Netflix’s semi-annual “What We Watched” report was released on Friday, providing a breakdown of WWE’s performance on the streaming service over the first six months of 2026.
For the second year in a row, the Royal Rumble generated more views than either night of WrestleMania, making it the most-watched premium live event on Netflix so far this year.
Premium Live Events (Worldwide)
The January 31 event from Saudi Arabia had 3.1 million views, compared to WrestleMania Saturday’s 2.7 million and WrestleMania Sunday’s 3 million views. Following those three premium live events, it’s a sharp contrast to the remaining events, as Elimination Chamber in Chicago attracted 1.9 million views, Clash in Italy had 1.6 million, Backlash had 1.4 million, and June’s Night of Champions had 1 million. Night of Champions aired on June 27 and therefore includes only three days of viewership data due to the cutoff for the report.
Throughout the first six months of 2025, the Royal Rumble led the way with 3 million views, followed by WrestleMania 41 Sunday (Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena) with 2.8 million, WrestleMania 41 Saturday (CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins) with 2.4 million, and Elimination Chamber at 1.9 million. The combined 5.7 million views for WrestleMania 42 outpaced the two-night 2025 version with 5.2 million views.
The least-watched PLE in 2025 was WWE Evolution with 900,000 views, with an additional 300,000 views occurring over the past six months. The event was staged one day after WWE held a doubleheader with NXT and Saturday Night’s Main Event to combat AEW All In Texas in July 2025.
The PLE viewership doesn’t include U.S. viewers, who watched the show on ESPN this past year and Peacock one year ago.
Premium Live Events in 2026 vs. 2025
- Royal Rumble: 3.1 million (Jan – June 2025: 3.0 million)
- Elimination Chamber: 1.9 million (2025: 1.9 million)
- WrestleMania 42 Saturday: 2.7 million (2025: 2.4 million)
- WrestleMania 42 Sunday: 3.0 million (2025: 2.8 million)
- Backlash: 1.4 million (2025: 1.5 million)
- Clash in Italy: 1.6 million (Money in the Bank 2025: 1.6 million)
- Night of Champions: 1.0 million (2025: 1 million and finished with 1.3 million)
Source: Wrestlenomics
Monday Night Raw (Worldwide)
The most-watched episode of Raw this year was a tie between the January 5 episode at Barclays Center (CM Punk vs. Bron Breakker) and April 20, the night after WrestleMania 42, with each generating 3.7 million views and watched by more people than any PLE this past year.
Other strong episodes of Raw occurred on February 2 (Roman Reigns chose CM Punk as his opponent for WrestleMania) and March 2 (Punk and Reigns having a big promo segment), which attracted 3.5 million views for each episode.
The lead-up to WrestleMania performed well with March 16 (3.4 million), March 23 (3.3 million), March 30 (3.4 million), April 6 (3.3 million), and April 13 (3.2 million).
Beginning May 18, Raw fell under 3 million viewers for the remainder of the data period and as low as 1.8 million views for the June 29 episode (which, again, was only one day of viewership information because of the cutoff).
Friday Night SmackDown & NXT (Non-U.S.)
U.S. viewership is not attributed to SmackDown’s performance as the program only airs on Netflix outside of the country. The show’s largest performances occurred on January, January 9, March 6, and March 13, with 1.1 million views for each of those shows. The highest mark for SmackDown last year was on September 5, 2025, with 1.3 million views for the return of AJ Lee in Chicago.
NXT Stand & Deliver on April 4 (outside of WrestleMania weekend) only attracted 200,000 views while also streaming on YouTube for U.S. viewers before the shows moved to CW beginning last month. Vengeance Day on March 7 also had 200,000 views. The Great American Bash on June 28 had 100,000 views outside of the U.S. on the platform.
For NXT’s weekly program, most of the episodes had 200,000 views, apart from two episodes listed at 100,000.
WWE Unreal (Worldwide)
The second season of WWE Unreal generated 2.8 million views and 13.4 million hours viewed for the five-episode series that was released on January 20. It was a major drop from the first season, which produced 4.9 million views.
A third season of WWE Unreal will be released on July 21.
In its release, Netflix has stated that beginning in 2027, it will move from a six-month report to an annual one.
