The 5 Most Netflix Moments From WWE Monday Night Raw

Via its documentaries about Reddit trolls manipulating the stock market, Vince McMahon being a sexual deviant media maverick, and Hulk Hogan himself destroying Gawker Media, Netflix loves to make sure you can binge on the worst parts of the human experience and never forget who the villains are in life. Last night, from the moment Hulk Hogan, flanked by an American flag-waving Jimmy Hart, strolled out as a surprise guest, the Intuit Dome crowd showered him with boos heard around the globe.

Now, if this was NWO-era Hulk Hogan, it could’ve been chalked up to the fans participating in the WWE-engineered drama. Nope, this was “real American” Hulk Hogan, and the fans were reminding him they didn’t forget him divisively supporting President Donald Trump or privately spewing racist rhetoric. This is probably not the first time Netflix subscribers booed their TV screens at the sight of Hogan.

In modern wrestling, there isn’t an imperceptible barrier between the fans and the inner workings of the business. The organizations behind all the drama will take fans into the control room where they orchestrate the action and have wrestlers criticize the company on air. And just because Netflix is the streaming partner helping bring Monday Night Raw to more households around the world than it’s ever been in, that doesn’t mean the leader in streaming will be exempt from ridicule. Actually, it’s the exact opposite.

It didn’t take long into the first Monday Night Raw on Netflix for arguably the two biggest superstars in WWE history to address the company directly. The Rock threatened to beat up Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos if the stream glitched while he was speaking, stating he’d “go Squid Game all over your candy ass.” John Cena was a bit more congenial, thanking Netflix for sharing the start of his retirement tour with the globe. The Rock’s Squid Game mention almost makes certain that someone is going to say “stranger things have happened” when Netflix inevitably starts promoting the final Stranger Things season soon.

The WWE has always attracted stars, like a teenage LeBron James, a post-ear-biting Mike Tyson, and a Hulkamaniac version of Snoop Dogg. Last night’s celebrity guests felt a bit more promotionally contrived on Netflix’s part. What in the world are Richard Gadd, Gabriel Iglesias, and Michael Che doing at a WWE event? Well, Gadd is fresh off his Golden Globes win for Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, Iglesias’s new Netflix comedy special Stadium Fluffy premiered the day after Monday Night Raw, and Che worked with Netflix on his 2021 stand-up special Michael Che: Shame The Devil.

How do I know all of this? Netflix made sure to remind you that you can stream work from these fine gentlemen whenever they introduced them. Sure, there were other celebrities not associated with Netflix, like Boy Meets World’s Danielle Fishel. But, if Netflix is going to have celebrities on their stream, they’re going to make sure the core business gets served.

If you haven’t watched Netflix’s family drama Bloodline, you need to. But, you could’ve watched Roman Reigns’ fight against his cousin Solo Sikoa and gotten the gist of the show’s familial dysfunction. Not only were the two wrestlers formerly part of a group known as The Bloodline, but their fight was strikingly similar to the one between brothers Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) and John Rayburn (Kyle Chandler) in the show’s first season.

Throughout the wrestling match, you could hear Sikoa yell at his older cousin, “You never loved me, no matter what I did to prove to you my love.” In Bloodline, Danny is the less accomplished brother, while John is the reluctant leader of the family who doesn’t always show his appreciation for his siblings. While Reigns and Sikoa’s fight wasn’t as lethal as the one between the Rayburn brothers, the inherent theatrical drama of WWE lends itself well to mirroring some of Netflix’s best dramas.

Netflix is a business. WWE is a business. We all know these facts to be true. For the most part, these truths didn’t disrupt the viewing experience of Monday Night Raw outside of the ridiculous all-black ring tattooed with brand logos from entities like Fortnite, Hogan’s Real American Beer, Snickers, Cricket Wireless, and Netflix. It became a major issue, however, when the advertisements began to cut into the action.

During an intense exchange between Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan for the Women’s World Title, the fight went from Ripley power-bombing Morgan on a table outside of the ring to a commercial for Subway sandwiches, and when it returned to the action, Ripley was being pummeled by Morgan in the ring. This is a reality for the 70 million subscribers of Netflix’s ad tier, and will continue to be one for the foreseeable future of WWE events on the streamer. Let’s just hope Hulk Hogan hawking his beer doesn’t pop up right as John Cena is about to break Ric Flair’s WWE championship record.