In a revolutionary step, WWE Raw will be moving to Netflix, early next year marking the first time that a professional wrestling show will stream, live on an OTT platform. Moving to a bigger platform will also attract a worldwide audience with the show needing bigger star powers to keep up with the steady viewership.
This leads us to think that The Rock and Roman Reigns could probably be on board for WWE Raw after it transitions to Netflix. The Rock’s involvement in WWE programming, leading up to WrestleMania 40 created tons of hype and excitement and he also wrestled against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins in a tag team match at the Show of Shows.
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The internal belief is that The People’s Champion should also play a pivotal role when WWE Raw will begin the buildups for Wrestlemania 41 while being on Netflix. While speaking on his Dirty Sheets podcast via Patreon, Billi Bhatti also revealed that there are ongoing internal discussions within WWE about how to get The Rock and Roman Reigns onto Netflix.
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Bhatti noted that The Rock played a crucial role in WWE Raw securing the Netflix deal with the promise being made that both he and Roman Reigns would appear on the platform. But for the time being, neither one of them is currently confirmed for Netflix in the long run. The current expectation is that they will only show up in the inaugural episode on Netflix.
It was further mentioned that John Cena’s return and his one-year deal to stay onboard, mostly for WWE Raw are part of the efforts to address the absence of The Rock, Roman Reigns, or Cody Rhodes from Netflix. Unless WWE comes up with a backup idea, these three names are likely to be blocked for Smackdown appearances, only,
“I’m sure Rock and Roman will be on the first episode of RAW on Netflix, but we know Roman Reigns is on the SmackDown brand, with The Bloodline storyline on SmackDown, and Cody Rhodes will be there. That looks like the initial destination for The Rock unless they can find a way to work around this, and there are internal discussions about that.” (quotes courtesy Ringside News)
There’s no confirmed update on when The Rock will return to WWE Raw/Smackdown programming. For the time being, Road to Wrestlemania 41 remains one of the assumed phases for his comeback unless it gets preponed for a previously reported impending match in 2024.
