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A former Intercontinental Champion was initially considered to win the 2026 men's Royal Rumble match, before the creative team pivoted to Roman Reigns.
Eleven years after winning his first Royal Rumble match, Reigns finally won the crown for a second time after last eliminating Gunther. Leading up to the event, Triple H (Paul Levesque) and WWE creative strongly considered going in a surprise direction.
Netflix released the third season of WWE: Unreal on Tuesday. One of the episodes included an interesting behind-the-scenes discussion of Bron Breakker potentially winning the men's Royal Rumble match.
Triple H, who runs the creative team, worried that a Breakker victory would be a case of "shoving him down" the throats of fans.
"The risk with Bron Breakker is everything from, can he actually do it? Can he mentally handle it? Will fans accept it?" Triple H commented. "You have to really be sure."
Reigns went on to defeat CM Punk to win the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 42.
Bron Breakker Missed WrestleMania 42 With an Injury
Breakker was set to clash with Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 42, but the former unfortunately suffered a hernia injury during the Feb. 2 episode of Raw. Breakker returned at WrestleMania to help Gunther defeat Rollins in their singles bout.
Rollins and Breakker rekindled their feud after WrestleMania, with the former winning the final bout at Night of Champions 2026. Breakker and Austin Theory dethroned the Street Profits to win the World Tag Team Championship belts on the July 6 episode of Raw.
