Axiom, Isla Dawn, Stephanie Vaquer Discuss WWE's Netflix Debut

After three decades on terrestrial TV, “Monday Night Raw,” WWE‘s flagship weekly program, will debut on Netflix for subscribers worldwide today. This marks the beginning of a globe-spanning, 10-year, $5 billion partnership between the streamer and the brand that brings with it all kinds of new possibilities for the fans, the brand and its superstars.

In the U.S., the deal is limited to WWE’s weekly “Raw” program, but most international territories will receive all three of the brand’s weekly shows — “Raw,” “SmackDown” and “NXT” — as well as the company’s Premium Live Events (PLE) and a raft of supplemental and catalog content.

This means that audiences in many countries will, for the first time, have up-to-date access to all of WWE’s current offerings. For the company’s international talent, this is especially significant, as their friends and families and hometown fans will now have much greater access to their work.

Current NXT Tag Team Champion Axiom, a Madrid native, is the first Spanish superstar to make a major impact in WWE. In 2024, he and his British tag partner, Nathan Frazier, who team under the name Fraxiom, had an impressive (ongoing) run as champions and were voted by Sports Illustrated as the best tag team in the world across any promotion. Despite his success, Axiom’s presence in WWE is remarkable, as professional wrestling remains niche in Spain and has been difficult to find on TV.

That wasn’t always the case, however. “Wrestling was very popular here in 2007-2008, when it came to TV for a while,” Axiom tells Variety ahead of WWE’s Netflix debut. “I already knew a bit about it from video games, action figures and videotapes, but when I first saw WrestleMania, I was really blown away. I’d always loved superheroes and was a big fan of movies, and to me, this was the perfect combination of those things.”

For Axiom and other Spanish fans, the arrival and availability of WWE on TV was thrilling but short-lived. For several years now, the only way to access WWE programming in Spain – and many other countries around the world – has been through the company’s own streaming platform, the WWE Network. However, shows like “Raw,” “SmackDown,” and “NXT” were often delayed by weeks.

In Scotland, WWE and local independent wrestling have thrived for decades, with the country producing main event professional wrestling talent such as frequent headliner and former World Champion Drew McIntyre, former women’s tag team champion Piper Niven and the Unholy Union tag team of Isla Dawn and Alba Fyre, who won the women’s tag team championship at the “Clash at the Castle” PLE in Glasgow last June and are part of a red hot feud with the division’s other top teams.

Dawn remembers watching WWE programming as a kid and the lengths her family would go to for access to PLEs, which were pay-per-view at the time but will now be available on Netflix in Scotland.

“We didn’t have much when I was growing up, so we would save for the pay-per-views: my sisters, my uncle, and a bunch of other family members,” she recalls. “Then we’d all watch together. But even then, it was difficult to keep up the way that fans will be able to now that they’re to be on Netflix.”

NXT newcomer and one of 2024’s biggest free-agent signings, Stephanie Vaquer, says that when she was growing up in Chile, WWE was popular but often hard to find: “When I was young, WWE was on open TV for a while, but then it changed to cable. So, when I was around 11 years old, I begged and begged to get cable so we could see wrestling on TV. My dad used it as motivation, telling me that we could get cable as long as I continued to do well in school and behave myself.”

Now, she’s thrilled that her friends, family and fans of all ages across Chile will have much easier access to professional wrestling when and where they want to watch. “WWE is already popular in Chile, but I think the people there are extremely excited and waiting patiently to watch WWE on Netflix. It will be more accessible than ever,” she says.

Dawn agrees: “Fans being able to watch it whenever they want, and all the shows, including ‘Raw,’ ‘SmackDown,’ and ‘NXT,’ that was unheard of in Scotland before,” she says, citing the up to nine-hour time difference faced by European fans hoping to keep up with WWE’s weekly shows in the U.S.

Back in Spain, Axiom sees the Netflix deal as a significant opportunity for WWE and professional wrestling to grow in profile, like the global Spanish hit series “Money Heist” did when it was picked up by Netflix. The crime drama was doing decent but not great numbers on terrestrial TV in Spain before Netflix acquired it, marketed it as an original and turned it into a global phenomenon and one of its best-performing non-English language shows of all time.

“That’s a right-on comparison,” the tag champ said. “When ‘Money Heist’ was on TV in Spain, I didn’t know much about it or watch it. But when it got on Netflix and was right there on the home screen, everybody became aware of it. I think that will happen in a lot of countries with WWE.”

The WWE Netflix debut comes at a time of increasing diversification of the company’s on-screen product. Over the past two decades, the WWE roster has grown increasingly international, and each new performer who joins brings with them something unique that helps to evolve the product and make it more appealing to a global audience.

“I feel like we have so many international stars on all three brands that everything has adapted to what we’ve brought with us,” says Dawn.

WWE’s live shows have been hosted abroad more frequently over the past several years, too. In 2024, some of the highest-rated and best-received PLEs took place abroad – Backlash in Lyon, France; Elimination Chamber in Perth, Australia; and the aforementioned Clash at the Castle – and with the company trending in that direction, its international stars are excited about the prospect of performing in front of home crowds.

Starting in March, WWE will launch its Road to WrestleMania series of shows in Europe and host an episode of “SmackDown” in Barcelona, where Spanish fans will certainly be hoping Axiom makes an appearance. While there isn’t anything planned in Chile just yet, Vaquer says she’s hopeful she’ll make her hometown professional debut on the WWE roster.

“That would be a dream come true for me,” says Vaquer. “The first time I saw wrestling live was when WWE went to Chile in 2009, but despite being a professional for several years now, I’ve never fought professionally in Chile. I’ve fought all over the world, but never in my home country. So I would be so proud for my first time to be as a WWE superstar.”

Dawn says that apart from the direct advantages of WWE being available in so many new territories, many of the company’s superstars are excited about other possibilities that the Netflix deal could bring their way. “Obviously, wrestling has a massive fan base, but it’s still kind of in its own world. But when it’s on Netflix, it can create entirely new fans who turn on the TV or go to the homepage and want to see something different. Many WWE stars are already making a huge impact in the entertainment industry, like John Cena and The Rock, and I think this will create more crossover opportunities as WWE stars become more recognizable all around the world. It’s a really thrilling opportunity for everyone at WWE to become an even bigger part of the wider entertainment industry.”