Royal Rumble 2025 Updatez

The road to WrestleMania 41 is officially underway after the conclusion of last night’s event of monstrous proportions wrapped up, live from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. I won’t go over either of these Rumble matches or really anything from the show beat for beat, because one that’s a lot to type for no reason and two, chances are if you’re reading this you’re already a wrestling fan and pretty much know what happened, so rather I’m just going to share my thoughts, give my opinions, and look to the road ahead in our Mania season. The show started off with a star studded and exciting Women’s Rumble with multiple surprises and returns stuffed into it (honestly both this year’s men’s and women’s Rumbles felt more through and through stacked than a lot of previous years in recent history, maybe ever).

The match started off with Iyo Sky, Liv Morgan, and Roxanne Perez respectively at the 1, 2, and 3 spot and all 3 of those women had a hell of a showing and lasted over an hour, hell Roxanne lasted the longest of any woman in a Royal Rumble match ever in her first ever Rumble! There were multiple NXT entrants along with Perez on the night as well including Lash Legend, Jaida Parker, Stephanie Vaquer, and Guilia, and even an TNA appearance with Jordynn Grace. The biggest pops of the Women’s Rumble for me though personally were the returns! We saw the return of one Alexa Bliss, one Nikki Bella, and the winner and now ONLY 2-time Women’s Rumble winner in history, Charlotte Flair, all in 1 Rumble match! Now here is where I’m certain I disagree with folks because I for one was not only certain, but more than happy to see Charlotte win. To me, Charlotte is one of, if not the best women’s wrestler ever from an in-ring standpoint and I’m almost certain she’ll deliver a strong match at WrestleMania with a well told story leading up to it, whoever she chooses. I get people feeling mad I guess, like she’s stealing spots from other women on the roster who have grinded throughout the year and seemingly deserve the spot more, same complaint people had with John Cena back in the day. But who will build a story and deliver a match at WrestleMania for the Women’s title the caliber that Charlotte can? I think not many, and that’s not me dumping on any of the rest of the women’s roster either because I like and respect a lot of them. Hell, Iyo and Lyra are 2 of my very favorites right now as well, but Charlotte is an absolute legend for women’s wrestling and the face of it in WWE, and we don’t really know how much longer she’ll be going at the rate she’s going currently, especially after this last injury she had (which she busted ass to get back from for over a year). Give her all the accolades while you have the chance to in my mind, and I know I may be in the minority there, but I’ve been a Charlotte fan, and I don’t care who knows it! Nikki Bella too, I’ll just take a moment to stand up for my girl because she’s an OG to the business at this point and I personally am happy to have her back home. It would be cool to have Brie back as well because I think the 2 of them could still offer a lot to the women’s tag division but even without Brie, I’m quite happy to see Nikki back in the WWE and interested to see what she ends up doing moving forward and I once again don’t care who knows it! IWC be damned!

Next up, the Motor City Machine Guns faced the reigning champs, DIY in a 2 out of 3 falls match for the Tag Team Championships. More than anything, I was just happy for all the guys in this match. Seeing Shelley, Saban, Ciampa, and Gargano all in the same match on a WWE PLE is pretty wild in itself, but this is 2025 and this is HHH’s era and as we’re seeing time and time again, anything is possible! From an in-ring standpoint this match was quite well done (I don’t think anyone who’s a wrestling fan had any doubts there though), but it did feel a bit rushed for a 2 out of 3 falls style match. Not real sure why they wanted to go with that to begin with really because a normal tag team match would’ve worked just fine, but nevertheless they did what they could with the time they had. The Street Profits returned (seemingly as heels) and screwed over the MCMG at the end of the match to allow DIY to score the 3rd and final fall and skate away with the Tag titles for now. I like that Smackdown seems to be attempting to actually elevate their tag team division and now with the Street Profits back over there as well things could start to get even more intriguing. Smackdown used to have the cruiserweights back in the day, now they are beginning to feel more and more like the home for tag team wrestling in the WWE.

Then our Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes defended his title against friend turned bitter enemy, Kevin Owens, in a ladder match! This match wasn’t necessarily one of my favorite ladder matches of all time or anything, but sheesh did it ever have some brutal spots, and not brutal in the normal pro wrestling way, but brutal in the “Damn! He just slammed his spine into the corner of that ladder!” kind of way. Okay, so maybe it was in the normal pro wrestling kind of way, but the violence felt unavoidably real and painful and not as just visually appealing. This has been a fantastic rivalry if nothing else though because it has brought out that snarky-heel side of KO that makes him one of the absolute best talkers in the biz and he hasn’t disappointed, hitting bombs week after week throughout this story and in doing so, has allowed Cody to reach a more violent and ill-tempered side of himself that we’ve yet to see since he’s become the clean cut babyface. The match went about the way most fans following the story expected it to go, Cody walked out the victor with the belts after hitting a gnarly looking Alabama Slam to Owens off the announce table and through a ladder he had set up between them and the ring apron. Owens and Rhodes both took a few bumps throughout this match that made me as a viewer wince and I’m sure they have the bruises and welts today to prove it as well. The story I’m curious to see play out now though is the one between Sami and Kevin. Seeing as how KO tried his damndest to convince Sami to help him win the title and Sami even came down to the ringside area and checked on Owens but couldn’t bring himself to intervene in Cody retaining, I have a feeling that isn’t going to sit well with Kevin at all and those 2 may begin butting heads. Sami and Kevin both are 2 of the most talented and still underappreciated wrestlers on the roster today in my mind, I maybe prefer Kevin on the mic and Sami slightly in the ring, but both are fantastic at what they do and absolute veterans to the game so if they got a chance to face off one-on-one at Mania I think not only would that be a dream come true for them as best friends, but they could potentially steal the show from a story and in-ring standpoint if given the time to do so.

But last and certainly not least was the utterly stacked Men’s Royal Rumble match! This was one of the most hyped I’ve been for a Royal Rumble match in a long time just for the utter star power in the match alone. 1 time and 1 time only are you going to see guys like CM Punk, John Cena, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns all competing in the same Royal Rumble match and that’s exactly what we got. This was the match that utterly shocked me the most I will say and will likely be one of the Top 5 jaw dropping moments in WWE this year. The match started with Rey Mysterio at #1 and Penta at #2 so that was a neat little moment for wrestling fans as we got to see the old school and new school of luchador share the ring together for a moment before things got too cluttered and hectic. Bron Breakker and Jacob Fatu were absolute menaces throughout this Rumble, as well as Roman Reigns when he entered. The 3 of them were accountable for at least half or more of the eliminations in the match I think and that’s not an exaggeration. Not to mention Bron leveled internet streamer ‘IShowSpeed’ with one of the meanest looking spears I’ve ever seen, all before Speed was tossed over the announce table by Otis after he was eliminated. My childhood hero John Cena had a pretty good showing on the night as well and came as close as you can get to punching his ticket to Mania, but it was not meant to be as Mr. Main Event himself, Jey Uso walked out the victor and that was the truly shocking part to me. We had John Cena, Logan Paul, CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Jey Uso, and Roman Reigns in the ring as the final 6 participants and in one of the most stacked and star-studded Rumbles of all time, Jey Uso walked out the winner.

That is in no way me hating on Jey either, I think he’s been one of, if not the most over guy in the business for the past year and a half or more and this just shows they have the rocket on his back now and they have the confidence in him to carry the ball moving forward. I also think Gunther is one of the best in the business currently and building a rivalry with him and Jey from now until Mania will be well told and well played out. I feel like these 2 lined up as opposing forces against one another goes together like PB&J. Gunther is the hard hitting, smash mouth style champ who doesn’t care to be an undermining prick and expose his opponents as weaker minded and weaker willed, whereas Jey is the scrappy underdog face who has all the fan support and is used to having to overcome the odds. Similar to the Sami Zayn/Gunther build at last year’s Mania but with a different title and a different opponent attached to it, Gunther is just so damn good in that role and ends up delivering a classic match at the end of it all always as well. I can’t say for sure if I think Jey will be able to carry that ball or not though, I don’t think he’s the strongest in the ring or on the mic no, I’m not going to lie to myself or anyone else there, but he is over like rover and he’s very charismatic. Jey isn’t one of my personal faves currently, I’m honestly much more a Gunther guy, but I think he’s deserving of the spot certainly. He’s worked his tail off in the business for 15 plus years and he’s not getting any younger on us. He’s earned his stripes, kept his nose to the grindstone, and made himself one of the most popular superstars on the roster all on his own from a simple one-word catchphrase and hand gesture, you can’t be mad at him for that. The one I feel the worst for in all of this is Jimmy though man, it has to be so hard to see your twin getting the world set out in front of him while you’re slumming around on the mid card being called “Big Jim”.

This leaves a lot of questions moving forward though and an exciting start to the road to WrestleMania ahead of us. Who does Charlotte choose to face and where does that leave the other Women’s champ for Mania? My guess would be we see a Men’s chamber and a Women’s chamber to decide Cody and Rhea or Tiffany’s opponent next month. Who is involved in the Chamber matches and who seems most likely to win? We already know John Cena has declared himself for the Men’s so it’ll be interesting to see who shakes out around him and what kind of roster will fill up the Women’s as well. I’m not sure who feels most likely to face Cody at this point in time though. We have John Cena, CM Punk, Roman Reigns, Logan Paul, and so many more names we know will have a prominent spot on the card that I just don’t what they will do with all of them at WrestleMania yet. After the chaotic brawl on the outside of the ring between Reigns, Rollins, and Punk at Rumble and Paul Heyman being tied up right in the middle of all that I feel like something may come of that in the coming months and depending how that is built they could tell a really good and show stealing story with those 4 at WrestleMania or whatever they decide to do. Logan Paul hopefully faces like an AJ Styles or something like that at Mania because AJ is known for putting on good singles matches at Mania and Logan Paul is turning into that guy as well, but they haven’t faced each other yet and AJ is not going to be around a whole lot longer most likely so I kind of want to see that happen, but again pure speculation. I’m not sure what you do with John Cena yet, but I really hope they let him win his last WrestleMania match and it’s a good match against a credible opponent, the man deserves that much so please don’t screw him! Overall, I really enjoyed the Rumble event and it got me hyped up for Mania season and wrestling moving forward these next few months. So, until next time I ramble on too long, be good to one another and enjoy wrestling!