Royal Rumble 2025

The 2025 Royal Rumble, also promoted as Royal Rumble: Indianapolis, was a professional wrestling 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, marking the first Royal Rumble to not take place during the month of January. The event aired via pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming and featured wrestlers from all three of WWE's brand divisions. This was 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, and the first Royal Rumble to be held in a 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 Rumble at 1:07:47 while Nia Jax set the record for most eliminations in a single women's Rumble at nine. The men's Rumble 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 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 due to his retirement from professional wrestling at the end of 2025.

The most exciting night of the WWE calendar unfolded Saturday as the 38th installment of the Royal Rumble took place at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It marked the official kickoff for the Road to WrestleMania 41, which culminates in April at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Saturday's event featured four matches — relatively light out of necessity considering the Men's and Women's Royal Rumble contests took more than an hour each and saw a returning Charlotte Flair and Jey Uso clinch their spots at WrestleMania 41.

Aside from the titular rumbles, the feud between Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens came to a head with "The American Nightmare" retaining in an absolutely brutal ladder match. The other clash was for the WWE Tag Team Championships, as DIY successfully defended (with some help from the Street Profits) against Motor City Machine Guns in a best two-out-of-three falls affair.

Of course, as is tradition for the Royal Rumble, surprises and returns were the name of the game. In the women's Royal Rumble match we saw returns from not only Flair, but also Alexa Bliss, Trish Stratus and Nikki Bella. Longtime TNA powerhouse Jordynne Grace also made her second appearance and the WWE announce team stated she was officially under the brand's umbrella.

On the men’s side, there were fewer entrant-related surprises with just Joe Hendry, IShowSpeed and a returning AJ Styles being the most unexpected participants. That said, Uso winning the Royal Rumble was unequivocally the most surprising winner in recent WWE history, setting him up for a showdown with either Rhodes or World Heavyweight Champion Gunther in April.