With WWE Raw moving to Netflix, the flagship show transitions from traditional television to a streaming service for the first time in its history. This shift has sparked speculation among fans that the program may adopt a more edgier tone, potentially incorporating more explicit language and blood. While WWE has shown a greater willingness to include blood in its storytelling recently, it appears the company will draw the line at allowing F-bombs or excessive profanity.
During an appearance on The Press Box, Paul “Triple H” Levesque addressed the potential for uncensored content on Netflix, including crowd chants like “holy sh*t” and whether WWE might embrace more freedoms in this new format.
“The first time they bleeped the holy shit out of a show for us, I was like, What do you mea because they went fully to black at one point, like, and I was like, What do you mean they did that? Like, they’ve never done that before? It was like when I get off the air here, I got a live television show to get through, but when I get off the air, somebody and I are having a phone call about this because I’m out of my mind on this. And it’s sort of, well, the standards and practices changed , and all this stuff like, you know, I’m a little unsure about how that’ll be. I’m sure that’ll be a conversation as we move forward. I think there’s a little bit less of the restrictions. There’s less of all of that. From a content standpoint, I think we don’t want our show to become something that it doesn’t need to be. I’m not a big believer in, you know, ‘Oh my god, this show would be so much better if everybody could drop the F-bomb.’ Who cares? Like, if put it this way, if you’ve written such a bad television show that you need that to make it work. And I’m not saying it can’t work. It’s like being a comedian. You can use every curse word there is as a comedian, and it can be awesome. You can also not use any, and it can be awesome, like, right? There’s a way to do both. I’m not a big believer in it needs it to be successful. And I’m also a big believer that rarities of those things create moments. So if somebody does say something that is a bit crossing a line or on the like, you know, is it when Rock came in last year? And, you know, not because he’s on the TKO board, but it’s the rock, right? So if he drops an F-bomb, what am I gonna do? Listen, ‘buddy, right?’ It kind of is what it is. And you have the biggest star in the world on your television show, so you kind of go, like to beep, it will move on. And it was, it was shocking, and it was like the whole world was talking about it. But by that moment, and you know, him making Cody bleed and all that stuff, if we did that on a weekly basis, it wouldn’t mean anything. And I shared a story with somebody the other day. I was friends for a long time with a prolific writer in Hollywood……I would talk a lot about storytelling and things like that. And I remember one time he said to me, ‘Man, said, people don’t understand drama. He said, ‘The machine gun fire is boring. After 10 seconds.’ He said, ‘You can have a fight scene. People just shoot machine guns 10 seconds in. It doesn’t matter. It’s just noise at that point that doesn’t make a difference.’ He said, ‘I would much rather not shoot a one-minute machine gun scene and take two people in an intense dialog with a gun on a table with one bullet in it. I can write that 20 minute scene around that that will make you on the edge of your seat the entire time trying to figure out what’s going to happen, or have two guys with their hands on guns in a moment where there’s that intensity between the two and you don’t know if someone’s going to pull and shoot or not.’ And you can build this incredible drama. I believe that. I believe that the profanity, I believe that blood, I believe that all those things, do they all have their place? Can they be meaningful? Yes, do them all the time. They mean nothing. Mean nothing. You build the drama in the right way, and you add in a pinch of those things, it can be game-changing, but you have to be disciplined with them, you know. And that’s coming from a guy that was in the Attitude Era where, you know, we started to do things in the Attitude Era that were, ‘oh, my god. Can you believe they did that?’ And then it was every match, every segment, every thing, and it meant nothing. You’ve got to be disciplined with it. So, I think Netflix presents us with some freedom to do some things, but it’s not going to be a free for all. It’s not going to be….there was a moment when we first signed where people like, ‘Oh my god, they’re going to go off the rails. It’s going to be crazy.’ It’s not going to be that way. We want the product to be able to be enjoyed by everybody.”
You can check out the interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
