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 in Paradise, Nevada. 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.