The June 27th edition of WWE SmackDown, broadcast live from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, experienced a major disruption during the Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton segment, as Netflix’s international feed cut out for nearly 30 minutes.
Viewers watching via Netflix were met with a “Pardon the delay” message during the outage, which occurred during a pivotal face-to-face moment between the two King of the Ring finalists. Speculation quickly spread online about the nature of the interruption.
PWInsider.com’s Mike Johnson later confirmed that the issue stemmed from a power loss inside the venue, which temporarily shut down WWE’s entire production infrastructure, including the control room and gorilla position. It was clarified that this was not a Netflix-related issue, but rather a technical failure on-site in Riyadh.
While the feed was down, Cody Rhodes kept the live crowd entertained by hyping up Night of Champions, and Randy Orton interacted with fans, even joining in on a round of “yeeting” chants to pass the time. Once power was restored, Michael Cole and Wade Barrett returned on commentary and issued an apology to Netflix viewers for the unexpected blackout.
Despite the hiccup, the show resumed smoothly, leading into the final build for Night of Champions this Saturday. Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more updates on the event.
