Broadcast from the genuinely cool-looking Lucas Oil Stadium, WWE’s 2025 Royal Rumble featured two rumbles and two intervening championship matches.
The event had a big feel to it amidst both speculated and anticipated high profile returns. Pyro from floating rigging (suspended from the ceiling) always makes for a special feel, and in conjunction with Lucas Oil’s unique design, gave Royal Rumble its own distinctive aesthetic this year.
By contrast, announcements like “third largest gate in WWE history” don’t actually contribute to the occasion and instead just make me wonder how much ticket prices have risen. Announcing attendance is normal for a sporting event, announcing revenue is just weird.
With two rumbles to balance, the key thing on the night was ensuring variety. Both rumbles ran well over an hour so they really needed to feel different. In the event, both were booked with enough contrast that neither outstayed its welcome.
The two matches in the middle of the card, for the men’s tag team and men’s WWE titles respectively (both gimmick matches in their own right) also helped switch gears between the rumbles. That said, my feeling is that one of these spots should’ve been for another women’s division bout. A title defence for either Rhea Ripley or Tiffany Stratton would have given this card a perfect overall balance.
Women’s Royal Rumble Match – winner, Charlotte Flair:
The women’s rumble was filled with deftly-interwoven stories that brilliantly showcased character across the roster. Every new entrant got the space to make an impact and to give a clear sense of who they are. Given the number of NXT participants, this worked especially well. If you came in having never seen Lash Legend or Stephanie Vaquer, you left knowing who they are and what their deal is.
Ironically, where this approach stumbled slightly was with Flair’s introduction. Her entrance felt rightly momentous and helped build a feeling around her eventual win, but she didn’t really have an in-ring story once she actually got into the mix. Like Rhea Ripley, Flair is a powerful physical storyteller. The lack of clear narrative here was the missing link between her entrance and her victory and the only substantive criticism I’d level at this captivating, highly-enjoyable rumble.
Shoutout to Ivy Nile for doing Lyra Valkyria’s taunt after eliminating her, A+ heel work. And shoutout to Liv Morgan for grounding everything in realism. Rather than doing nothing during a rest spot, Morgan consistently made sure her character looked like she was actually trying to achieve something, even if it was just petulantly kicking someone while lying in the corner. Morgan’s really just great at everything now.
WWE Tag Team Championship, 2 Out Of 3 Falls – #DIY def. Motor City Machine Guns: Having said up top that I feel this spot could’ve been substituted for something in the women’s division, I’ll take the match on its own merits here. This was really, really good. Really good but somehow still gestural.
Although Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley have been excellent since their arrival in WWE last October, this felt like the first time they’ve been able to build a bigger story in one of their matches. And likewise, anyone who watched Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa in NXT will know that the main roster interpretations of their characters are greatly tempered both in terms of character and in-ring action. Paired with MCMG and in a marquee match, DIY finally had a chance to showcase how exceptionally inventive they are as storytellers.
That said, with the three falls totalling just 14 minutes, this match felt compressed. The story here was clever and effective with both teams showing out, but for me the main takeaway is just how much more they have to give if only they can get the time and space.
Double shoutout to Chris Sabin for the ridiculous hang time he gets on his aerial moves and for being the kind of tag team wrestler who makes sure he’s holding the tag rope when he tags in. Love to see it.
Undisputed WWE Championship, Ladder Match – Cody Rhodes (c) def. Kevin Owens: Between his brutality here and the top-tier framing work CM Punk did in his promo opposite Rhodes in the build to Royal Rumble, Cody finally has a new story. The idea that the championship gradually forces the holder to become a baser version of themselves is fantastic.
For the match itself, Cody is always excellent in the role of babyface who takes a ton of damage before staging a valiant comeback, but the twist of his vengeance here being excessive and mean-spirited left a tension in the air.
Owens being able to play the fiend for months but then sell in a way that garners our sympathy is testament to his range as a performer. Owens being tended to by the beloved Sami Zayn only furthered the complications at work in this match. The concluding shot of Rhodes standing tall above a mangled Owens and distraught Zayn was the night’s finest moment from a production standpoint.
Minor continuity complaint! Why did we do a “championship handover” segment a week before this show only for both participants to walk to the ring holding their belts???
Men’s Royal Rumble Match – winner, “Main Event” Jey Uso: Unlike the women’s rumble with its sequential stories, the men’s was a more unfocused affair up until the last twenty minutes or so when it morphed into absolute and unspecified carnage. Big names with overlapping storylines and a livewire feeling of chaotic messiness, this last section of the match was electric.
Uso’s win here is more than deserved – he’s been the most over wrestler in the men’s division for at least the last six months, if not longer. And while his WrestleMania match last year was poor, his work in singles matches of late has grown exponentially. I’m confident that he’ll be able to put together something magical with.. the opponent of his choosing(!)
Curtain Call: While long, this year’s Royal Rumble was a thoroughly entertaining show and a very worthy ‘big four’ PLE to start the year. The two rumbles were booked differently enough that the concept didn’t wear out and the two matches that made up the middle of the card gave the show the variety and changes of pace it needed to avoid a wearying second rumble.
I think it’s a positive that this year’s WrestleMania card doesn’t already feel too obviously set. There are a few longer-term stories set to play out, but there’s still plenty of unknown territory to chart between now and April. A returning Flair picking up the win here, but a returning Cena just missing the mark feels like a good indicator that WWE knows the value of both direct and more winding paths to their big April season finale.
