Liv Morgan Wins The 2026 Women's Royal Rumble

On Saturday, January 31st, 2026, WWE’s Royal Rumble took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Royal Rumble is WWE’s most iconic Premium Live Event next to WrestleMania. The way it works is the match starts with two competitors, they wrestle for about a minute & 30 seconds until a new competitor enters the match. Every minute & a half, a new competitor enters the ring, as there are 30 competitors. As a new competitor enters the ring, competitors already in the ring can be eliminated. In order to get eliminated from the Rumble, you must go over the top rope & both feet hit the floor. 

The Royal Rumble first started on January 24th, 1988 & it took place at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, as a Television special on the USA Network. It was created by former wrestler Pat Pattersson. The inaugural 20-man match had Bret “The Hitman” Hart as the first entrant & then was won by “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. A year later it would become a pay-per-view & the entrants would increase to 30. 

It was a different story for the women. The women were granted their first Royal Rumble on January 28th, 2018 where they would be the main event of the pay-per-view. The final four consisted of The Bella Twins, Asuka & Sasha Banks. The Bella Twins eliminated Sasha Banks then Nikki eliminated her own sister Brie. The final two were Nikki Bella and Asuka with Asuka eliminating Nikki to become the first ever woman to win the Royal Rumble.

Over the next eight years, we would see women like Bayley (2024), Bianca Belair (2021), Rhea Ripley (2023) & more notably, Charlotte Flair, who won the Rumble twice (2020 & 2025), win the Royal Rumble, & choose a women’s championship of their choosing to face at WrestleMania. 

Saturday, January 31st, 2026, the odds were heavily in Liv Morgan’s favour. After returning at Survivor Series: WarGames back in November to cost John Cena the Intercontinental Championship & have her partner, Dom Mysterio, win it back, Liv Morgan has been on a tear, or as she would say, a “revenge tour” in the last two years.

Over the last two years, Liv Morgan has proved that a jobber in WWE could potentially one day become a top star & have a major chance at winning the Royal Rumble. Over Morgan’s career, she has been WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion/Women’s World Champion twice & four-time WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion with multiple partners, including Judgement Day member, Raquel Rodriguez. 

Morgan joined the Judgement Day on SummerSlam 2024, where it was revealed that Dom Mysterio was helping Liv the entire time & eventually turned his back on his former partner, Rhea Ripley. Morgan’s tag partner, Raquel, would join Judgement Day later on in the year, & then followed by former two-time NXT Women’s Champion, Roxanne Perez, as she would step in for Liv, who unfortunately suffered an injury. 

This Morgan injury altered WWE's booking big time. WWE had started a feud with Liv Morgan and WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Bella, along with Women’s World Champion IYO SKY. Allegedly, Morgan was supposed to face IYO SKY for the Women’s World Championship at Money in the Bank in June, then she was supposed to face Nikki Bella at Evolution in July. This then would have gone to SummerSlam in August, where Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez would defend their Women’s Tag Team Championships against the Hall of Famers, The Bella Twins. 

But because Morgan got hurt, none of it happened. However, after Morgan returned at Survivor Series, fans have been rooting for her to turn against the Judgement Day & win the Royal Rumble. It does seem like earlier this year, the Judgement Day started to have its issues, starting with Finn Balor, but Liv would eventually make her way onto that list.

Morgan entered the 2026 Royal Rumble at #14 & would make her way through the Rumble, eliminating Nattie (fka Natalya) & then shock came. After Rodriguez would eliminate Rhea Ripley, Liv would quickly move and eliminate Rodriguez, leaving her in shock, with Liv laughing. Every woman for herself? That would then put Liv in the final three with NXT’s Sol Ruca (who had a phenomenal showing) & a returning Tiffany Stratton. The three ladies would go over the top rope & just barely hang on to the top rope before propping themselves on the edge of the apron. 

Sol would use Liv’s back to jump over to Tiffany, hitting her. Sol realized she could pull off her finisher, the Sol Snacher, on Tiffany. But as in motion of it, Tiffany pushed Sol off the ring, eliminating her & then Liv would hit her finisher, obLIVion on Tiffany on the corner post of the ring, eliminating Tiffany. Liv lasted 43:50 with three eliminations. 

Liv was the obvious winner in the Women’s Royal Rumble this year. You cannot deny her star power. She has consistently been in every single Women’s Royal Rumble & would only last either a few seconds or minutes. Now, she is a Royal Rumble winner. It is exciting to see who Liv chooses as her opponent at WrestleMania 42 & how the build-up will be. But then it begs the question to be asked: Will Liv Morgan eventually leave the Judgement Day?