How I Would Book: The 2026 Men's and Women's Royal Rumble Matches

Credit: WWE

Women’s Royal Rumble

The 2026 Women’s Royal Rumble match, live from Saudi Arabia, kicks off with 1/2 of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, Rhea Ripley, and “The Role Model”, Bayley! Both of these women have won this match in the past, and their interaction was quickly interrupted by Maxxine Dupri and Kairi Sane! Bayley’s “Tag Team partner” Lyra Valkyria enters at Number 5, with NXT’s Kelani Jordan out next, whilst Natalya made her arrival at the Number 7 spot! This leads to the first elimination as Nattie is able to dump out Maxxine, before the Women’s United States Champion Giulia enters the fray! Entrant 9 sees the arrival of last year’s record-breaker, Roxanne Perez, whilst The Green Regime come in full force next with the respective arrivals of both Chelsea Green and Alba Fyre! This actually leads to a couple of eliminations, with Alba’s distraction of Natalya allowing Chelsea to dump Nattie to the outside, whilst Roxanne was able to pull off a pretty big elimination in the form of Bayley! This definitely angered Lyra Valkyria, but she was unable to get revenge on The Prodigy! Kiana James was then out next to give some backup to her client, Giulia, before Iyo Sky entered at Number 13 to align herself with her Tag Team partner! Candice LeRae was then entrant Number 14, whilst Iyo Sky was able to eliminate her former/fellow “Sky Pirate” Kairi Sane! Kairi is then walking down the ramp as Asuka’s music hits, with The Empress of Tomorrow clearly livid over the fact that Sane was supposed to help her win, and instead she’s already eliminated!

After Asuka successfully takes her anger out by eliminating Kelani Jordan, the NXT Women’s Champion is out next as Jacy Jayne enters her first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble! The game then changes with the arrivals of Nia Jax and Lash Legend, with Nia and Lash working together to eliminate 4 women: Alba Fyre, Candice LeRae, Kiana James, and Chelsea Green! The crowd then erupts with the arrival of Liv Morgan, whilst NXT standout Sol Ruca gets the Number 20 spot! Zelina and Becky Lynch are the next two women to enter the fray, with the Women’s Intercontinental Champion laughing at Jacy Jayne as The Rockstar gets eliminated by Sol Ruca (building to their eventual showdown for the NXT Women’s Title)! Alexa Bliss then enters next, with Jordynne Grace out at 24 as The Juggernaut takes no time in dumping Zelina out of the ring! However, Jordynne is quickly faced with a much tougher test as at Number 25, Bianca Belair finally makes her return to a WWE ring! Bianca and Jordynne are pretty evenly matched, but Belair is able to get an elimination in the form of Giulia, before Raquel Rodriguez arrives, meaning all three female members of The Judgment Day are in the ring at the same time!

The arrival of Raquel opens the door for Liv Morgan to eliminate Lyra Valkyria, whilst the next two entrants are reserved for megastars; Charlotte Flair and AJ Lee! Alexa Bliss and Bianca Belair then start to work together to try and eliminate Nia Jax, and whilst Nia does go over the top rope, so does Bliss as Charlotte “accidentally” tips them both (Jax and Bliss) over! Nikki Bella is then out next, with eliminations starting to occur more frequently as Bianca Belair dumps out Asuka, whilst Morgan is able to eliminate Jordynne Grace! However, things then start to backfire for The Judgment Day, with RHIYO eliminating both Roxanne and Raquel, leaving Liv all alone! The final entrant of the 2026 Women’s Royal Rumble then proves to be none other than Tiffany Stratton, with Tiffany making an immediate impact by eliminating Sol Ruca! Stratton is then able to pull off another big elimination, this time dumping Flair to the outside, before AJ Lee eliminated Becky Lynch to the embarrassment of the Women’s Intercontinental Champion! Nikki Bella is then able to pull off a bit of an upset by eliminating Iyo Sky, whilst Lash Legend’s elimination count ends at 3 as The Boujee Bully gets overpowered by Bianca Belair!

The final 6 of the 2026 Women’s Royal Rumble comes down to AJ Lee, Bianca Belair, Liv Morgan, Nikki Bella, Rhea Ripley, and Tiffany Stratton! This is one of those Royal Rumbles that could go either way, but it wasn’t meant to be for AJ Lee as her dream was ended by Liv Morgan! Nikki Bella then paid the price for eliminating Iyo Sky as Rhea Ripley got her revenge, before Rhea, Tiffany, and Bianca all set their sights firmly on Morgan! Thankfully for Liv, she was able to escape as Stratton tried to dump out Belair, with Ripley then going after Tiffy, allowing Morgan to dump out The Eradicator (after Ripley had lasted over an hour in the Rumble)! Tiffany Stratton was then able to complete her mission of eliminating Bianca successfully, but in the end, it wasn’t enough for The Center of the Universe as Liv Morgan scored her 5th elimination of the night to become the 2026 Women’s Royal Rumble Winner! With Roxanne Perez’s eyes on Tag Team Gold, and Raquel Rodriguez set to face Stephanie Vaquer for the Women’s World Championship on the upcoming Monday Night Raw, what could all of this mean for The Judgment Day moving forward?!

Credit: WWE

Men’s Royal Rumble

The 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble kicked off with all-star entrances as Jey Uso and Trick Williams stared this matchup off! Carmelo Hayes entered at Number 3, leading to an interesting interaction between Melo and Trick, before the TNA X-Division Champion Leon Slater arrived at Number 4! The young theme of this Rumble then continued with the entrances of Ilja Dragunov, Austin Theory, and Je’Von Evans, before The New Day duo of Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods arrived at Numbers 8 and 9, respectively! This is when we finally got our first elimination of the match, with Trick Williams getting rid of Leon Slater, before the crowd booed as Logan Paul entered at Number 10! Penta arrived at Number 11 to cause more trauma for Xavier Woods, eliminating Woods following a nasty Mexican Destroyer, before The Miz’s entrance was quickly forgotten about as Cody Rhodes entered the fray, aiming to win his record-equalling 3rd Royal Rumble!

Solo Sikoa and Dragon Lee were the next two wrestlers to arrive in Saudi Arabia, with Cody Rhodes eliminating The Miz throughout all of this, before the crowd erupted with the arrival of none other than Kit Wilson! Now, Kit had no interest in getting into the ring as he much preferred standing on the outside singing his song, but his excitement quickly dwindled when the Number 17 entrant saw the arrival of the former 2-time NXT Champion, Oba Femi! Wilson was able to survive a little bit, with Oba eliminating both Kofi Kingston and Dragon Lee first, before Femi harpooned Kit over the top rope and onto both of them! Then, after destroying the competition, Oba Femi was met with a far harder test in the form of Randy Orton, a moment that stupidly got interrupted by Austin Theory (quickly leading to Theory’s demise)! Number 19 saw the arrival of “The Complete” Matt Cardona, Number 20 was reserved for El Grande Americano, whilst Bronson Reed entered the fray at Number 21! This was the stage of the match that finally saw Trick Williams’ run ended, with Trick being tossed out of the ring by Randy Orton (following an RKO), before Rey Mysterio got attacked during his entrance by Trick! This led to Finn Balor taking Mysterio’s spot, before Rusev was the next official entrant!

A strong night for Carmelo Hayes came to an end as the reigning United States Champion was eliminated by Bronson Reed, whilst another member of The Vision, Logan Paul, was able to dump out Matt Cardona! Jacob Fatu was entrant 24, with Fatu proving his place in the family with the elimination of Solo Sikoa, whilst the dynamic of the contest changed once again with the arrival of the “Career Killer”, Gunther! Gunther quickly laid waste to both Je’Von Evans and El Grande Americano, with The Ring General then coming face-to-face with perhaps his greatest rival, Ilja Dragunov! After a hard tussle, Gunther was able to dispose of The Czar, and this wasn’t good timing for Dragunov as he then got wrecked by a Spear from the Number 26 entrant, Bron Breakker! After Breakker was able to eliminate Rusev, big names kept coming, with Roman Reigns arriving to eliminate Logan Paul, whilst Brock Lesnar’s entrance at Number 28 gives Paul Heyman an awful lot to think about! Brock isn’t messing around, quickly eliminating both Penta and Jey Uso, before Brock and Bron come face-to-face with Roman! Entrant 29 sees LA Knight enter the fray, with The Megastar going after The Vision (the group that took him out of action months ago), as Roman Reigns is able to get the best of Bronson Reed!

We then find out the final entrant of this year’s Men’s Royal Rumble is none other than the returning Dominik Mysterio, a moment that catches Finn Balor completely off guard! Eliminations then start to occur when Oba Femi is able stun Randy Orton, whilst Bron Breakker’s night was ended by LA Knight! This clearly bothered Paul Heyman, something Brock Lesnar took personally with a full-on beatdown of The Megastar, whilst an “accidental” elimination occurred when Dom Mysterio knocked Balor off the top rope and onto the floor! Reigns was then able to eliminate Dom to the annoyance of the reigning Double Champion, whilst an angry Jacob Fatu interrupted a tense stare down between Roman and Cody Rhodes! Unfortunately for Fatu, this backfired on him big time, with The American Nightmare able to dump his rival out onto the floor!

The final 6 of the 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble comes down to Brock Lesnar, Cody Rhodes, Gunther, LA Knight, Oba Femi, and Roman Reigns! LA Knight is clearly bloodied and beaten up at this point, and despite a brave effort, Knight is eventually eliminated by Brock, before Cody Rhodes comes close to eliminating The Beast, only for Drew McIntyre to arrive and smash Cody with a Claymore! This leads to Gunther chucking Rhodes out of the match, before Lesnar’s night came to an end at the hands of both Reigns and Femi! Gunther, Roman, and Oba then battled as the final three, with all three men barely surviving, before the field was able to come down to 2 as Gunther eliminated Reigns! However, despite the brilliant run that The Ring General has been on, his wait to win back the World Heavyweight Championship will have to wait a little bit longer as Oba Femi was able to eliminate Gunther, meaning The Ruler debuts as the 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble Winner!

Credit: WWE