Royal Rumble (2025)

The 2025 Royal Rumble, also promoted as Royal Rumble: Indianapolis, was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was the 38th annual Royal Rumble and took place on Saturday, February 1, 2025, at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, held for wrestlers from all three of WWE's brand divisions. This was the first and only Royal Rumble to not take place during the month of January, and also WWE's first PPV and livestreaming event to air on Netflix in most markets outside the United States, following the WWE Network's merger under the service in January 2025. It was also the first Royal Rumble to be held in an active National Football League stadium.

The event is based around the Royal Rumble match, and the winner traditionally receives a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 2025 event, the men's and women's winners received a choice of which championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 41. The men's winner could choose to challenge for either Raw's World Heavyweight Championship or SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Championship, while the women had the choice between Raw's Women's World Championship and SmackDown's WWE Women's Championship. The women's match, which was the opening bout, was won by SmackDown's Charlotte Flair, becoming the first woman to win two Royal Rumble matches, first winning it in 2020, while the men's match, which was the main event of the card, was won by Raw's Jey Uso. In the women's match, NXT's Roxanne Perez set the record for the longest time spent in a single women's Royal Rumble at 1:07:47 while Nia Jax set the record for most eliminations in a single women's Royal Rumble at nine. The men's match also set the record for the longest Royal Rumble match ever held at 1:20:15.

In addition to the two Royal Rumble matches, two other matches were contested on the card, which were for SmackDown championships. In the first, #DIY (Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa) defeated The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) by 2–1 in a two out of three falls match to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship, while Cody Rhodes defeated Kevin Owens in a Ladder match to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship. The event also saw the returns of Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Nikki Bella, AJ Styles, and Trish Stratus, the first match of former Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) wrestler Jordynne Grace under a WWE contract, and an appearance by TNA World Champion Joe Hendry. This was also the final Royal Rumble appearance of John Cena as an in-ring performer due to his retirement from professional wrestling at the end of 2025.

Production

Background

The Royal Rumble is an annual professional wrestling event traditionally held in January by WWE since 1988. It is one of the promotion's five biggest events of the year, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Money in the Bank, referred to as the "Big Five". The concept of the event is based around the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time.

From the event's inception in 1988 up through the 2024 event, the Royal Rumble was held annually in late January. On June 24, 2024, WWE announced a partnership with the Indiana Sports Corp. which would see the 2025 Royal Rumble, as well as a future WrestleMania and a future SummerSlam, held at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, subsequently marking the first Royal Rumble to be held in an active National Football League (NFL) stadium. The date for the 38th annual Royal Rumble was announced for Saturday, February 1, thus marking the first Royal Rumble held outside of January. The event primarily featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions, but with a select few NXT wrestlers, veterans, and other surprise entrants also participating in the Rumble matches. Tickets went on sale on November 15, 2024. The official theme songs of the event were "Von Dutch" by Charli XCX. and "Even If It Kills Me" by Papa Roach.

The Royal Rumble match generally features 30 wrestlers and the winner traditionally earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For 2025, the men and women could choose which world championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 41; the men could choose Raw's World Heavyweight Championship or SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Championship, while the women had the choice between Raw's Women's World Championship and SmackDown's WWE Women's Championship.

Broadcast outlets

In addition to airing on traditional pay-per-view (PPV) worldwide, the event was available to livestream on Peacock in the United States, Netflix in most international markets, and the WWE Network in any remaining countries that had not yet transferred to Netflix due to pre-existing contracts. This marked the first Royal Rumble, and the first WWE PPV and livestreaming event, to livestream on Netflix following the WWE Network's merger under the service in January 2025 in those areas.

On January 9, 2025, WWE announced a multi-year deal with Cosm in which select WWE PPV and livestreaming events would be broadcast from Cosm's "shared reality" immersive 87-foot-diameter LED domes, with locations in Los Angeles, California and Dallas, Texas (similar to Las Vegas's Sphere). WWE's first event to be broadcast from Cosm's domes was the 2025 Royal Rumble.

Storylines

The event included matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

On November 13, 2024, it was announced that John Cena would be competing at the Royal Rumble, which would in turn be his last Royal Rumble appearance as Cena announced at the 2024 Money in the Bank that he would be retiring at the end of 2025. During the Raw premiere on Netflix on January 6, 2025, Cena announced he would compete in the Royal Rumble match to try and earn an opportunity to win his 17th world championship at WrestleMania 41.

At Bad Blood in October 2024, Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes set aside his differences with longtime rival Roman Reigns to face The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu), which was won by Rhodes and Reigns. Following the event, fans captured footage of Kevin Owens having an altercation with Rhodes in the parking lot as he was entering his bus, which culminated with Owens attacking Rhodes, thus turning heel. Owens considered Rhodes teaming with Reigns as a betrayal due to Owens's past issues with Reigns and the original Bloodline. Rhodes and Owens eventually faced each other at Saturday Night's Main Event XXXVII on December 14 for the title and due to the 1980s retro theme of the event, Rhodes wore the "Winged Eagle" version of the WWE Championship belt. During the match, Owens performed a Stunner on Rhodes and pinned him, which lasted more than 3 seconds, but the referee had inadvertently been knocked out of the ring when Owens had hit the Stunner. While the referee was still incapacitated, Owens grabbed a chair and attempted to attack Rhodes only for Rhodes to seize it and perform a Cross Rhodes on Owens onto the chair. The referee subsequently recovered and counted the pin, thus Rhodes retained the title. After the event went off the air, Owens attacked Rhodes with a package piledriver and stole the Winged Eagle belt, subsequently claiming to be the "true champion". On the December 27 episode of SmackDown, the brand's general manager Nick Aldis demanded that Owens return the Winged Eagle belt or be fired. Owens stated that he would only give it back if he received a rematch against Rhodes. Aldis declined and said that the demand was non-negotiable. Rhodes interrupted and stated that he did not want Owens to return it as he wanted a chance at revenge on Owens and take it back himself, thus challenging Owens to a rematch as a ladder match at the Royal Rumble with both the Undisputed and Winged Eagle belts suspended above the ring, which Aldis reluctantly made official.

After losing the WWE Tag Team Championship in August 2024, #DIY (Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano) vowed to do whatever it took to regain the title. However, during this time, there were signs of dissension between Ciampa and Gargano as the former took on a more aggressive character. On the November 15 episode of SmackDown, Ciampa interrupted a title match between The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) and defending champions The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin), attacking both teams as Gargano tried to calm him down, further teasing the team's dissension. On the December 6 episode, #DIY defeated Motor City Machine Guns to regain the title after Gargano hit Sabin with a low blow, revealing that the dissension was a ruse, turning both men heel in the process. A rematch between the two teams took place on the January 3, 2025, episode, but the match ended in a no contest after a brawl between Los Garza (Angel and Berto) and Pretty Deadly (Elton Prince and Kit Wilson) spilled into the ring. On the January 17 episode, Motor City Machine Guns defeated Los Garza, and then Pretty Deadly the following week. Later that night, Motor City Machine Guns announced that #DIY would defend the title against them at the Royal Rumble in a two out of three falls match, which was made official.