WWE Raw’s debut on Netflix was a resounding success met with much fanfare around the world.
Yet just one week later, many avid supporters were left scratching their heads. The initial launch of WWE Raw on Netflix on January 6 was packed with special guest appearances, including John Cena and The Rock, with the runtime hitting three hours. The show had a reported 4.9 million people streaming and Netflix revealed the showpiece made the global top 10 list.
However, this week’s second episode on January 13 clocked in at two-and-a-half hours – with a full half hour cut out. Fans felt duped as Raw was a two-hour show for the last three months while airing on the USA Network. And there was a promise by WWE hierarchy that it would not be restricted by time constraints anymore.
However Triple H, also know as Chief Content Officer Paul Levesque, says they can be flexible about exactly how long each episode goes. He said: “It’ll be flexible in that I don’t think necessarily the time constraints of network television or cable television apply. It’s a slightly different form, it’s a slightly different platform. I think much like many shows, whether dramas or whatever, but episodic shows, they have the ability to do whatever the show needs to have done.”
Levesque believes that the “sweet spot” for wrestling is between two and three hours adding: “Sometimes you get into the two hour show and you just don’t have the real estate on that program to get everything in there you want to get in and all the stories that you want to get in and all the characters that you want to get in and there are people that are getting left off.”
One of the benefits of having a flexible run time, Levesque says, is that it allows WWE to let segments run long without taking away from other stories on the show. He concluded: “Sometimes three hours can feel long; sometimes two hours is not enough. Somewhere in the middle to me is the sweet spot.”