2024 Royal Rumble: UFC Edition!

It’s time for the next installment of WWE’s Royal Rumble this weekend (Sat., Jan. 27, 2024) in St. Petersburg, Florida (live results here). Even if you aren’t the biggest wrestling fan in the world, it’s always entertaining to see 30 massive professional athletes try to throw each other over the top rope and out of the ring.

Add in expected appearances by CM Punk and Logan Paul at this weekend’s Royal Rumble and it’s almost a must watch. At least with no Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events on the schedule.

While WWE and UFC are now under the same umbrella company, TKO Group Holdings, there isn’t expected to be any Octagon superstars crossing over into the ring this weekend at Royal Rumble. Instead, UFC on TNT Sports has put together a breakdown of fighters who would compete in a hypothetical UFC edition of the popular wrestling event. Check it out below:

As you can see, retired fighters are not off limits. WWE usually has an old-school wrestler like Stone Cold Steve Austin or Sting return for the Royal Rumble, so why not do the same thing for UFC? The biggest retired names on this list include Georges St-Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Daniel Cormier, and Anderson Silva. You also have Michael Bisping, Chael Sonnen, and the Diaz brothers.

Next, the UFC Royal Rumble would include all of the biggest names currently competing in the sport today. This means that Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, Israel Adesanya, Charles Oliveira, Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, Islam Makhachev, Khamzat Chimaev, and more, will all be part of the festivities. You also have some dark horses like Derrick Lewis, Michael Chandler, Paddy Pimblett, and Ian Garry.

There’s a lot to digest here, but who would you pick to win this Royal Rumble: UFC Edition? Would a top superstar like “Notorious” escape with the win or maybe an aging veteran like Kamaru Usman gets it done one more time?

Sound off!

For complete 2024 Royal Rumble results, including play-by-play updates, click here.