I’ve been watching wrestling or WWE/WWF entertainment, whatever you choose to call it my entire life. Ever since I could remember.  It’s just something I did when I was a little kid. I was all into the characters and stories. When I got older, I realized it was a lark. Staged if you will. That didn’t take away from my enjoyment at all, though. The older I got, I wanted to see more realistic matches and stories, so WCW & ECW were my go-to shows to watch, but the attitude era of WWE was very entertaining to watch. These were characters and stories to some extent I could relate to. The longer I watched, the less interested I became, though. So I took a decade or so off from watching wrestling or WWE Entertainment as it was.  I lonely got back into watching it again when an old friend said the minor leagues NXT was pretty good to watch. That didn’t change my thought process of how I wanted more transparency in the stories, though. That’s why I stopped watching in the first place. I needed more transparency. With Unreal, the new docuseries on Netflix, I got that transparency by Triple H and company pulling back the curtains and showing me things I didn’t know. 

Ep 1: New Era, starts this docuseries by revealing the true name of the chief content officer Paul LeVeque: Triple H, and then reveals the true name of Cody Rhodes: the previous WWE champion, Cody & Brandy Runnels, and Rhea Ripley: Demi Bennett. This will be the norm throughout the series. A lot of the ways that are used in coming up with the stories and matches are also revealed, such as white boards and table plans. John Cena: The current WWE champion on his final run in WWE is also featured in this episode.  There are multiple shots of WWE Headquarters in Stamford Connecticut. Another superstar featured is CM Punk: Phil Brooks, who is straight edge. He had a real-life feud with Triple H behind the scenes in WWE years earlier, and Triple H brought him back because he changed. Now he’s in a feud with Seth “Freakin” Rollins whom he had a beef with going way back to the 2000s. The gorilla position is named after the great WWF wrestler, and the announcer Gorilla Monsoon is the hub of everything WWE does. This is shown as the plays where the writers and producers of RAW on Netflix, January 6th broadcast to 300 million people around the world,  are situated. Which emanated from the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California. The Rock is a massive star in the world of movies, but he is now the Final Boss in WWE. He is a heel character for him. The behind the scenes footage shows injuries, sometimes wrestlers shooting, which is telling the truth as they see it.  Some key players in the success of WWE over the last 25 years or so are Paul Heyman, Bruce Prichard, DDP Diamond Dallas Paige, Michael Seitz: Micheal PS Hayes, and Robert Roode They help make this engine run. A  calendar is used as a map to show the next event during the docuseries. This was a very good way of showing how things keep moving forward from day to day and week to week.

Ep 2: Push shows how a wrestler like Jay Uso: Joshua Samuel Fatu & his brother Jimmy Uso: Jonathan Solota Fatu can get a push from the writers like Ed Koskey Sometimes, things can get out of hand in the case of the Cody vs. Kevin Owen’s over the Winged Eagle Title Belt, which ended in a  Shady win, but resulted in an illegal piledriver. A big part of WWE/WWF over its existence has been the Samoan Dynasty. They happen to have 5 members of the family in the Royal Rumble in 2025. With that push Jay Uso was getting, he wins the Royal Rumble and sets up a World Title Match, the beginning of on the road to the 41st Wrestlemania, they put a rocket under his ass. He ends up defeating the then and current champion Gunther. Who had a similar thing happen to him a couple of years earlier. 

Ep 3: Worth the Wait, Bianca Be-Air: Bianca Nicole Blaiar Crawford EST of WWE, famous for her braid,  Chelsea Green, went by many names but goes by her real name now. Getting booked is  the tricky thing about wrestling. You have to work hard to get on TV. When she heard about  the First Ever Woman’s United States Championship, she wanted that title. Charlotte Flair: Ashley Elizabeth Fliehir The Queen of WWE, and the daughter of legendary wrestler Rick Flair. She had knee surgery but still became the Woman’s Royal Rumble winner. That makes  the Elimination Chamber the last chance to qualify for the main event at Wrestlemania.   There are 4 pods, they come out on a timer, the winner goes to Wrestlemania for a world title match, BelAir’s husband is Montez Ford, they met in and fell in love with each other in WWE at NXT. She’s friends with Naomi,and they become tag team partners because of an injury to Jade Cargill. This was a big storyline that got paid at the Elimination Chamber.

Ep 4: Heel Turn, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Nick Khan are long-time friends. Nick was an usher at Wrestlemania 9. Travis Scott is a hip hop musician. He gets involved with the “Final Boss”. The story is kept from the Writers Room. This secret sets up a whole new heel turn for John Cena, not Cody Rhodes. John Cena has a 25-year career where he calls it quits at the end of 2025. A Farewell Tour if you will. His mantra was Hustle, Loyalty, Respect, but not anymore. Xavier Woods: Austin Watson is a  member of the New Day with Big E, Kofi Kingston. He and Kofi  turn on Big E after Big E’s neck injury makes it impossible for him to wrestle anymore, which makes them big heels now. This story with the Rock/Final Boss and John Cena gets compared to the Marvel Multiverse Sage. It was very shocking. There are artists’ animation renditions to show how the story gets built up. One of the best kept secrets in WWE in years is well done by all. Videos of fans on YouTube with their shocked expressions prove that quite evidently.

Ep 5: Wrestlemania,Tiffany Statton shoots, tells the truth, on Charlotte, Jay moving upward, and Cody is discussed by John Cena’s attitude, there is also a  triple threat with CM Punk, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins. Jay Uso wins the Heavy Weight Championship. Tiffany Beats Charlotte & retains the WWE Women’s Championship and Paul Heyman switches his alliances, while Rhea, Bianca, Eyo Triple Threat Match for the title is one of the best matches from either night of Wrestlemania in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

This series was an eye-opener for me because it did what I wanted WWE to do for years. It pulled back the curtain of the innermost secrets and showed how things were done. From a production standpoint, writing aspect and performance. This is a well-oiled machine. Triple H &  his crew have perfected the art of wrestling entertainment. Fans from around the world, including myself, get to look under the covers and see what goes on behind the scenes. I had ideas of how things worked, but I didn’t know it all. Nobody can know everything except the guys who are in those rooms and having those discussions.  This was a fantastic docu-series. I hope this continues for many years on Netflix. There are still so many things I’d like to know, and so much more that needs to be revealed going forward. Bravo Triple H, Netflix, and everybody involved for having the guts to do something so bold as this.

Reviewed all 5 episodes of WWE: UnReal, which will be streaming on Netflix July 29th

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen