The first WWE SmackDown of 2025 will reportedly be shown on YouTube in multiple countries.
With WWE’s Netflix deal set to kick off with the January 6 episode of Monday Night RAW, fans outside the United States will soon be able to watch all of the company’s weekly shows in the same place. However, given its start date, WWE’s deal with the streaming service won’t include the January 3 SmackDown, and we now have an indication as to how fans will be able to watch the show.
Per Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, it’s believed that the first SmackDown of 2025 will air on WWE’s YouTube channel in the majority of countries outside of the USA.
“So it’s one of those weird things where the way the contracts end and start. There’s a gap, which is actually only one show. But Canada, UK, most of the world. I think the exceptions would be US, Germany is an exception, Philippines is an exception. But almost everywhere, the contracts, the television deals, end at the end of this year. Netflix picks up on January 6th. So there’s a January 3rd SmackDown show that airs [on Netflix] everywhere but the United States, pretty much. And like I said, United States and Germany and Philippines, and just about anywhere, there may be one or two other countries too, but it just kind of falls in the cracks. So in all those countries. WWE will be putting the SmackDown show up on YouTube that week. So that’s basically the situation there. Netflix will start with Raw on the 6th, NXT on the 7th, and SmackDown on the 10th, outside the United States pretty much all over the world. So that’s the situation. That date just kind of fell through in the middle.”
-Dave Meltzer
WWE also used YouTube to broadcast the recent Saturday Night’s Main Event show to viewers outside of the United States, and this update will certainly come as welcome news to the majority of those across the world who will be able to watch SmackDown on the platform on January 3.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the January 3 episode of SmackDown as soon as we hear more.
H/T to ITR Wrestling for the transcription.
