WWE Unreal: What Was Set Up, What Was Real, Reactions Internally

WWE’s Unreal series on Netflix has debuted, and Fightful spoke with a number of people in the company regarding their thoughts.

We were able to learn many of the things that were “set up” so to speak, and some others of which the reality surprised many that appeared.

One subject that appeared on the documentary but wasn’t a featured performer said that they actually didn’t even realize that they were being filmed for the show. They clarified that WWE had cameras around so much that you didn’t always know what they were for.

WWE talent claim that they weren’t given anything that they weren’t allowed to say, and were pretty well able to talk about what topics they wanted. Outside of some general language that they kept away from. One talent joked that they realized how much “fuck” is said backstage from the show. 

There was a scene at the Royal Rumble that was heavily influenced. The women’s locker room was asked to empty out to cheer for Charlotte after she won the Royal Rumble. They weren’t told it was specifically for the Netflix show, but were just asked to. They were not forced to do it. For those asking, it was claimed to us that Charlotte Flair knew about this prior to the report.

There were members of the women’s roster who speculated that the Charlotte Flair/Tiffany Stratton promo “derailment” was manufactured for Netflix, but we should be clear that those were only theories. Nobody we talked to involved with the segment ever claimed that. On typical WWE shows, talent are still completely scripted verbatim. For example, even Paul Heyman and CM Punk’s promos were fully scripted and included on internal scripts this past week. 

One WWE producer we spoke to said that they were concerned about authenticity whent he show was announced. However, they were very pleased with how it turned out. Specifically we heard from a number of people in the company that feared it would be a “work-shoot” program when a trailer highlighted the IShowSpeed Royal Rumble appearance in a way that appeared “unplanned.” As one talent watched the show, they said the handling of that made them think this would be an honest portrayal. 

Production crew we spoke to said that they legitimately did not know about John Cena’s heel turn, as perpetuated in the show. It was admitted that doesn’t happen very often, with CM Punk’s return being one of those times. 

Some of the featured acts were’t quite sure how things would be edited and how things would turn out, and were interested in what the reaction online would be. 

There were a number of wrestlers who said that with most programming, they don’t watch it because they’ve already lived it. However, almost all of the people we spoke to that typically follow that, said that they were going to check it out because of how it was promoted to them.

WWE sources we spoke to were especially happy about the buzz the show received within the wrestling world. 

Fightful will work to find out more.