• In a push for more exclusive video content on the social media platform, the WWE has signed a deal to air a brand new show on X, the former Twitter.
• The show will be called WWE Speed and will feature top stars and five-minute-long matches.
• WWE Speed has the chance to attract more advertisers to X which has recently struggled to grow its ad revenue.

If you needed even more evidence that the WWE is experiencing a new boom period in the mainstream after announcing a landmark deal with Netflix for 2025, the sports entertainment giant has signed with Elon Musk’s social media platform X, the former Twitter, to air a weekly episodic show called “WWE Speed.”

The show will air in the Autumn months in South Africa, Spring in the US, and will feature five-minute-long wrestling matches as well as appearances from stars like The Rock and others, according to a report from Bloomberg.

WWE has enjoyed sustained popularity in South Africa since the late 90s and has had an exclusive deal with MultiChoice to air its programming on SuperSport since 2017. The new two-year agreement with X will see the WWE air 52 episodes of the show over the period of the deal. It marks another attempt from the social media firm to push into video streaming, something that Musk has been working towards since he purchased the company and became its Chief Twit in 2022.

While no more details about the show have been shared officially, it is likely that it will air on the official WWE X account which has 13.7 million followers. This is also not the first time the WWE has attempted short-format programming. WWE Velocity which ended in 2006 featured short matches between rookie wrestlers.

For the wrestlers, the five-minute matches will present a challenge to be able to tell entertaining stories, but for Musk they represent another slate of exclusive video content on his platform. In January Musk revealed that former CNN anchor Don Lemon and politician Tulsi Gabbard would receive their own shows on X.

Last year it was announced that socialite Paris Hilton would create original video content on the platform. The company was also revealed to have been boosting videos that top YouTuber Mr Beast was uploading on the site in a bid to attract more YouTubers to the site.

X offers monetisation for creators on the platform, but many have said that payments don’t reflect the amount of viewership accrued.

The new WWE show will also serve to attract more advertisers towards X due to wrestling league’s enormous popularity (over 142 million posts made about the company last year). The former Twitter recently struggled to reach the same ad revenue it did in the past. According to Bloomberg, the site reached below its target of $3 billion in advertising Dollars for 2023, which amounted to $2.5 billion.

WWE Speed will air on X after WrestleMania XL in April, which is shaping up to be the biggest event WWE has held in over a decade and is set to feature The Rock donning the spandex again either against champion Roman Reigns or upstart Cody Rhodes.