A Recap of Everything That Happened on Raw's Netflix Debut
as understood by someone who can only generously be described as a casual wresting fan
“there’s something about the underdog that really inspires the unexceptional” - robert california
Brian and I joke that we can’t talk to anyone but each other without sounding insane and last night watching the first episode of WWE’s Raw on Netflix1, I realized it’s because we only talk to each other in a cadence of isn’t this interesting and for most people the answer is, no, not really. But that’s too bad for them because I spent a very fun three hours lightly stoned on my couch thinking and talking about how successful this debut episode of Raw was as a pitch to watch wrestling on Netflix. Because here’s the thing: I do think it’s interesting and I can’t turn that part of my brain off and I don’t think I want to!! It’s interesting even if you’re not a wrestling fan (I’m not, really, I just have a crush on Sami Zayn) or someone who thinks a lot about what’s going on in streaming television (I very much am.) It’s interesting because streaming live sports is the current battleground for the streaming wars and it’s interesting because wrestling occupies a weird place as a very popular but relatively niche interest that is still largely misunderstood by people who don’t watch wrestling2. And this show in particular is interesting because it had to walk a very tricky tightrope of keeping WWE fans excited and engaged while, presumably they hope, introducing Raw to a new audience of wrestling-curious Netflix users. I fall somewhere in the middle, so I’m gonna walk you through the show as I understand it and if I get anything wrong you can blame
3 because he’s the one explaining everything to me.The show opens with a dramatic little video narrated — and, if the video is to be believed, typed out on an old-timey typewriter and also painted on the ring? — by current Chief Content Officer (and Vince McMahon son-in-law) Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Notably absent from this montage about the grand history of wrestling? Vince Fucking McMahon!!! The herculean effort Paul’s been taking to remove the Vince McMahon stank from WWE is kind of hilarious, but the Succession-style HBO drama that comes out of this will be incredible.
After Paul does his speech about how Wrestling Is Good, The Rock4 comes out to give a speech about how Netflix Is Good. He gives a shout out to Ted Sarandos and, look, this is a company built around feeding Vince McMahon’s ego but at least that guy really committed to living the ego monster lifestyle. Ted Sarandos is just a rich guy in a quarter-zip.
The most interesting moment from Rock’s introduction, though, was a little moment with Cody Rhodes, who’s THE GUY in wrestling right now. Rock gives him a shout-out and a hug, ending with “tell Mama Rhodes the Rock says hello.” The wrestling podcast Brian listens to didn’t like that. The conflict between Rock and Rhodes has been brutal so them being nice to each other is a major breaking of kayfabe. That “Mama Rhodes” moment was a reference to Rock threatening Cody’s mom. But I think it makes a lot of sense as an introduction to wrestling for a wider audience. Rock’s here both as The Rock, current WWE heel, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, huge star you know and (maybe) love. A warm moment between these two is a tiny signal saying, “It’s ok, you can like Cody. You should like Cody. They’re gonna be mad at each other later but you don’t need to hate the guy who hates your friend, The Rock.”
That’s part of what I find so interesting about wrestling, even if I’m not engaged on a weekly basis or caught up on all the storylines — and to be perfectly clear I am not. It’s a great way to understand how storytelling happens in every element of what you’re seeing onscreen, because every element of what you’re seeing onscreen is so big and dumb (complimentary).
That’s especially useful in the matches, which we’ll get to…now! The first match of the night is Solo Sikoa vs. Roman Reigns. Here’s what I mean about the storytelling being interesting to watch. This is a feud that’s been simmering for months, with storylines that go back years. There’s lots of betrayals and backstabbing and complicated Samoan rituals5. Raw’s writers need to communicate all of that to the new Netflix audience, and people like me who dip in every few weeks. I think they did a relatively good job at this in the ring: it’s clear who we’re rooting for, we have a visual symbol for the stakes6, and we get a few side characters in here for additional context and texture. (Solo’s guys are cRAzY; Roman’s friends are loyal — but he’s got other enemies too.) So we’re wrapping up this storyline in a hopefully satisfying way for the fans, which gives us a clean-ish slate for the Netflix era. That’ll happen with basically every match tonight.
BUT I do think it was a mistake to open with this fight7. I guess it’s in Roman’s contract that he only does opening or closing matches? It’s just kind of weird to open this show, that should be at least a little bit teaching the audience how wrestling works, with a “tribal combat” match that doesn’t follow the rules of normal wrestling. It would have made a lot more sense to start with Rhea Ripley vs Liv Morgan, a perfect showcase for what’s fun about wrestling.
Oh, I guess before I get into this I should talk about John Cena. Cena came out and was all, “I’m old now I can’t be the world champion again even though I’m one win away from beating the record of most title wins.8 Then he’s like, “Oh but maybe I can do it if I win the Royal Rumble!9” I mean, it’s whatever. Cena is on like a farewell tour ahead of his final Wrestlemania where he’ll almost certainly fight Randy Orton so, fine.
But back to Rhea vs. Liv. First of all, Rhea Ripley is a fucking star. She comes out to her dumb (complimentary) numetal entrance music and even if you know absolutely nothing about wrestling, it’s like, “who is this scary goth lady and why do i want her to yell at me until i cry?” This is where an important part of understanding wrestling clicked for me: this is dirtbag (complimentary) culture. Yes, we want the weird girl to beat up the mean blonde girl10, because we wish we could beat up the mean blonde girl who’s mean to us at school and stole our boyfriend. Predictably, Rhea beats Liv, winning back her title and wrapping up this feud (for now). They also get in a fun moment where Rhea’s ex-boyfriend Dom Mysterio - who’s now dating Liv — just walks up to Rhea in the ring with his arms outstretched, because that’s how you communicate to the cheap seats that you want her back. Again, even if you know absolutely nothing about this storyline or these characters, watching the scary goth girl knock the twerp with the shitty mustache on his ass is so, so satisfying.
After Rhea’s win, we hear The Undertaker’s entrance music start and then transition into the music for his American Badass character, which is the same as The Undertaker, but also it isn’t? Brian explained this to me several times and it doesn’t make sense at all but that’s wrestling, baby. Anyway, Mark comes out on a motorcycle and there is absolutely nothing less cool than slowly riding/Fred Flinstone-ing your motorcycle through a packed arena. He looked like my two-year-old on her balance bike. But he and Rhea hold up their fists in celebration, which is what Undertaker used to do with Kane, I guess, so that’s a cool moment for her and I’m very happy for her and yes I would like her to yell at me until I cry.
The next match was Drew McIntyre vs. Jey Uso and I gotta be honest I just couldn’t get it up for this one. Brian said that Drew needed the win so, sorry to Drew I guess. My only real thought here is my continued conviction that Drew McIntyre’s gimmick of just being a big Scottish guy who carries a sword around would be so much cooler if he was, like, a Highlander. They’ve got wizards and zombies and shit; let Drew be a time traveler from the year 1535.
Oh, remember when I said before that there’s nothing less cool than Undertaker American Badass scooting his motorcycle around? I lied; less cool than that is Hulk Hogan coming out to flex and promote his beer while the entire arena boos.
Closing out the night, we have C. M. Punk vs. Seth Rollins. After a night of clear bad guy vs. good guy feuds, it was interesting to have a match where the crowd seemed somewhat divided; There were back-to-back chants for each of them. We’re letting the audience know that some fights are a little more “good points on both sides” sort of thing. Sure!
So, I think it’ll be interesting to see what happens! These are two companies who are both notoriously shady with their viewership metrics. Triple H already told us that this event had, “the largest arena gate in the history of the WWE.” If you’re having trouble parsing what that means: exactly. At one point we also heard an announcer say that Raw is something like “the longest-running live, episodic, weekly show on TV.” That’s a lot of adjectives to get us to something that sounds like it could be kind of impressive. As my coworker put it, I can’t wait to hear about how 400 trillion people watched Raw on Netflix.
There’s also the wrinkle that this wasn’t really a good example of an episode of Raw. It was more like a mid pay-per-view sorry, Premium Live Event. There were a lot fewer dumb (complimentary) little skits than in a typical episode of Raw, and a lot more speeches about how cool wrestling is. If WWE and Netflix are hoping that people will tune in next week after liking what they saw last night…well, I hope they like less The Rock monologues and more dumb (complimentary) little skits!
Miscellaneous crowd things that made me laugh:
One guy just had a sign that said “Leonard” with an arrow pointing down to himself. 10/10, hi Leonard!
One guy had a sign that said “daddy daughter night.” 0/10 just go to Raw with your daughter without being weird about it
Danielle Fishel got a lower-third identification as Topanga from Boy Meets World but she was sitting right next to WILL FRIEDLE AKA ERIC FROM BOY MEETS WORLD WHO GOT NOTHING!!!!
The pull for Seth Green in his lower-third was A Futile and Stupid Gesture — streaming on Netflix!
Macaulay Culkin got a much bigger pop from the crowd than Seth Green, who he was shown immediately after BUT KIERAN CULKIN WAS ALSO RIGHT THERE??? The man just won a Golden Globe for chrissakes!
The whiplash I had going from booing Ted Sarandos to jumping out of my seat clapping for Vanessa Hudgeons was medically dangerous. There is some rumblings among fans about her potentially having a run “managing” my favorite wrestlers that nobody else cares about, Pretty Deadly, which, yes, would be the thing to get me to watch weekly.
Netflix paid $5 billion for this show about strong guys (gender neutral) solving complicated interpersonal conflicts by punching each other in the face and i think that’s beautiful
Ron Funches effectively killed the “wrestling is fake” contingent literally a decade ago and there are still people (read: dads) out there who will be like “wrestling is fake”
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“Hi, Dwayne!” -Vin Diesel
they may or may not be real Samoan rituals, i have no idea
even if you don’t literally know what the ula fala is, you know this necklace is a Big Deal
brian informs me that “fight” is incorrect and i should instead say “match” but i already wrote “match” too many times in this paragraph
notably left out of his speech: longtime Cena rival Randy Orton is also one win away from that record
also notably left out of his speech: it’s in saudi arabia, plz don’t be mad at us
Liv Morgan is very good at her job of making me hate her