Former WWE Star Dolph Ziggler Assesses How Netflix Deal Changes Things

"WWE Raw" will be broadcast on Netflix beginning in 2025, and people are wondering how the show will be structured, especially when it comes to commercial breaks. One of those people is former WWE star Dolph Ziggler, now going by Nic Nemeth. He said if the deal doesn't include commercials, he's interested to see how it works. Nemeth spoke about the possible changes with the Netflix deal on an episode of "Busted Open Radio."

"Without the interruptions, I'm curious to see a straight-through match and when you see a dive you don't go, 'Oh, I guess I'm going to the bathroom now, they're going to break,'" Nemeth said. "No, no, there's no break, man, you're watching this on Netflix. It's all the way through and done. Damn, that's cool. I like not knowing, 'Well, it's 10:59, Stone Cold has to come out at some point and it's got to be right now and it's going to be over.' No, 'It's now 11:18 and I think they're in the main event, I don't know.' There is some kind of interest there when you don't know when it ends... There's a little bit of a wrestling feel to it."

"The Showoff" said that it's difficult to work around breaks as a talent, especially when aspects of a match need to be switched around. He said that with commercials, wrestlers need to be aware of not wasting a story and big moves, but still keep everyone in the live crowd entertained. However, the Netflix platform could be beneficial in regard to matches.

Nic Nemeth said WWE' talents can over their allocated time and affect everyone else's matches and segments as a result. He said his ability to adapt to things on the fly is probably why he had a job with the promotion for so long, but noted it was frustrating when things like that happened.

"You're like, 'Aw, man. We're going to a pay-per-view and we got 90 seconds? Alright, cut my entrance, cut out all my stuff,'" he said. "Now, I don't know. Do you have that? Like, 'Oh, hey. Sorry. Sheamus went 10 minutes over, but don't worry about it because we're on Netflix. We're going to do a two hour and 20 minute show instead of two hours and 10 minutes.' You go, 'Oh, okay, cool.'"

Nemeth said that if Netflix does not have commercial breaks during "Raw," the art of switching around a match will be lost. He also compared a hypothetical two-and-a-half-hour show on Netflix without commercials to "Raw" on TV with ad breaks in its current three-hour broadcast. Nemeth said the hypothetical show would be comparable to a "four-hour 'Raw,'" so he's curious to see how it goes.

The WWE-Netflix deal is reportedly set for 10 years and worth $5 billion. "Raw" will be broadcast on the streaming platform in North America, Latin America, and the United Kingdom, with more countries to be added in the future. WWE President Nick Khan commented on negotiating with Netflix, noting that the streaming company didn't play around and was willing to negotiate.

Please credit "Busted Open Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.