Monday night was a history-making night for WWE, even if not every performer got to play a full part.
This week’s Monday Night Raw from the Intuit Dome in California made history as the first ever Raw on Netflix following the wrestling company’s $5bn switch to the streaming service.
A sell-out 17,000 crowd watched on for over three hours as a star-studded line-up performed in front of what WWE say was their highest grossing arena crowd in company history.
In the main event, CM Punk secured a high-profile win over bitter rival Seth Rollins, while Rhea Ripley finally reclaimed her Women’s World Championship after seeing off Liv Morgan.
The opening bout of the night was an epic Tribal Combat clash featuring Roman Reigns as he toppled Solo Sikoa, while the evening’s other bout witnessed Drew McIntyre’s defeat at the hands of Jey Uso.
Spreading four matches across the mammoth broadcast left plenty of time and space for other features and elements – including a raft of celebrities and legends.
Hulk Hogan featured in arguably the most high-profile cameo after being roundly booed by large sections of the crowd, while Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson enjoyed something of polarising night at the office back in WWE having starred in various segments on screen and backstage.
With so many famous faces and names from WWE’s illustrious past to pack in, there inevitably was a little or no time left to feature other big names from Raw – not least the top male champion on the show, Gunther, whose only real showing was a pre-recorded hype package.
Managing such a high talent load and keeping stars happy with their lot – or lack of it – is not likely to be an easy task. WWE Chief Content Officer and Head of Creative Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque has said as much, telling his army of talented performers: ‘It’s one show.’
Addressing the backstage political management required in staging a show like Monday’s prior to Raw going on air, The Game said: “That’s every day. And that has nothing to do with Netflix, or it has to do with everything we do.
“[If I’m asked:] ‘I just don’t understand why I’m not on that PLE. Like, why wouldn’t I be on that PLE?’ It was like, well, the story that you have doesn’t get there… not everybody’s going to be on everything.
“I have that conversation with every single talent about everything we do… if you want to be in this business, you want to be big, you want to have the opportunities, you want to be on all the biggest stuff.
“I’ve had the same conversation with a hundred people about this first episode of Netflix. [I said] ‘Guys, it’s one show. We’re going to try to, like, touch on a lot of people, but there’s only so much real estate within the show. You’re not going to be on that show. Maybe you’ll be on the second one, maybe you’ll be on the third one. Like, you’re going to be on these shows.’
Leveque reiterated he had no complaints about the gripes, adding: “We can’t put all 200 talent, or whatever we have on one show. It’s just not going to work [but] It’s how they should feel. It’s how I would feel if I was a talent.”
Triple H himself opened up the first Raw on Netflix with an emotional address to the live crowd before The Rock emerged.