WWE may have learned a painful lesson about taping RAW several days before it hits Netflix. Dave Meltzer believes the unusually weak performance of the advance-taped episode could make Netflix think twice about WWE using that scheduling strategy again.
During the September 10, 2026 edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer broke down RAW’s poor showing in Netflix’s weekly data. The episode failed to crack Netflix’s global Top 10, and Meltzer estimated it finished with no more than 1.7 million worldwide views based on the cutoff for the tenth-ranked show.
While Meltzer discussed several factors behind the number, he specifically pointed to RAW being taped several days before viewers actually got to watch it. In his view, that delay hurt the show and could get Netflix’s attention.
“Even without the manipulations, they’re doing legit 2.1 million views. And to fall that much, you know, which — I mean, some of that’s that it was a tape show and it was taped several days earlier as opposed to just tape that afternoon. That didn’t help. And clearly, I think Netflix is going to want to not do that one anymore where you tape days ahead, you know.”
Meltzer believes the experiment gave WWE and Netflix a pretty clear indication that fans react differently when RAW is sitting on the shelf for several days before airing.
“So I guess that’s the experiment that we did learn, is that when you tape several days ahead with — on Netflix, you pay the price. It does matter.”
The advance taping wasn’t the only unusual part of the episode. RAW also featured drastically reduced commercial time, something Meltzer believes affected the way Netflix calculates its publicly released “views” number. However, when it came to the actual lack of audience interest, he kept coming back to the show being taped well ahead of time as one of the factors. Meltzer also made it clear that he doesn’t see the disastrous week as evidence RAW is suddenly facing a long-term viewership crisis. He expects the show to recover when WWE gets back to its usual format and schedule.
“It will bounce back. This was not like — if this was a trend, it’d be one thing. It’s just an experiment that we learned they can’t tape far in advance.”
That could make WWE’s future international scheduling a little trickier. Advance tapings make life easier when the company is dealing with travel, overseas tours and complicated production schedules, but Netflix ultimately cares about people pressing play. If taping RAW days early means fans already know what happened or simply lose interest before Monday rolls around, WWE may have to find another solution.
One rough week isn’t enough to rewrite WWE’s entire Netflix strategy, but Meltzer believes this experiment delivered a pretty loud message: taping RAW several days in advance comes with a price, and Netflix may not be interested in paying it again.
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