8 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2025

The 2025 edition of the Royal Rumble is in the books, and it undoubtedly will be the topic of conversation for the next several days after two very different winners in the men’s and women’s Rumbles.

On the women’s side, you have a 14-time world champion and perennial favorite, a person who no one in their right mind would have bet against, simply because she always finds a way to be in the championship mix. For the men, there was a multitude of serious contenders with detailed storylines that would be fulfilled if they won, setting off an entertaining path to WrestleMania. Instead, WWE took a left turn with the winner, a fan favorite who will be a significant underdog no matter whom he challenges. The decision raises questions of whether the company made a flash change in plans given recent booking, and it could complicate the path to WrestleMania.

The women’s Rumble dragged for large parts until the waning moments, whereas the men’s Rumble flowed well early and slowed down significantly as the bigger names came out in the latter half. One major problem that is difficult to counter, is the long walkway means that most of the intervals between wrestlers are eaten up during entrances, leaving fans to watch an entrance, see 30-45 seconds of action, and then count down for the next superstar.

Huge kudos are due to Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens, who delivered a ladder match that didn’t rely on an overdone, constantly escalating amount of prop-based violence. They amped up the physicality and used ladders to punctuate the fight, but it ramped up steadily rather than throwing someone off a 20-foot ladder through a table stack as a transition spot.

Overall, the kickoff to the Road to WrestleMania did its job setting the table for several matches that will advance during the next couple of months, and even the question marks could be turned into exclamation points by the time April rolls around.

Let’s get to it…