Logan Paul to join WWE’s Raw roster for Netflix launch
YouTuber Logan Paul is to return to WWE in a full-time capacity. He will be one of the stars of Raw, which will make its debut on Netflix on January 6th.
Following a couple of cameo appearances with the WWE in 2021, he made his professional wrestling debut as The Miz’s tag team partner at Wrestlemania 28 in April 2022. The pair won their match, and Paul’s performance was lauded. As a result, he signed a contract with the company and won the WWE United States Championship in November. However, he’s been on something of a hiatus for much of this year.
Now, that is set to change. This is largely due to Netflix smashing its streaming viewing records with the boxing match between his younger brother, Jake Paul, and boxing legend Mike Tyson in November.
OnDecember 19th, Paul was reintroduced to the company by WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque and Raw General Manager Adam Pierce, at an event at their Stamford, Connecticut headquarters. In front of a crowd of hundreds of fans, Logan was booed, as he played up to his heel persona.
“Every single one of my matches is a banger,” Paul said. “Think about it. Mike Tyson wants to fight me. Conor McGregor wants to fight me. Of course they do, a payday with a Paul brother is a bucket list item for most all of these washed-up fighters.”
“Here’s the message to the entire WWE roster, everyone watching back there, everyone watching at home, because I know you’re watching,” Paul said, removing his sunglasses. “If you have something that I want, I’m going to take it. I’m not asking permission. I am going to take it from you.”
“I’m not here to take part. I’m here to take over. Your approval means nothing to me,” the YouTuber continued. “Whether you love me, whether you hate me, I don’t care, because you’re still watching, and you will stay watching because you are a spectator, and I am a star, and I promise everyone in the crowd right now, everyone watching at home, you are looking at the future WWE World Champion, and his name is Logan Paul.”
The deal between Netflix and WWE is said by sources to be for ten years and worth about $5 billion. Earlier in December, Levesque dismissed concerns that the service could handle such high-demand events following buffering issues during the Paul-Tyson fight. “If it blinks a couple of times, and we do 60 million [viewers], I’m good with that,” he said at an event in Los Angeles.