Royce Keys Reveals He Asked Triple H To Do Dark Matches During Gap Between Royal Rumble & WWE TV Debut

Royce Keys shares the details.

After finishing up with All Elite Wrestling, Powerhouse Hobbs made his WWE debut as part of the 2026 men’s Royal Rumble match. Hobbs, now going by Royce Keys, did not appear on television post-Rumble until several months later.

He opened up about that during his appearance on Notsam Wrestling Live!. Keys had been doing dark matches from February until his SmackDown debut on April 10th. He shared that it started to get under his skin when he saw comments on social media about how he debuted, but there was no follow-up.

Keys said the likes of Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, and Bobby Roode all told him to ignore the social media chatter. Keys revealed that he asked to do dark matches during that gap.

“It got under my skin for a hot second,” Keys said about how social media reacted to him not being on WWE TV after debuting at the Royal Rumble. “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. It got out there that I did some dark matches but, I asked Hunter and he agreed if I could do these darks. Who wouldn’t wanna wrestle in front of a live crowd? Open up the show, get everybody ready, get it going, in two different cities a week. I did Raw and SmackDown every week until my debut. I put that GIF out with the dude with the seasoning. We was cooking… For Paul to be like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it. You wanna get after it.’ Like, ‘Hell yeah, I wanna get after it.’ I’m here. I’m not content with just being here. I wanna f’n work. I’m with it, I’m with the grind. I been grinding my whole life, so, let’s do it.”

He stated that it feels like he’s officially arrived at WWE following the video package and his TV debut.

“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. 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). It’s unfortunate how things happened but, I think my belief is, you know, I was built for it.”

After Keys’ TV debut, he was interviewed backstage and was then approached by Solo Sikoa. Sikoa told Keys to let him know if he needs anything on SmackDown.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Notsam Wrestling Live! with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.