WWE: Bruce Prichard Reportedly Expected to Return from Absence Soon, Grayson Waller on WWE RAW’s Move to Netflix & WWE Staying as Family Product, New Deal with Topps

Bruce Prichard WWE Absence Update – Prichard Reportedly Expected to Return This Week

As noted before, WWE Executive Director Bruce Prichard has been on an “indefinite” leave of absence from WWE since this past November due to a family-related reason.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that the current expectation within WWE is that Prichard will be returning to the company and resuming his duties as soon as this week.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that Prichard is currently expected to be back as soon as this Friday’s WWE SmackDown taping in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Grayson Waller Comments on WWE RAW’s Move to Netflix & WWE Unlikely to Change From a Family Product

The West Sport held a recent interview with Grayson Waller. One of the topics discussed included Waller’s thoughts about WWE RAW’s upcoming debut on Netflix.

“It’s super exciting. Obviously, you know already, the fan base on Netflix is a lot bigger. We’re going to be in a lot more homes, pretty much everyone, their mom, their grandma, their cousin, everyone has a Netflix account and being able to continue to watch NXT, SmackDown, Raw, PLEs, all of it on Netflix is going to be great. But for us too, this is an opportunity for us to kind of show out in a different platform and not having those constraints of a television network is kind of the way I think about it. I think Netflix believes in the WWE product and WWE is ready to deliver something huge. I think Netflix is the perfect home for it.”

Waller also gave his thoughts about how WWE won’t be changing from being a family product for its move to Netflix.

“I think there’s definitely the temptation to do that, but for WWE, we are a family product and as much as we like to push the envelope at times, we do it at times when it’s necessary. Even though we’re on Netflix and maybe people think that the gloves are off and we can say what we want, at the end of the day, we still want families to come to the show, we still want you to bring your son and your daughter. So, Grayson Waller is going to say some mean things, but he’s going to be very careful about what he says.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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WWE & Topps Announces New Long-Term Deal for WWE Trading Cards

Sports memorabilia and trading card manufacturer Topps announced that they have recently signed a new long-term contract with WWE to reunite together for the production and release of new WWE-based trading cards.

Here’s a first look at a few of our upcoming cards… We can’t WAIT to show you all we have in store. 😈

Follow @Topps to make sure you never miss a beat. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/dZlhsoeFS6

— Topps (@Topps) January 1, 2025

WWE previously had a trading card deal with Panini from 2021 to 2023 that was terminated by WWE in September of 2023 following their deal with Fanatics. This led to Panini filing a lawsuit against WWE over claims of breach of contract that was settled in November of 2023.