompted by The Rock's return earlier in 2024 that led to a now infamous social media tirade aimed at the network's Standards and Practices department:

Standards and Practices though, they push the button. They push the button because they want to control The Rock. Just like they push the buttons like they want to control the people. But you can’t control The Rock, you can’t control the people, and The Rock is the People’s Champion.

It might be prudent to expect Johnson to respond to the censorship again, given Netflix chose not to edit out the very obvious "f*ck you, Solo!" chants that greeted Solo Sikoa's arrival to ringside. Clearly the crowd are governed by different rules, which is a difficult thing to complain about: commitment to atmosphere is different to superstars dropping f-bombs.

Presumably, Netflix will still draw the line at offensive fan signs as they did for the Smackdown outage that got under Johnson's skin last year, but the signs are a little mixed at the minute. Particularly with The Rock drink driving in a backstage segment, and rapper Travis Scott ing Jey Uso for his entrance quite clearly smoking a t (despite a game attempt to it off as "sage" by commentary).

What Other Changes To Expect In WWE's Netflix Era

It's early days, but some changes are already confirmed for WWE Raw on Netflix. Triple H confirmed shortly before the first episode on the platform that the run-time of episodes would no longer be set quite as firmly. The needs of the story will dictate how long things will run, even if there's a sweet spot by Levesque's ission of somewhere between 2 and 3 hours:

It will be flexible. It will be flexible in I don’t necessarily know the time constraints of network television or cable television apply. It’s a slightly different platform. Much like many episodic shows, they have the ability to do whatever the show needs to have down. If this episode needs to be an hour, great, it’s an hour. If the next episode needs to be 42 minutes, it’s 42 minutes. It’s what makes for the best product. I’m not saying we’re going to be 42 minutes, but clearly we’ll deliver the product in a way that is best for Netflix and their business model and best for our storytelling.

Advertising is another big change: the Raw ring now carries sponsorship partner logos from Fortnite to Hulk Hogan's Real American Beer, and of course Netflix. International viewers also get to watch the show free of commercial breaks, with the odd fades to black marking where other territories were played commercials. That was confirmed ahead of time by WWE line producer Brian Fadem:

While you might go to commercials if you’re in Texas, if you’re in Italy you’re going to see us continue content. You're going to see the continuation of a match. You're going to see exclusive interviews with our talent. You might see an exclusive package that will only be viewed on that international level.

As for the product itself? Very little changed. Paul Heyman told ScreenRant that WWE would have to evolve to match the new platform and its growing audience, but that was very much a forward-looking prediction.