WWE Unreal is diving wrestling fans.
The Netflix series documents the writer’s room and how feuds and matches come together. It’s essentially a behind-the-scenes show that plenty of movies and television do, but for professional wrestling it’s quite different.
Many fans feel that it exposes the business. Granted, it’s 2025, so many fans know that wrestling is scripted and pre-determined, but there’s an illusion there that keeps audiences invested in what they’re watching onscreen. WWE Unreal breaks that illusion for many fans, including Bloodsport’s Josh Barnett, who feels that kayfabe should be alive and well at all times.
“I absolutely hate it,” Josh Barnett said on The Ariel Helwani Show. . “I think it has no place in the business. Because I understand where it comes from, and I understand the rationale behind it in this day and age, the way media is, the way it’s constructed, the way the stories are told, and how we package everything, from the beginning to the end, from the front-facing to the behind the scenes.
“And we package everything, and everything is displayed to everyone all the time now. But I am 100% team kayfabe. I view it like nobody wants to go to an illusionist show to be told how the trick goes; they just want to see the trick. They want to be amazed. They want to try and sit there and argue with everybody about how it was done and contemplate, you know, was that a real elephant, or any of those sorts of things to get those questions going.
Barnett does make a good point in that it’s important to keep up the illusion when it comes to wrestling even though most fans understand what’s going on behind the scenes before Unreal. However, because of the new WWE television series, Josh doesn’t think that wrestling fans will enjoy the product in the same way they did before.
“Whether they be negative, positive, or anywhere in between. Because as long as the talking is happening, it’s good. And by keeping people always wanting to know, it’s good. If you expose it all before the show happens, they’ll enjoy it, perhaps, but not in the same way. And it’s the difference between the way I look at wrestling. If you just do a bunch of really cool spots and athletic moments, people will cheer for it, but it will not have the impact that the match that is all emotion and story-driven will.”