The 2026 Royal Rumble will make history in many ways for the WWE, the most notable being its location.
For the first time since the inaugural Royal Rumble (held in Canada in 1988), the company is taking the event outside the United States. Not only that, the Royal Rumble is going international with the 2026 spectacle being held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
WWE Brings Royal Rumble to Saudi Arabia
Big shows in Saudi Arabia are nothing new for the WWE, as the company is in the midst of a 10-year deal with the Saudis as part of the Vision 2030 project. The 2026 Royal Rumble, however, will be the biggest event the country has hosted since the partnership began, as it’s the first of the WWE’s tentpole premium live events to go down in the kingdom. It’s one of the three events held in Saudi Arabia in 2026.
This also means WWE fans will have to adjust to a new start time. Traditionally, the event has taken place on a Saturday or Sunday night with a 7 or 8 p.m. ET start time, but with the time difference, the Jan. 31 event will begin at 2 p.m. ET. It’s also the first Royal Rumble hosted on the ESPN app, further complicating the viewing situation for fans who are accustomed to the company’s traditional methods for broadcasting these big events.
WWE’s 35-Day Stadium Build for Royal Rumble
The 2026 Royal Rumble will be an outdoor event, too, held at the Riyadh Season Stadium in King Abdullah Financial District.
The temporary stadium was built to host the WWE events, “Smackdown” on Jan. 30 and the Royal Rumble, and was built in just 35 days.
WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque showed off the work in a social media video before the weekend’s events.
Given Saudi Arabia’s past, the swift build was met with some skepticism about methods.
“While framed as an engineering achievement on WWE’s broadcast, the phenomenon also raises questions about how such a project could be delivered so quickly and whether the conditions under which it was built can be independently assessed,” Brandon Thurston wrote for Post Wrestling.
“When we made human rights organizations aware of the stadium project related to the Royal Rumble event, they indicated to POST Wrestling that the rapid timeline alone warrants scrutiny. What we tried to answer and could not was whether the conditions under which it was built can be meaningfully assessed, Thurston added. ” … When we made human rights organizations aware of the stadium project related to the Royal Rumble event, they indicated to POST Wrestling that the rapid timeline alone warrants scrutiny.”
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