Why WWE RAW moved to 2 hours explained

WWE recently announced that RAW will become a two-hour show from October 7, 2024, on the USA Network. This is the format the Stamford-based company will follow until its flagship show moves to Netflix in January 2025.

For the last decade, Monday Night RAW has been a three-hour show, and this change raised questions. Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter explained that the global wrestling juggernaut's original contract with the USA Network was up in October. The company signed a contract extension until January 2025, but the extension is for only a two-hour show.

Ideally, the cutback by an hour should help bring more eyes to the product, while improving ratings since the third hour did clock in lower viewership. Interestingly, very few individuals in the company knew about the change from three to two hours until the official announcement was made.

RAW moving to the streaming platform is a $5 billion deal. It is the first of its kind, and if it works as expected, WWE and Netflix will extend the deal. However, it has not yet been decided whether RAW on Netflix will be for two hours or three hours. Since the show does not have any restrictions that it did with TV networks, the time can vary based on the program.

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WWE RAW's roster might be changed before the show moves to Netflix

As mentioned above, the deal between WWE RAW and Netflix is the first of its kind. Hence, the Stamford-based company will want to produce power-packed entertainment every week to make the deal a huge success.

With that being said, one of the key elements in the production is the WWE Superstars. The company can shuffle RAW's roster to include the top superstars and storylines and build new ones that will keep the audience invested.

Two huge superstars who can be expected to appear on WWE RAW when it moves to Netflix are John Cena and The Rock.