Jonathan Coachman Slams WWE Over Royal Rumble 2026: “Where Were the Surprises?”

Jonathan Coachman didn’t wait for a studio to drop his Royal Rumble reaction—he filmed it right at the airport.

In a video posted to X on February 1, 2026, the former WWE personality vented about what he saw as a lackluster Royal Rumble show, echoing complaints he says he heard from fans and even a TSA agent. Coachman captioned the video:

“Emergency Royal Rumble takeaway with a little help from security. At some point we need to stop living in a bubble of ‘everything we do is great because we are the WWE’ period. Roman Reigns on McAfee was spitting truth.”

In the clip, Coachman recapped his conversation with a security guard who apparently approached him and voiced what many fans were already feeling:

“There was no surprises. Where was Chris Jericho? One Bella twin? Why does Triple H keep saying that there’s gonna be loads of surprises when there’s nothing?”

Coachman didn’t hold back on WWE’s creative direction either:

“At some point, when are we going to be actually creative? Because that yesterday was not it. And the two individual matches? I literally laid out the whole GUNTHER match for you on ‘Off the Ropes’—and they did exactly what I said they would do.”

Coachman also criticized WWE for how they handled the Brock Lesnar elimination, arguing that they spent more time focusing on other moments instead of showing Lesnar’s shocking exit:

“Have you ever seen a Royal Rumble match where one of the biggest stars of all time gets eliminated by somebody else’s yeeting and they’re showing the eight minutes of yeeting instead of Brock Lesnar getting eliminated? What are we doing?”

This rant arrives as Triple H continues to claim that WWE has entered “a new era,” but Coachman—and clearly some fans—aren’t buying it.

Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.