WWE’s Raw debut on Netflix pins down nearly 5 million viewers

The Rock is smellin’ some serious viewership, as the debut episode of WWE Raw on Netflix pinned down 4.9 million views worldwide, with 2.6 million households in the United States. Those are major numbers, especially as the last episode of Raw that aired on USA (its home for the bulk of its 30+-year history) netted around 1.6 million viewers.

In a release, WWE also noted that the Raw debut more than doubled the 18-49 demographic from last year and was the highest-grossing arena event ever for the WWE. Not that they weren’t already, but WWE must be far more confident in their $5 billion deal with Netflix.

WWE’s debut episode of Raw on Netflix – which was held in Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome – kicked off with Paul “Triple H” Levesque, who serves as CCO of the wrestling promotion and is ushering it into the post-Vince McMahon era. Following that, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, giving an electrifying turn at the mic that can further push his Final Boss angle.

Other key WWE legend appearances included The Undertaker – who made a brief appearance following Rhea Ripley’s Women’s World Championship win over Liv Morgan in his American Badass get-up – and John Cena, who announced he plans to get a 17th world title after winning next month’s Royal Rumble. And then there was Hulk Hogan, who despite putting pro wrestling on the map, was greeted with nothing but boos (any cheers were probably for Jimmy Hart…). As we know, Hogan’s reputation has taken an atomic leg drop since the days of telling kids to say their prayers and eat their vitamins. That he was also essentially there to promote a beer didn’t sit with the WWE Universe, either.

There has been some skepticism over whether or not Netflix could handle streaming live sporting events following the debacle Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, but considering it seems unlikely that they’ll hit that 65 million concurrent viewers mark in the near future, they should be fine with both WWE’s Raw and the NFL, as the Christmas Day games – both of which had no lags, as far as I saw – were in the neighborhood of 30 million viewers.

WWE’s $5 billion deal that will see Netflix as the home to Raw for the next decade, or when Ric Flair has his true retirement match…