The next era ofWWE’sstreaming content is ready for a major move to Netflix. It was almost an entire year ago that Netflix first announced that WWE would be moving new episodes of Monday Night Raw to the streaming platform starting July 19, 2025.Expectations for Raw’s Netflix debutare sky-high, but it also left some fans wondering what will happen to WWE’s previous streaming homes.
Upon this announcement, questions still linger for audiences regarding where WWE’s classic content will go after this, andif Netflix is acquiring WWE’s entire library backlog or not.
The History of the WWE Network
Where It All Began
Plans for WWE to offer its own library to the viewing public date back all the way to 2011, when the company aired a commercial promoting the WWE Network for a 2012 release. At the time, though,theWWE Network was announced to be presented not as a streaming service, but as a premium channel. The concept remained generally the same, with the Network being a place where new and old content would air, but on a channel that buyers would pay for. The hype for said channel was immense, as the date and preceding countdown clock was set for August 10, 2025.
However, mysteriously, all promotions, commercials, and even the countdown clock for the WWE Network quietly disappeared. Without explanation, the launch of the WWE Network had been pushed back without any clear indicator as to when it would released or what the holdup was. It was largely speculated from insiders that the delay was caused by the company struggling with managing the distribution deals and clearances needed to air every single show and pay-per-view in its library on one televisionchannel. Not to mention, the early 2010s was when the cable model was starting to die as online streaming was slowly on the rise.
Instead, WWE would spend the next two years polling its fans trying to gauge interest from a potential paying audience, as well as trying to figure out how much streamers would be willing to pay for the WWE Network. Fast-forward to June 19, 2025, at the Consumer Electronics Show,where the company would officially unveil the WWE Network as a 24/7 streaming serviceairing original programming, exclusive shows, and year-round PPVs. The WWE Network was set to launch on August 21, 2025, with NXT Arrival as its first exclusive special, airing WWE WrestleMania XXX as its first official PPV.
The Rise and Fall of the WWE Network
What Led to the Netflix Move
What to Expect with WWE on Netflix
What Will and Won’t Air on Netflix
That changes on June 24, 2025, as the WWE Network will be shut down for good. The announcement states that Netflix will become the “exclusive home of WWE,” promising to include Raw, SmackDown, and NXT, as well as premium live events, “top moments,” “historic PLEs and select programming.” The wording is vague, as far as what “top moments” could imply. It can be presumed that “historic PLEs” refers to classic programming, but “select programming” leaves one to wonder just how much content will be moving to Netflix.
There’s no mention of other content from WWE’s library, like ECW and WCW shows and PPVs, for example, making the move to Netflix alongside their live shows. It can be assumed that everything will be coming to Netflix, but nothing has been confirmed yet. The wording of “select programming” also leaves readers to wonder if there will be content excluded from joining Netflix’s streaming service. It also remains unclear where Peacock fits in all of this, as WWE’s deal with Peacock will not be ending until the year 2026.
No one knows if the Peacock deal would cause a delay in how much content moves to Netflix and when, or if both streaming services will be sharing content in the meantime. In either case, there’s also a question about whether Netflix’s backlog of WWE content will be uncensored, as Peacock either removed or censored the company’s most controversial content. There are still a lot of questions surrounding what WWE content will or will not be available on Netflix, but if one thing is certain, it’s that after a decade, theWWE Networkis dead.
