Cody Rhodes Was Never Picked to Win the 2026 Royal Rumble

For weeks, fans speculated about whether Cody Rhodes would reclaim momentum with another Royal Rumble victory. Inside WWE, that possibility never made it onto the board.

According to comments shared by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Rhodes was ruled out of the Rumble winner picture early in the planning process. The decision was made once WWE finalized his direction for WrestleMania, following the point where he was no longer champion.

With that shift in place, creative narrowed Rhodes’ road to WrestleMania to two possible routes. One ran through the Royal Rumble. The other went through the Elimination Chamber. From there, the call was settled.

Meltzer explained that a Royal Rumble win conflicted with the story WWE wanted to tell. Rhodes, in this version of the narrative, was not meant to take the most direct path back to the top.

“Cody was no longer champion, had to win either Rumble or Chamber. And Cody was never scheduled to win the Rumble because the nature of the storyline was that he had to overcome the adversity and not win the Rumble and then went into the chamber,” Meltzer said, drawing a parallel to John Cena’s arc the previous year.

The thinking was straightforward. Another Royal Rumble victory would have moved Rhodes quickly into a title match and removed the struggle element that WWE was intentionally building around his character. The creative choice leaned toward setback first, redemption later.

Once Rhodes was locked into the Elimination Chamber route, he was effectively removed from Royal Rumble consideration altogether. With that option closed, WWE looked elsewhere to fill the winner’s slot.

“So that led to Roman being the one who won the Rumble,” Meltzer said, referring to Roman Reigns.

From that perspective, the outcome was not a late pivot or a reaction to crowd sentiment. Rhodes was not passed over or replaced. He simply was never part of the final Rumble equation once his WrestleMania story took shape.

The result leaves Rhodes on a longer, more demanding road, one built around adversity rather than shortcuts. Whether that path resonates most with audiences will play out in real time, but internally, the direction appears to have been set well before the Royal Rumble bell ever rang.