Will we get a rapturous Becky Lynch or Alexa Bliss return in Indianapolis?
It took three decades for the WWE to create a women’s Royal Rumble. Since 2018, the event has proven the company foolish for waiting.
The 30-woman match emerged as one of the most exciting showcases in sports entertainment after Asuka first secured her Wrestlemania moment seven years ago. The rules for the eighth women’s Royal Rumble are simple.
30 combatants enter the squared circle in staggered phases, all determined by a pre-match lottery (allegedly). Competitors are eliminated by being tossed over the top rope. If both their feet hit the ground, they’re out.
The last woman standing wins the prize — a chance to compete in a world championship match at Wrestlemania 41. While we don’t know who’ll be holding the title, we do know who’ll earn a featured spot on the card in the biggest event of the year.
Here are the women who’ve officially declared for the 2025 WWE Royal Rumble match:
Nia Jax
Bayley
Charlotte Flair
Naomi
Bianca Belair
Liv Morgan
Raquel Rodriguez
Lyra Valkyria
Ivy Nile
Iyo Sky
That’s a solid lineup of current stars, but it’s far from the full 30-woman field.
Who else could show up? The Rumble is a bright stage for surprise entrants and shocking returns. Both Alexa Bliss and Becky Lynch have been off the air for extended periods. Assuming they’ve got their contract status sorted with WWE, they could return to massive crowd reaction Saturday night.
Jordynne Grace was a part of last year’s Rumble. After leaving TNA and reportedly signing with the company she seems like a safe bet to clock in. International signees Giulia and Steph Vaquer could both make the jump up from NXT.
Legends have long been a piece of the women’s Royal Rumble, 2025 could see the returns of Trish Stratus, Mickie James, Nikki Bella or Gail Kim. No matter what, fans at Lucas Oil Stadium will rise to their feet each time the countdown clock begins, waiting to see who’ll be next to throw down in search of a Wrestlemania title shot.
John Cena AND CM Punk in the same ring in 2025. What a time to be alive.
Wrestlemania gets the lion’s share of the attention when it comes to major pro wrestling events. But the Royal Rumble may be the most fun and exciting showcase on the WWE calendar.
This year marks the 38th time the annual battle royale will take place. Thirty men will enter the squared circle in staggered phases, all determined by a pre-match lottery (allegedly). Competitors are eliminated by being tossed over the top rope. If both their feet hit the ground, they’re out.
The last man standing wins the prize — a chance to compete in a world championship match at Wrestlemania 41. While we don’t know who’ll be holding the title — Saturday’s ladder match main event between current champion Cody Rhodes and the man who, in our hearts, we all know is the real champ (Kevin Owens) will guide the way to the “showcase of the immortals” — we do know Saturday’s winner will likely see them in the main event of the biggest wrestling show of the year.
Here are the men who’ve officially declared for the 2025 WWE Royal Rumble match:
John Cena
Roman Reigns
CM Punk
Seth Rollins
Drew McIntyre
Sami Zayn
Shinsuke Nakamura
Logan Paul
LA Knight
Jey Uso
Penta
Carmelo Hayes
Bron Breakker
Chad Gable
Rey Mysterio
That’s a heady list of legends, current stars and up-and-coming studs. But it’s far from the full 30-man field.
Who else could show up? The Rumble is a bright stage for surprise entrants and shocking returns. Joe Hendry, local hero (shoutout ICW) seems like a safe bet given his rising popularity and his place atop TNA Wrestling, who just entered into a promotional agreement with WWE.
There are also some former stars who could return, shucking off old gimmicks for the big event. Matt Cardona and Nic Nemeth, formerly known as Zach Ryder and Dolph Ziggler, respectively, are high on that list. Pat McAfee, broadcasting in the same stadium where he was once an All-Pro NFL punter, feels like a near certainty.
There’s room for return from injury as well. Big E may not be cleared to wrestle after a broken neck threatened his career in 2022, but he’s played a major role in The New Day’s dissolution and could arrive to make things uncomfortable for Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods. Randy Orton has been out for a while and is running out of chances to square off with Cena.
We won’t know until the countdown ends and their entrance music hits. All we know for certain is someone unexpected is gonna show up and the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis is gonna go wild.
The rapper/streamer will be at the Royal Rumble. Will he step in the ring against IShowSpeed?
The leap from streamer and influencer to WWE superstar isn’t necessarily a long one. Logan Paul took to the industry like a prodigy thanks to his combination of athleticism and natural gift of being one of America’s worst people. With him came premium live event appearances from similar online talents like KSI and IShowSpeed.
Will Kai Cenat be the next link in this inscrutable chain? The 23-year-old Twitch and YouTube staple has been slowly weaved into the fabric of the WWE universe and will be in attendance for the 2025 Royal Rumble. Could a squared circle showdown with IShowSpeed be next?
Getting in the ring would be one thing, but it seems clear from the lead-up that WWE plans to use him in some regard after making a display of Pat McAfee inviting Cenat to Indianapolis. If he’s not one of the 30 contestants in the men’s battle royale, expect him and IShowSpeed to have some kind of faceoff that pushes their storyline into later episodes of Monday Night Raw or beyond.
Cena’s retirement tour begins in Indianapolis. Is the next stop Wrestlemania 41?
John Cena followed a familiar blueprint. Like The Rock and Batista before him (but not Triple H, Big Show or Hulk Hogan), he parlayed his wrestling stardom into a respected acting career.
Now he’s the guy from Peacemaker and a few Fast and Furious movies and also Barbie. While this is a waste of his PhD in Thuganomics, it is undoubtedly good paying work that does not require him to be slammed on his back on a weekly basis.
But Cena hasn’t forgotten his roots. Like The Rock and Batista, he’s returning to the WWE for one more main card run. And if he wins the 2025 Royal Rumble, he’ll cement his place at the top of the card at Wrestlemania 41.
That’s right; John Cena will be one of 29 competitors in the men’s 2025 Royal Rumble. If he wins, he’ll earn a world championship match at Wrestlemania in April — giving him the chance to add a 14th title belt to his cabinet before heading back to Hollywood.
John Cena returns in hopes of cementing his place at Wrestlemania 41. If he can get past CM Punk, Roman Reigns and more.
The Royal Rumble has fewer matches than most WWE event. That’s the downside of two showcase battles royale that can last more than an hour each.
Despite this, the Rumble remains arguably the most fun of all the company’s live events. WWE’s first big showcase since Raw debuted on Netflix should be a spectacle in all the best ways, ranging from the 30-person dueling rumbles to the world championship ladder match between actual champion Cody Rhodes and people’s champ Kevin Owens.
The premium live event preshow starts at 6 p.m. ET. The 2025 Royal Rumble begins at 7 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on Peacock from Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Stadium. Here’s the match card so far, in no particular order.
#DIY (c) vs. Motor City Machine Guns in a two-out-of-three falls match for the WWE tag team titles
Men’s Royal Rumble Match
Women’s Royal Rumble Match
Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Kevin Owens in a ladder match for the Undisputed WWE Championship
Will 29 other competitors smell what Dwayne Johnson is cooking at the Royal Rumble?
The Rock is a busy man.
When he’s not busy illustrating superhero fatigue or explicitly not getting beat up in Fast and Furious movies or fighting a skyscraper (in the hit movie Skyscraper. I assume), he’s making occasional returns to punctuate big moments for the company that birthed his entertainment career; the WWE.
The Rock was Wrestlemania 40’s final boss and retconned a year’s worth of storylines when Monday Night Raw made its Netflix debut. While there’s no doubt he’ll be around whenever the company needs a boost, it’s reasonable to ask: will The Rock be at the 2025 Royal Rumble?
It doesn’t seem that way. Unlike John Cena, he hasn’t declared for the battle royal. If he does show up, it appears it will be in a non-wrestling capacity — maybe even running interference for family members Roman Reigns or Jey Uso.
Has it gone perfectly? No, not at all. The Tyson-Paul fight, in particular, was a fiasco. There was constant buffering. You basically had to watch the fight in 480p. It was a disaster. And, yet, 60 million households tuned in, according to Netflix.
Are those numbers real? Probably not completely. Netflix has a history of fudging numbers to make itself look good. But the numbers were huge. That fight was a Super Bowl-level event for us here at For The Win. So, even if the numbers weren’t exactly what Netflix says they were, the event was still a massive undertaking.
Since then, things have only gotten better. The Beyoncé Christmas Day games were broadcast with no problem. And, obviously, Monday Night Raw went smoothly. We’ll have see if things go well again next week, but regardless of what buffering problems the future may hold, one major thing has become increasingly clear.
Netflix can do this.
The one thing missing from the company’s massive IP portfolio through the years was live sports. It’s the thing its competitors held over its head. Amazon Prime had the NFL. TNT and Max broadcast live NBA games. Hulu had every sport that Disney and ESPN had available.
Live wasn’t Netflix’s thing. Not until now. And, now that it’s doing it, it’s doing it big.
That’s great news for sports leagues and entertainment properties as they venture into the next frontier of broadcast television where streamers are the worldwide leaders. That’s terrible news for cable network providers, who are slowly, but surely, losing every property that means anything to the viewers they covet.
Tweakin’ on Tweaker
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
LiAngelo Ball’s new song “Tweaker” is stuck in my head. My wife is going to kick me out of the house if I enter another room screaming “MIGHT SWERVE AND BEND THAT CORNER, WOAAAAHOOH.”
The funny thing about it is that I don’t even like the song. It’s just a catchy tune. Hit play at your own risk.
WARNING: There’s a whole lot of NSFW language in this video
“Already played in NBA locker rooms (including the Bulls and Cavs) as well as NFL locker rooms (including the Lions), this song has garnered more than 2.7 million listens on YouTube since it debuted on WorldStarHipHop.
It is the number one trending song on YouTube music (ahead of artists such as Tyler, The Creator as well as Lil Baby, Bad Bunny, and Drake).”
There’s a late-90’s early 2000’s No Limit Records vibe to this thing. It’s not exactly it. It’s definitely not as good as some of that stuff used to be. But the vibe is there. And I guess that’s kind of fun.
But, please, y’all. Play something else for a sec so I can get this earworm out.
Drama on the Banks
Mandatory Credit: Melissa Tamez-Imagn Images
There’s a lot of drama swirling around Rutgers star freshman Kiyomi McMiller these days.
She was mysteriously benched by head coach Coquese Washington ahead of a marquee matchup against USC and Juju Watkins on Sunday, which prompted her to actually call her coach out on Instagram.
“The DMV native has quickly made a name for herself, and as her stardom has ascended, so have the number of eyes on her game. More people want in on the McMiller experience, including when the Scarlet Knights play ranked matchups. As expected, fans were excited to see the young guard in action when Rutgers played USC on January 5. But hours before tipoff, McMiller revealed she wouldn’t be suiting up, creating so many questions.”
We don’t know what’s going on here. Washington, herself, has been mum on things.
But, regardless of the details, what a great shame this is. McMiller is a huge talent. Her being benched is a bummer.
Hopefully cooler heads can prevail between McMiller and Washington and we can see her back on the court soon.
Quick hits: Fox Sports drama … Tyreek Hill is out … and more
Another Minnesota athlete joined the ranks of champion when she won a WWE title, and the Vikings made sure everyone knew it.
The state of Minnesota has a long, proud history of successful athletes. Whether in hockey, football, or wrestling, the land of 10,000 lakes has produced some of the best the sports world has ever seen.
On Friday night, another Minnesota athlete joined the ranks of champion when she won a WWE title, and the Vikings made sure everyone knew it.
Tiffany Stratton, who was born and raised in Prior Lake, Minnesota, won her first WWE Women’s Championship on Friday Night Smackdown. She was trained by another Minnesota sports legend, Greg Gagne, and has become a staple at Vikings games over the course of her career.
As a result, the team made sure to let everyone know how proud they were of their superfan, who had earned this major career milestone. The team posted a picture of Stratton on the sidelines from a game earlier this year, wearing a custom Vikings championship belt.
Now, Stratton has a belt of her own that she has earned. Is it the Vikings turn to earn a title of their own on Sunday Night Football, where they can win the NFC North?
Former Panthers RB Elijah Holyfield made his in-ring debut during Tuesday’s taping of WWE LFG.
A former Carolina Panthers running back is trying to make a splash in a different arena.
Elijah Holyfield, who spent most of his first NFL season with the Panthers, made his pro wrestling debut during Tuesday night’s taping of WWE LFG (Legends & Future Greats). The 27-year-old officially signed with WWE less than a month ago, on Nov. 15.
Here are a few shots of Holyfield taking to the ring:
Holyfield cracked into the NFL as an undrafted free agent with Carolina in the spring of 2019. He’d go on to spend much of that season as a member of the team’s practice squad and would later pick up stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and Cincinnati Bengals.
Oh, and if the surname sounds familiar—yes, Elijah is the son of boxing legend Evander Holyfield. So albeit a different kind, this squared circle may end up being a comfort zone for this Holyfield.
WWE LFG, which will be carried by A&E Network, is set to debut in early 2025.
