Several more participants of the men's 2025 Royal Rumble match have been declared as of the opening segment of the January 13, 2025 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.
Kicking off the episode was CM Punk, who cut a promo not only thanking those who are helping out with the fires happening right now in California, but also talking about his win over Seth Rollins last week on Raw and his aspirations to win the 2025 Royal Rumble and go on to finally get the main event of WrestleMania that he's been fighting for his entire career and had slipped away from him last year when he got injured.
CM Punk had previously already declared himself as an entrant for this year's match on the post-show following last week's Raw, but as that isn't as widely seen, this was WWE's way of officially letting the audience know. (Note: In the past, Royal Rumble entrants have also been announced in similar fashion, only to be pulled from the match, so unless it is on true television, it is almost considered non-canon.)
Seth Rollins would go on to interrupt Punk, declaring himself for the Royal Rumble as well. Rollins considers his loss last week to Punk to be the worst of his career, and in order to set things right, he's going to win the Royal Rumble so Punk can't and he'll take that WrestleMania dream away from him.
While both were talking trash to each other, Drew McIntyre also came out and declared himself for the Royal Rumble. He claimed that he's always a reluctant hero who is going to be forced to win this match in order to stop people like Roman Reigns from amassing more power and influence, and he's doing it not just for himself, but everyone in WWE, including even Rollins and Punk.
This puts the total at 7 announced names as of this publication, as Punk, Rollins and McIntyre join LA Knight, John Cena, Jey Uso and Roman Reigns, who had previously announced themselves for entry spots on the January 3rd edition of SmackDown, last week's Raw, and last week's SmackDown.
Also what will be lost in the shuffle are spoilers for the next episode of WWE Main Event, airing this Thursday on Hulu. As per usual, WWE recorded this episode in advance, taping two matches prior to Raw's start.
In the first match, Pure Fusion Collective's Zoey Stark and "The Queen of Spades" Shayna Baszler defeated Katana Chance and Kayden Carter by pinfall. The second match featured Pete Dunne defeating Joaquin Wilde of the Latino World Order by pinfall.