With next year’s WWE Royal Rumble premium live event taking place in Saudi Arabia, it won’t start at its typical time.
The 2026 WWE Royal Rumble premium live event will take place at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday, January 31. So you can forget about that typical 7 PM ET start time.
According to WrestleVotes (via Fightful Select), the 2026 Royal Rumble will kick off at 2 PM ET. This will likely mean the event will end around 6 PM ET.
WrestleZone will have live coverage of the WWE Royal Rumble premium live event when it airs later next year.
The current favorite to win the 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble is a troubling one
Earlier this month, WrestleVotes Radio revealed that Bron Breakker was the current favorite to win the Men’s Royal Rumble match next month.
While Breakker is certainly a deserving winner, this would have made a lot more sense months ago, before Seth Rollins’ injury. With Rollins on the shelf and Breakker getting a World Title shot against CM Punk on the first WWE RAW of 2026, his losing that, only to win the Royal Rumble a few weeks later, seems rather counterproductive.
WWE has plenty of options to set up the main event scene for WrestleMania 42 as the company returns to Las Vegas for the second straight year. However, the winner of the Royal Rumble should be a very important part of that equation.
If Breakker is unable to defeat Punk next month, it appears we already know what the direction for the Rumble will be.
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What do you make of this report? Are you excited about an earlier start time for the WWE Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia next year? Let us know your overall thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
