Royce Keys says he spent months working WWE dark matches after his surprise debut in the 2026 men's Royal Rumble, a stretch he says began in February and ran until his SmackDown television debut on April 10.
Keys said he asked Triple H to let him work those shows and then went out every week on Raw and SmackDown dark matches, often in two different cities, while waiting for his first televised appearance. He said the grind was exactly what he wanted. “Who wouldn’t wanna wrestle in front of a live crowd?” he said, adding, “Open up the show, get everybody ready, get it going, in two different cities a week.”
The run filled the gap after Keys, previously identified as Powerhouse Hobbs, made his WWE debut in the Royal Rumble and then did not appear on television for months. That silence fed social media chatter about what would come next, and Keys said it got to him briefly. “It got under my skin for a hot second,” he said.
He said the reaction did not last long once he heard from people inside the company. “Then I had Hunter, I had Bobby Roode, and I had Cody (Rhodes), Randy (Orton), I had a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t let that sh*t bother you’ because they don’t know what you’re doing,” Keys said. He said he worked “Raw and SmackDown every week until my debut,” and that the setup was not punishment but a chance to sharpen himself in front of live audiences.
Keys made the comments on Notsam Wrestling Live!, with H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions, and said the same patience he showed before his debut should now help people understand what he can do on television. “I’m not content with just being here. I wanna f’n work,” he said. “I think my belief is, you know, I was built for it.”
He also said the backstage response after his SmackDown debut told him he was moving in the right direction. Solo Sikoa approached him and told him to let him know if he needs anything on SmackDown. Keys said another video package is expected to air, and he believes it will help fill in the blanks for fans who do not know much about him. “Yeah, man, that whole package — I believe another one’s gonna air — I feel it’s definitely gonna help for the people who don’t know anything about me,” he said.
Keys said opening up about his life did not come easily, but he viewed the package as part of the next step. “It took a lot for me to open up, and tell a little bit about my life because I kind of — I’m very private and kind of keep things to myself… It is (an emotional story),” he said. For now, the story around Keys is less about a single debut than what followed it: the quiet work, the public doubt and the company’s choice to keep him in the ring until his turn on television arrived.
