WWE Royal Rumble 2025 Notes Part II: WWE Legends Makes Appearances, Jey Uso Wins Men’s Royal Rumble, IShowSpeed & Joe Hendry Makes Rumble Debut Appearances, AJ Styles Makes Surprise Return from Injury

Feb 1, 2025

Multiple WWE Legends Make Appearances

Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble 2025 event at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana featured several WWE Hall of Famers and Legends making surprise appearances throughout the show.

Prior to the start of the WWE Tag Team Championship Best 2-out-of-3 Falls match, WWE Hall of Famers The Godfather and Kurt Angle and former WWE talent Mickie James were shown seated at ringside.

The Godfather, Mickie James, and Kurt Angle are in the crowd. #RoyalRumble pic.twitter.com/S7EUyP8Rp1
— Pro Wrestling & MMA News (@PWMMANews) February 2, 2025

Later in the show, WWE Hall of Famers Ron Simmons, Rick Steiner, and Rob Van Dam were shown in the crowd at ringside prior to the start of the Undisputed WWE Championship Ladder match between Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes.

Ron Simmons, Rick Steiner, Rob Van Dam, Belal Muhammad, and John Mellencamp are in the crowd for #RoyalRumble pic.twitter.com/Fotc1kSUsr
— Pro Wrestling & MMA News (@PWMMANews) February 2, 2025

Jey Uso Wins 2025 Men’s Royal Rumble Match

Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble 2025 event also featured Jey Uso winning the Men’s Royal Rumble match.

The competitors in order were Rey Mysterio, Penta, Chad Gable, Carmelo Hayes, Santos Escobar, Otis, Bron Breakker, IShowSpeed (replacing Akira Tozawa), Sheamus, Jimmy Uso, Andrade, Jacob Fatu, Ludwig Kaiser, The Miz, Joe Hendry, Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre, Finn Balor, Shinsuke Nakamura, Jey Uso, AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, John Cena, CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Dominik Mysterio, Sami Zayn, Damian Priest, LA Knight, and Logan Paul.

The final six were Uso, Paul, Cena, Punk, Rollins, and Reigns. Punk eliminated Rollins and Reigns at the same time leading to Paul eliminating Punk right afterwards. This led to Punk, Rollins, and Reigns brawling on the outside resulting in WWE officials rushing out to stop it and all three being upset over their plans to main event WrestleMania 41 going up in smoke. Back in the ring, Cena eliminated Paul and after a lengthy back-and-forth battle, Uso eliminated Cena to become the winner of this year’s match.

JEY USO just won the 2025 Men's #RoyalRumble Match! pic.twitter.com/xAy0S6ArHn
— WWE (@WWE) February 2, 2025

YEET!!!#RoyalRumble pic.twitter.com/VIU3nG4jcz
— WWE (@WWE) February 2, 2025

This was Uso’s first ever Men’s Royal Rumble victory in his WWE career. As a result of is victory, Uso will officially challenge for the World Championship of his choice at WrestleMania 41.

IShowSpeed Makes Surprise Appearance & Entry in Men’s Royal Rumble Match

Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble event also featured social media personality IShowSpeed making a surprise appearance as a competitor for the Men’s Royal Rumble match.

During the match, Akira Towzawa came out as the #8 entrant only to be paid out by Carmello Hayes after Hayes made his way to the back after being eliminated in the match. This led to RAW GM Adam Pearce and WWE officials rushing out to attend to Tozawa and brought him to the backstage. This led to WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque being confused over what to do for Tozawa’s spot in the match, which led to IShowSpeed showing up and replacing Tozawa for the match.

IShowSpeed ran out to the ring and attempted to eliminate Chad Gable before helping Bron Breakker eliminate Otis. As IShowSpeed celebrated his first ever Rumble elimination, Breakker proceeded to hit a spear laying out IShowSpeed and tossed him out to the ring to Otis, who caught him and tossed him over the announcer’s table to officially eliminate him.

WE NEVER SAW IT COMING! 😲@ishowspeedsui just entered the Men's #RoyalRumble Match and got DESTROYED by @bronbreakkerwwe! pic.twitter.com/ZeHyYegDiH
— WWE (@WWE) February 2, 2025

Joe Hendry Makes Surprise Entry & Rumble Debut in Men’s Royal Rumble Match

Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble 2025 event also featured current TNA World Champion Joe Hendry making a surprise appearance and his Rumble debut appearance in the Men’s Royal Rumble match.

Hendry came out as the #15 entrant in the match.

TNA Champion Joe Hendry is #15!#RoyalRumble pic.twitter.com/ZT2VeN1Drg
— Wrestle Ops (@WrestleOps) February 2, 2025

This was Hendry’s first appearance in WWE since this past December and his first match since this past September’s NXT No Mercy 2024 event.

AJ Styles Makes Surprise Return from Injury at Royal Rumble 2025

Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble 2025 event also featured AJ Styles making his surprise return from injury and as a surprise entrant in the Men’s Royal Rumble match.

Styles came out as the #21 entrant.