Beyond the winners of the titular matches themselves, one of the greatest outgoing stories of WWE Royal Rumble 2025 was that involving Drew McIntyre, who has exploded in the backstage after his elimination of the rumble match masculine did not take place as planned. The culprit of McIntyre’s mind seemed to be the Knight, who “had to (his) move in” and delayed McIntyre being thrown into the hands of Damian Priest, attenuating the impact of elimination – which was to launch a Wrestlemania Feud. Knight had a few words of choice for McIntyre in his promo in “WWE Smackdown” on Friday – including the line “Oh wait, I forgot to put my things” before closing with his slogan – and the two seemed to become A little more physical than strictly necessary in their triple subsequent match with Jimmy Usto, bringing many fans to wonder if Knight and McIntyre still have beef with each other.
According to Fighful Select, however, Professionalism has prevailed during the heat of the moment. While the sources of Fightful admitted that the story fleeing “was not ideal”, they also declared that there was no concern about Knight and McIntyre working together, most considering the leak as an opportunity to play real frustrations, which the wrestlers have accomplished. McIntyre would have had no problem with Knight’s promotion and there was no problem between them after the match. Fightful also noted that the first part of Knight’s promotion – a serious PSA on the fact that it was acceptable to cry – must have been taken seriously while serving as a transition to Knight taking shots at McIntyre.
McIntyre finally pinned Knight to win the “Smackdown” match, winning a place in the male elimination room alongside (so far) his deadly rival CM Punk and the imminent retreat John Cena.
