The Royal Rumble is often viewed as the official start to “WrestleMania Season” for WWE.
Now that the Rumble is in the rearview mirror instead of the windshield, there’s a lot to talk about. In the span of four hours, a ton of things went down… some of it good, and some of it not so good. Instead of narrowing my column down to one specific thing that took place, I figured I’d expand my thoughts from my review column and talk about everything instead.
I haven’t done one of these columns in almost two years, but the title and the format are “borrowed” from Peter King’s old “Monday Morning Quarterback” column series that he wrote for Sports Illustrated for a couple decades.
It’s exactly as the title indicates… ten things that I think I think about what took place at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. The items will be presented in chronological order of what took place during the show, so don’t worry about why something was listed before something else.
Easy peasy. Let’s talk about it.
It Was A Big Night For The Future Of The Main Roster Women’s Divisions: Sol Ruca lasted nearly 51 minutes in the match, making it to the final three before being eliminated. Lash Legend lasted nearly 39 minutes, making it to the final six before being eliminated, and was responsible for eliminating some of the biggest women’s wrestling stars of the last two decades. Kiana James lasted nearly 28 minutes, and while she didn’t eliminate anyone, her offense looked incredibly impressive, including her lifting Nia Jax up for a Samoan Drop.
There were other examples, but those were the three that really stood out the most. Lash and Kiana are currently wrestling on Smackdown, while Sol seems guaranteed to receive a main roster spot at some point in 2026. The future looks very bright for the main roster women, and that isn’t even counting the rest of the NXT roster that is fighting for future spots themselves.
Chelsea Green Absolutely Deserves A Shot To Be A Top Star: One of the more talked-about stories from the new season of WWE Unreal on Netflix is Chelsea Green, and more specifically, how the company views her and her “spot” on the roster.
Basically, the writers view her as someone with a “ceiling” and who can be successful against the lower-tier women on the roster, but should always lose to the women who are at the top of the card and are already established.
I don’t believe that at all. She is being viewed as the female version of R-Truth right now… someone who can always be depended on to entertain and make people laugh, but isn’t going to have the best of win/loss records. What a lot of people forget, though, is that Ron Killings is a really talented wrestler who is a better in-ring performer than many of the names that have beaten him soundly on WWE programming through the years.
That’s Chelsea. She is always going to be entertaining, but viewing her as a “comedy wrestler” isn’t giving her the credit that she deserves for how well she wrestles. I don’t see a reason why she couldn’t compete against the top women in the company and come out victorious.
As she continues to get more and more over with live crowds, the debate now becomes whether or not she should ascend the card as a face. At this rate, fans might make that decision for WWE before too long.
The Ending Of AJ Styles vs Gunther Was Spectacularly Done: If you’re booking AJ to lose to Gunther, it would’ve been easy to have it done in a simple, straightforward manner. Gunther pins AJ, and AJ’s career is done, or Gunther makes AJ pass out, and AJ’s career is done. The purpose of having AJ’s career come to an end would’ve been served, either way.
Instead, WWE decided to add a bit of the ol’ razzle dazzle to the match finish. It wasn’t much, but there were a couple little touches that I felt were well done, and I appreciated the hell out of them.
Things started with the inclusion of Referee Dan Engler, who was known as Rudy Charles in TNA. He and AJ go back to the beginning of TNA in 2002, so it made sense to have Engler involved in AJ’s story. Their longtime friendship came into play during the finish. With AJ locked in a Sleeper from Gunther, and with him beginning to slip and fade away, Engler was screaming at AJ, trying to get him to respond. Referees always check during submission attempts, trying to see if the wrestler is conscious and if they want to verbally submit, but Engler’s pained screams were that of someone who was desperately trying to avoid seeing his friend’s livelihood end. Even after AJ’s arm hit the mat, Engler paused before checking it, trying to give AJ an extra second or two to bounce back.
Then, after AJ passed out, he woke up in a state of confusion, not understanding what happened and why Gunther’s music was playing. You see that a lot in MMA, when a fighter is knocked out or passes out, then comes to and doesn’t remember what happened. AJ struggled to understand what just took place, but it slowly started to sink in, and he reacted accordingly.
Again, they weren’t big touches, but they added so much to the overall presentation in what was already an emotional roller coaster.
I Hope AJ Does Retire: Hear me out. AJ is one of the greatest in-ring performers in the entire history of the sport, and even as he approaches his 49th birthday, he continues to prove that he can still “go” and deliver at a high level. I’m not saying I want him to retire because he has become a broken down old bum who is embarrassing himself more and more on a weekly basis. Instead, I want him to retire because I would like wrestling stipulations and outcomes to mean something.
If you’re having a story that sees AJ put his career on the line in a match, and he loses, that should be it. No coming back for other opportunities, and no going to another promotion to continue his career after creative language during the retirement process allows you to wrestle elsewhere. The match was great, and the ending was even better. It would all be for nothing if he keeps wrestling.
Sami Zayn Wasn’t As Over As I Expected Him To Be: I was expecting a hero’s welcome for Sami in front of what I would assume was a largely Muslim crowd in Saudi Arabia. While he did get cheered, it wasn’t anywhere near the point I thought it would be.
To be fair, the crowd had just sat through a nearly 70-minute Royal Rumble and a nearly 25-minute emotional roller coaster of a retirement match for AJ Styles, so I would assume they were growing tired, but my point remains. It was one of the more surprising happenings of the entire show.
Perhaps We’ve Moved Beyond The Point Of Making Sami A World Champion: No matter what your personal opinions of Sami Zayn are, you have to admit that this match against Drew McIntyre was the second-best opportunity to make him a World Champion in WWE, behind only Elimination Chamber 2023, when he broke free from The Bloodline and challenged Roman Reigns in Montreal.
The Rumble loss to Drew now makes Sami 0-9 in World Title matches on television or pay-per-view since being called up from NXT. Not exactly a shining, shimmering record.
It’s not like a career is a failure if someone doesn’t win a World Title. There are wrestling Hall Of Fames, including WWE’s version, that are chock full of inductees that never reached those heights in their careers.
However, at this point in Sami’s career… approaching 42 years old, with nearly 24 years in as a pro wrestler… how many more chances will he have to reach the pinnacle of WWE? He has had two crystal clear chances that were damn near written specifically for him, and only him, to become a World Champion, and it hasn’t led to anything.
It makes me wonder if it ever will.
Paul Levesque Has A Chance To End The Racism Allegations That Have Followed Him For Years: Remember the build to Triple H’s match against Booker T at WrestleMania 19? Specifically the carefully worded promo he cut on Booker referring to Booker’s “nappy hair” and his “role in life,” telling Book that “somebody like you doesn’t get to be a World Champion.”
That was nearly 23 years ago, and the “Triple H is a racist” allegations have followed the man around ever since. People point at Paul Levesque’s political affiliation and who he voted for, as well as how he has handled black wrestlers in NXT and on the main roster, as “proof” that he is, in fact, racist.
I’ve never met the man. I have zero idea if he’s racist, biased, or playing a character. What I do know is that black wrestlers haven’t exactly shined under his watch, no matter what the reasoning for that happens to be.
If there was ever a time for that to change, we’re upon that time now. Je’Von Evans, Trick Williams, and Oba Femi are three absolutely, positively can’t miss prospects that WWE can’t afford to screw up. Carmelo Hayes is one of the fastest rising names in the wrestling business today. Lash Legend looks like a megastar in the making. Royce Keys has the potential to make a gigantic splash. Those names alone present a potential seismic shift in the WWE landscape.
If we’re sitting here exactly one year from today and none of those people have really done much with their time, then it’s time to have a seriously uncomfortable conversation about Paul Levesque. The eyes of the world are watching.
Brock Lesnar’s Rumble Elimination Was An All-Time Bonehead Move: I know some people are up in arms about Brock basically no-selling Ilja Dragunov’s offense and then throwing Dragunov out of the Rumble as if he were a child. That’s understandable, but to me, Brock’s own elimination from the Rumble was a lot worse, a lot more egregious, and a lot more avoidable.
Again, if we take out any personal opinions about Brock, this was one of the weirdest eliminations in the history of the Royal Rumble. Let’s take a quick look at Brock’s history in the Rumble match, shall we?
2003? He made his Rumble debut and won the match.
2016? He didn’t last long, but he was a force of nature while he was in there, and it took almost 1,000 pounds of humanity (Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, Braun Strowman) to eliminate him.
2017? Again, he didn’t last long, but he was a force of nature while he was in there, and his elimination was a direct way to set up his high-profile WrestleMania match against Goldberg.
2020? That was the year Brock put himself in the match as the #1 entrant, even though he was the WWE Champion, because he felt that nobody was worthy of challenging him for his title. He looked like an unstoppable monster for over 26 minutes, eliminating 13 people, before he was finally booted out by Drew McIntyre. Brock’s elimination was the defining moment in Drew’s rise to the top, and it culminated in him winning this match and going on to WrestleMania 36, where he defeated Brock to become the WWE Champion for the first time.
2022? He won his second Royal Rumble this year, coming in as a surprise entrant in the #30 spot after he lost his WWE Title to Bobby Lashley earlier in the night.
2023? Another year where Brock wasn’t in the match very long, but he had a few eliminations while he was in there, and his elimination (at the hands of Bobby Lashley) set up a match at Elimination Chamber, and then also set up another match at WrestleMania 39.
Then we have this year’s match. First and foremost, Brock was dumped out by Cody Rhodes and LA Knight. Does anyone think he’s facing either one of them at WrestleMania this year? Do you think he’s facing either one of them at Elimination Chamber this year? Brock isn’t even on the promotional poster for Elimination Chamber, so there’s a chance he doesn’t even have a match there.
Then there’s the fact that the elimination itself happened during the walking-through-the-crowd entrance of Jey Uso, while damn near everyone in the arena was paying attention to Jey and not the competitors in the ring. You can tell that’s the case because there was very little reaction to what should’ve been one of the more shocking moments in the Rumble.
It wasn’t a botch, nor was it a miscommunication or a timing issue. Instead, it was something that had to go through several people in some sort of chain of command, from Paul Levesque on down to the producers of the Rumble match, and down to Brock, Cody, and LA Knight themselves… and nobody spoke up to say that the idea was terrible.
The Right People Won The Rumble Matches: Yes… both Rumble matches. I don’t think that there will be much argument over Liv Morgan winning the women’s match. She has been on such an incredible roll, and there are some great stories that can be told with her moving on to WrestleMania, especially since she eliminated her Judgment Day sister Raquel Rodriguez on the way to winning.
Roman Reigns, on the other hand, becomes the latest chapter in the battle between live crowds and viewers at home. I’ve already seen a bunch of complaints online that Reigns was, at best, a “boring” choice for the winner, and at worst, a “terrible” choice. I understand the boring aspect… some people want to see fresh faces winning the Rumble every year.
Terrible, though? No. Not even close.
Do you hear the reactions Roman gets when he’s around? He’s the biggest draw in the entire company, and has been for a while. Yes, he isn’t around very often anymore, but to deny his place in the company would be foolish.
Largely due to the fact that he isn’t around on a weekly basis these days, he hasn’t been involved in a title match since he lost to Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 40. That’s nearly two years ago now, for those who aren’t doing the math. One of the major complaints I saw about Roman’s WrestleMania match last year was that, as much star power as Roman vs CM Punk vs Seth Rollins featured, it didn’t have anything else attached to it outside of men competing for the love and affection of Paul Heyman. Well… now Roman’s WrestleMania 42 match is going to be a bigger deal.
If I have a complaint, though, it’s that I would prefer to see a fresher match for Roman. As of right now, it sure seems like Drew McIntyre will be busy at Mania with Cody Rhodes and/or Jacob Fatu, which means it’s likely that Roman chooses to go after CM Punk and the World Heavyweight Title. While it isn’t 100% the same thing, obviously, seeing Punk and Roman face each other in back-to-back editions of WrestleMania isn’t as exciting as a fresher option. On the flip side of that coin, though, is the fact that Punk and Roman have only faced each other in a one-on-one setting one time before, and that was on an episode of Monday Night Raw from January 2014.
With John Cena no longer an active competitor, and with Cody Rhodes seemingly tied up in the WWE Title picture, Punk vs Roman is easily the biggest match WWE can deliver right now. Because of that, I think it does make perfect sense to have Roman win here.
The Crowd Looked Smaller Than Announced, But Sounded Larger Than Announced: It was said that the brand new venue seated 25,000 people, and that the show was sold out. Watching it live, it didn’t look like there was anywhere near 25,000 people in attendance, with large chunks of empty seats in every section all throughout the place.
Since the show ended, though, there has been a lot of back-and-forth debate on just how many people were at the show. There has been a bunch of pictures from people in attendance, and it looks like some of the sections were more full than initially thought, as the lighting in the seats almost played like an optical illusion, making it look like nobody was there. It doesn’t appear to be the case everywhere, though, and we’ll probably never know the real number of fans that showed up.
What I do know is that it looked bad on television, optical illusion of otherwise. Another thing I do know is that the crowd sounded great, no matter how many people were there. Open air venues can be difficult to track in that regard, as whatever noise crowds make tends to float up and out of the stadium. That didn’t seem to be the case here. While it didn’t LOOK like there was 25,000 fans in attendance, it sure SOUNDED like there was. Gone are the days when WWE’s shows in Saudi Arabia were held in front of mostly uninterested Royals who would spend most of the show walking around the venue during matches.
What did you think of the 2026 Royal Rumble? Was I spot-on in my takes here, or do you have some differing opinions? As always, feel free to hit me up in the comments section below, on Twitter (@HustleTheSavage), or on Bluesky (@aaronhyden.bsky.social), and let me know what’s on your mind.
Now, let’s switch things over to my Weekly Power Rankings before closing it out with the list of songs I was listening to as I put this column together.
Weekly Power Rankings
AJ Styles vs Gunther: A really solid story from start to finish. I like the formula to Gunther’s matches. I’ve said it a million times before, but he reminds me of a horror movie villain or the final boss in a video game. He keeps moving forward and delivering punishment, no matter what is thrown at him, and the job of his opponents is to simply survive and avoid being taken out to the deep waters.
CM Punk vs AJ Styles: In their first singles match against each other since an IWC show back in December 2004, they delivered a super fun contest that only serves to make me miss AJ even more now. Retiring on your own terms is a fantastic thing, but he’s clearly still capable of great things in the ring.
Swerve Strickland vs Andrade El Idolo: Andrade has always been great in the ring, but can all the pieces of the puzzle come together this time around for him to see a major push? Beating the former AEW World Champion is a really good start.
Mark Briscoe vs Tommaso Ciampa: Ciampa makes his surprise (not-so-surprise) debut in AEW, and in his first match for the company three days later, he wins the TNT Championship. Not a bad week at all.
Men’s Royal Rumble: A really nice combination of the present and the future here. It wasn’t quite enough to be considered one of the greatest Rumble matches ever, but I think it’s worthy of being placed in the tier right below it.
Rhea Ripley, Iyo Sky & Stephanie Vaquer vs Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez: A fun way to continue the story of two different feuds, as well as continuing interest in the Royal Rumble. No complaints here.
Carmelo Hayes vs Rey Fenix: The 397th consecutive week that the United States Title is represented here on my Weekly Power Rankings in the Open Challenge format. An amazing run.
Zachary Wentz & Dezmond Xavier vs Lio Rush & Action Andretti: Unless Tony Khan forgets about them like he usually does with his free agent signings, there is a world of potential for The Rascalz to have a special time in AEW.
Kris Statlander vs Thekla: While Thekla gave up a lot of size to Stat, she more than made up for it with her in-ring style and aggression. I dig it.
Otis & Akira Tozawa vs The Creed Brothers vs Los Americanos vs Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods: A bunch of different in-ring styles coming together here, and it made for an entertaining match. I’m all for Otis and Tozawa getting a push, even if that push is just one title opportunity and nothing more. They’re a really underrated duo.
Women’s Royal Rumble: If the first half of the match was more like the second half, this would’ve had a much higher ranking. As it was, I did enjoy the match, even with the first half that was full of slow spots and not a lot happening.
This Week’s Playlist: “Tiramisu” by Don Toliver… “I’m From The Bay” by LaRussell… “ASAP” by Mya… “B.B.B.” by Juvenile & Genesisthegawd… “At We Feet” by Protoje & Damian Marley… “Afraid Of The Dark” by Motionless In White… “further eden” by ERRA… “Villain” by From Ashes To New… “The Dirt” by Archers… “Sosa” by 40000 Gang… “I Got Flavor!” by LaRussell… “Westside” by TQ… “You’re Makin’ Me High” by Toni Braxton… “Love Shoulda Brought You Home” by Toni Braxton… “Breathe Again” by Toni Braxton… “You Mean The World To Me” by Toni Braxton… “Another Sad Love Song” by Toni Braxton… “Ex-Factor” by Lauryn Hill… “Let’s Chill” by Guy… “I Belong To You (Every Time I See Your Face)” by Rome… “Awnaw” by Nappy Roots & Jazze Pha… “Slums” by Nappy Roots… “Po’ Folks” by Nappy Roots & Anthony Hamilton… “Don’t Disturb This Groove” by The System… “Swing My Way” by KP & Envyi… “Show Me” by Glenn Jones
