Greatest Royal Rumble live results: Winners and highlights from WWE’s Saudi Arabia event

The WWE Greatest Royal Rumble is the first major WWE show to take place in Saudi Arabia, and it’s a star-studded event with every men’s title on the main roster on the line, plus the first-ever 50-man Royal Rumble match on a history-making night.

The biggest Royal Rumble in history has a huge, sword-embellished trophy and an apparent new championship on the line, and so it was all too appropriate that Daniel Bryan, whose career only just re-started at WrestleMania after injuries had forced him to retire, was the first man out to participate in the historic event. Dolph Ziggler was the second man in, giving us a highly technical start to the Rumble, with both men nearly eliminating the other several times just moments into the match.

Sin Cara threatened to have an impressive showing at number three, but didn’t quite last the whole 90 seconds until Curtis Axel arrived. Then newly minted Hall of Famer Mark Henry arrived to bring some real power to the match, changing the complexion of things so far. Mike Kanellis made his triumphant return to the ring after issues outside the ring and then paternity leave following the birth of his first child, but he lasted all of one second before Henry sent him spinning back over the top rope.

We had our first debut moments later, when sumo wrestler Hiroki Sumi came striding down to the ring, but the World’s Strongest Man proved superior when Mark Henry was able to haul him over the top rope — but his triumph was short-lived when Bryan and Ziggler teamed up to throw the off-balance Hall of Famer out as well.

The arrivals of Kofi Kingston and Tony Neese helped bring a new element of speed and athleticism to the match, and as the ring finally started to fill up the action got all the more frenetic and unpredictable. Unpredictable like Hornswoggle making his return and helping to eliminate Dash Wilder before being summarily eliminated by known Hater Of Fun Things, Tony Neese, with an assist from Dolph Ziggler.

The introduction of Xavier Woods into the match gave Kofi an advantage in the form of one of his New Day partners, working together to survive a near-elimination from Primo Colon, then ruining Neese’s attempt at celebrating with them by picking him up and throwing him out of the ring.

The match changed in a big way when Kurt Angle came in at 16, running down to the ring and giving German Suplexes to everyone who stepped up to him, then quickly eliminating Bo Dallas and Primo. Dolph Ziggler flattened him with a Superkick, but taunted just a little too hard before trying to eliminate Angle, giving the Raw general manager time to set up for a belly to belly suplex that eliminated Ziggler.

Elias Sampson made an explosive entrance to the Rumble when he cut short his entrance promo to jump into the ring and eliminate Viktor, Kingston, and Woods in one fell swoop. That was followed up by an impressive confrontation between Angle and Daniel Bryan, which was in turn cut short by Elias as he threw Angle out, potentially upsetting his boss on Raw.

The next big arrival was that of Rey Mysterio at 28, the winner of the 2006 Royal Rumble and who returned at the Royal Rumble in January as well. He had an impactful return in Jeddah as well, quickly eliminating Luke Gallows, and making his presence felt elsewhere in the ring as well.

There were a couple of representatives from NXT earlier in the match, but the biggest one of the night so far was at 34 with new NXT Tag Team Champion and new member of the Undisputed Era, Roderick Strong, who made his presence felt in impressive fashion by eliminating Rhyno — though his arrival was quickly overshadowed at 35 when Randy Orton walked down to the ring, hitting a huge RKO on Apollo Crews, then quickly eliminating Karl Anderson, Mojo Rawley, and then Crews in rapid fashion.

Baron Corbin came in at 38 and became a one-man wrecking crew, devastating a not-eliminated Elias Sampson by throwing him into the ring steps, then battering Bobby Roode before unceremoniously tossing him from the ring. That was followed by perhaps one of the most hilarious moments in Royal Rumble history, sadly at the expense of Titus O’Neil when he slipped at the bottom of the ramp and went head-first under the ring in a moment that will be remembered by wrestling fans forever.

Braun Strowman showed up at 41 and made EVERYONE catch his hands, eliminating Babatune, Dan Matha, and Heath Slater in a matter of moments. Everyone left in the ring ganged up on him and tried to throw him out, but it just wasn’t enough to put him out. Even a combination of a 619 from Rey Mysterio and an RKO from Randy Orton only left him staggered, though that did kick off a string of eliminations. Mysterio was thrown out by Baron Corbin, who was quickly eliminated by Orton, who was in turn sent over the top rope by Elias, who had finally worked his way back into the ring. His elimination was interrupted by the arrival of Curtis Hawkins, who Strowman decided to chase up the ramp to bring into the match and eliminate quickly, extending his years-long losing streak.

Bobby Lashley was the next man in, eating up and eliminating Elias with Strowman down and staggered after Sampson sent him into the ring post. That set up a huge confrontation between Lashley and Strowman, but it was interrupted by Daniel Bryan, who was still in the match after spending some time recovering outside the ring after being thrown out between the ropes. He actually took the advantage over the two much more powerful men — then the Great Khali showed up.

Khali was eliminated quickly by Strowman and Lashley, but not before he left Bryan staggered, giving the two big men a chance to go at each other at long last, only being interrupted by the arrival of Kevin Owens to the match at 46. He gave cannonballs in the corner to everyone in the match, but Bryan was able to get back up and delivered a running knee to one of the men who made his last days at SmackDown general manager hell — only to eat a pop-up powerbomb from Owens for his trouble.

That cued the introduction of SmackDown’s commissioner Shane McMahon, who may be the one of only two men in WWE who hates Owens more than Bryan has of late. Shane made a beeline for Owens, using his unusual moveset to leave Owens lying on the mat before having an intriguing faceoff with his old partner — only for the two men to combine in unleashing more pain on Owens, beating him down until Bryan had to force him back up into the corner.

The arrival of Shelton Benjamin gave Owens some time to recover, and he tried to lead a united effort to eliminate Braun Strowman, but that effort was unsuccessful, and the arrival of Big Cass at number 49 only brought more chaos as he made a beeline for Daniel Bryan, then tried to make his own effort to eliminate Strowman. Followup efforts from Benjamin and Lashley set up a huge Coast To Coast from McMahon, and by the time Chris Jericho came in as the 50th and final entrant, almost everyone was laid out except for Kevin Owens.

But given the history between Owens and Jericho, that wasn’t a good thing for KO, because Jericho is the other man in WWE who hates Owens more than Daniel Bryan does. They squared up in a big way, trading blows before the flow of the match forced them apart long enough for Jericho to batter Big Cass and eliminate Benjamin. He had Owens in the Walls Of Jericho for a long spell before Cass made his presence felt, who ate a brain buster from Lashley for his trouble.

That set off a wild chain of events, with Braun Strowman throwing Shane McMahon flying through the air from the top rope through the announce table, then Bobby Lashley surprisingly being eliminated.

Daniel Bryan nearly got Strowman out, only to be devastated by a shot from behind from Cass, who quickly eliminated the returning hero to add even more fire to their match at BackLash next week. That left just Cass and Strowman in the ring, and there was little doubt in anyone’s mind what would happen. Strowman managed to get Cass hung up on top of the ropes in painful fashion, and one huge clothesline later, Strowman was the winner of the Greatest Royal Rumble.

As one could expect after their incredibly physical WrestleMania match, the rematch inside a steel cage between Lesnar and Reigns got off to an intense start. Reigns went for a Superman Punch with his first move, but Lesnar caught him out of mid-air and hit him with a German Suplex, then followed it up with three more for good measure before hitting an F5 just two minutes into the match.

But Lesnar doesn’t like to let his opponents off that easy. He didn’t even try to pin Roman, instead deciding to torture him some more. He put Reigns up for another F5, but the Samoan was able to slide off Lesnar’s back and hit him with several Superman Punches before Lesnar countered a try at a spear. Reigns got out of another F5 attempt by starting to climb the cage, but Lesnar grabbed him by his padded vest and threw him to the ring below.

Lesnar decided to take a crack at getting out of the cage himself, but Roman was able to stop him, pounding on Lesnar’s legs before slamming The Beast down with a huge powerbomb that put him in control of the match. Reigns used the cage effectively to wear Lesnar down, then hit him with three successive spears and went for the cover — only for the champion to kick out at two. Reigns decided to try to get out the door on his own, only for Paul Heyman to run by and slam the steel into Roman’s face, stunning him back into the ring and setting him up for yet another thunderous F5 from Lesnar.

That wasn’t enough to keep Reigns down, and Heyman introduced a chair to the ring through the still-open door, prompting Lesnar to take the gloves off and take the chair to reigns — only to eat a fourth spear, turning the weapon that a chair represents over to Reigns, who dealt a measure of punishment on his own on the prone form of Lesnar. Roman then set up for a fifth spear — and sent both men flying through the wall of the cage, with Lesnar landing first to retain his title. It was a controversial decision, with replays showing that Reigns’ feet hit the floor before Lesnar’s, but in the end, Lesnar’s long Universal title reign continues.

The mind games started early, from Undertaker’s intimidating entrance to Rusev rolling in and out of the ring after the bell trying to pick his spot to actually get the match rolling. Undertaker followed the Bulgarian outside the ring to punish his apparent cowardice, and while Rusev was able to put in a flurry of offense once they got back inside the ring — well, it was very short lived.

Undertaker took full control, throwing Rusev around the ring and unleashing a hail of vicious strikes, before going for his Old School rope walk and throwing Rusev on top of the casket. Finding himself in such a precarious position seemed to spook the Bulgarian Brute, and that only further opened the door for Undertaker to punish him, beating him all around the ring before dropping one of his trademark apron-draped leg drops.

He actually rolled Rusev into the casket, but Rusev’s partner-slash-entrance-singer Aiden English distracted Undertaker long enough to let Rusev get out of the casket, unleashing a vicious kick to Undertaker’s head to turn the momentum of the match around. They traded vicious blows, but Rusev was able to get enough of an advantage to lock in the Accolade, putting Undertaker down long enough to call for the casket to open once more — but then Undertaker sat back up and the momentum shifted once more.

Another flurry of blows was followed up by a huge Choke Slam, then when Rusev was rolled into the casket, English again interjected himself into the match, only to eat a Choke Slam of his own and a Tombstone Piledriver for his troubles. The Phenom rolled English into the casket as well for good measure, slamming it shut with authority to put Rusev away and win the match in explosive fashion.

After a dream match turned into a nightmare for AJ Styles, he once more defended his beloved WWE Championship against respected foe turned heated rival Shinsuka Nakamura. Nakamura’s brutal attack on Styles after their match at WrestleMania has signaled a major shift in Nakamura’s approach and mentality, and he’s followed that up by weeks of torturing the champion on SmackDown.

Their match started out every bit as intense as you would imagine under such circumstances, with Nakamura looking to capitalize on the groundwork he’s laid out over the last few weeks, and with Styles coming out flying, looking for revenge against the man who betrayed his trust. Styles got several big moves off in the early stages of the match, but Nakamura’s mind games let him control much of the match and repeatedly punish the champion.

It was an absolutely grueling match, with Styles absorbing tremendous amounts of punishment, but giving back just as good as he got at every opportunity. The two started trading huge moves, with one brutal sequence seeing Nakamura lock in an armbar before Styles countered it into a pinning attempt that he followed up with a Pele Kick. Styles’ attempt at a Styles Clash was dodged by Nakamura, putting the ref in harm’s way, and as Styles made sure he hadn’t hurt the referee, Nakamura connected with yet another low blow.

Styles survived there thanks to getting to the ropes on the ensuing rollup, then managed to counter an attempt at a Kinshasa knee strike before their “festivities” went outside the ring and over the Saudi announce table. Styles was incensed, looking to destroy the man who had tortured him for weeks, beating Nakamura all the way through the referee’s ten count, then ignoring the bell call for a double countout. He took a chair to Nakamura’s back before hitting a Phenomenal Forearm from the top rope all the way down to the floor, leaving Nakamura laid out and Styles standing tall, still the champion even if the match itself wasn’t technically a win for him.

One thing is for sure: these two are far from finished with one another.

The Intercontinental Championship has a brutal recent history with ladder matches, and that history got a bone-crunching new entry on Friday in Saudi Arabia. Seth Rollins defended the title he won at WrestleMania against three top competitors in former champ The Miz, Finn Balor, and Samoa Joe, and they left everything in the ring.

Finn Balor seemed like the man of the hour for much of the match, overcoming brutal assaults from Samoa Joe and the Miz to put both men out of the match. Balor was very much in position to win, and it would have been a fitting cap to an incredible match from the passionate Irishman — but Seth Rollins had other ideas.

Literally flying in from nowhere, Rollins leapt straight onto the ladder, stunning Balor as he was fingertips away from taking the title for himself. Rollins was able to rip down the Intercontinental Championship as he fell off the ladder, leaving Balor bloodied and in complete shock as he stared down from atop the ladder in defeat.

There’s a long history between the Usos and the burly duo of Harper and Rowan that the Usos almost always have been on the winning side of, but that was before the two bearded big men reached in deep and became the Bludgeon Brothers. Ever since then, Harper and Rowan have been carving a brutal path through SmackDown’s tag team division, and they won the SmackDown Tag Team Championships from the Usos at WrestleMania in bone-crunching fashion.

The Usos have outsmarted the Bludgeon Brothers a little bit of late — but that only served to make the champions angry. Very, very angry. And nowadays when Harper and Rowan get angry, they get focused, and other people get hurt. The Usos got absolutely battered, winning one small moment of advantage when they got Harper isolated in the ring, but even a thundering Uso Splash from Jimmy Uso couldn’t keep him down for the three count.

That meant it was time for the Bludgeon Brothers to go back to work, and work they did, much to the Uso twins’ chagrin. Jey got absolutely clobbered by Rowan on the outside, leaving Jimmy hurt and all alone inside the ring. It only took one move to finish Jimmy off, but the Bludgeon Brothers added in a few more bone-crunching maneuvers for good measure before pinning him to the mat to retain their titles and put the Usos out of their misery once more.

Hardy stunned Jinder Mahal the week after WrestleMania when he returned from injury and took his newly-won United States championship away from him on his first night on Raw. Mahal has been plotting his revenge ever since, even sending his henchman Sunil Singh to attack Hardy on SmackDown after Hardy took it back to the blue brand in the Superstar Shakeup.

But Hardy isn’t shaken up that easily. Despite Mahal’s attempts to physically overwhelm Hardy, and Singh’s repeated efforts to interfere, Hardy has just been on too much of a roll to stop. Despite a failed Whisper In The Wind attempt, but he made no mistakes on his Swanton Bomb, and Jinder Mahal was sent packing with relatively straightforward ease.

The story of the Raw Tag Team Championship ever since WrestleMania has been a bizarre one. Won by Braun Strowman and a 10-year-old boy, the titles were vacated the next night because, well, Braun’s partner had to go back to school. That set up an elimination tournament to see who would face the former champions, The Bar, at Jeddah, and the unlikely and bizarre duo of Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt carved their way through to get to this match.

After a strange exchange of chants between Hardy and Cesaro, The Bar took early control of the match, with Sheamus and Cesaro trapping Wyatt in the corner. That didn’t last long however before the unpredictable stylings of their opponents threw The Bar off-kilter, throwing the match wide-open for the first time. But The Bar’s physical dominance took hold once more, keeping Wyatt out of the match and absolutely punishing Matt Hardy inside the ring.

But the “Broken Brilliance” of Hardy and Wyatt is something that’s hard to contain, and once Wyatt got back into the match the complexion of it changed in a hurry. The Bar did fight back against Wyatt for a short time, but all he had to do was hold on long enough for Hardy to recover, and once the two got to combine forces in the ring, it was only a short matter of time before they, ah, “deleted” Sheamus and claimed the Raw Tag Team Championships for themselves.

Cedric Alexander has been a marked man on 205 Live ever since he won the Cruiserweight Championship at WrestleMania, and on Friday that took the form of having to face a former champion in the division and former United States Championship holder in Kalisto. The two opened with a predictably high-paced flurry of action, with Kalisto leaning on his speed and aerial ability, while Alexander showed off his athleticism in an impactful way, including a jaw-dropping — and in Kalisto’s case, jaw-cracking — drop kick as Kalisto came off the ropes.

Alexander looked like he was set to take full control of the match and went up to the top rope to capitalize, but one swift kick to the teeth later and Kalisto had a huge opening. Alexander was able to block an attempt at a Frankensteiner off the top rope, but Kalistoy pulled out what looked like a modified Spanish Fly that saw Kalisto get extra momentum by dropping and bouncing his upper legs off the top rope before whipping Alexander face first onto the mat.

Kalisto tried to follow it up with his Salida del Sol finisher, but Alexander had just enough left in the tank to counter it into his own finisher, the Lumbar Check backbreaker. It was an explosive end to a high-paced match.

The show was started with Cena facing Triple H, a rare meeting in WWE history but one that’s always been impactful and explosive when they’ve been in the ring with each other. Triple H spends most of his time as the COO of WWE these days, but he controlled much of the match, whipping Cena around the ring and even hitting Cena’s trademark Five-Knuckle Shuffle on him, with an added crotch chop for good measure.

But Cena had his moments, including picking Triple H’s leg to lock in his STF submission finisher before countering a Pedigree attempt into a Five-Knuckle Shuffle and an AA. Triple H would kick out as close to the third count as you’ll ever see, then countered a follow-up AA with his Pedigree. Cena would kick out, then put Triple H back into the STF to wear him down some more before an AA-corner slingshot-AA combination kept the COO down for good.

Cena cut a promo after the match about being grateful for Saudi Arabia’s hospitality, but he seemed curiously detached compared to his usual energetic and passionate self. Coming off the heels of his humiliating loss to The Undertaker at WrestleMania, one has to wonder just where Cena’s head is at these days and what’s next for one of the biggest stars in WWE history.