Royce Keys disappeared from WWE television after making his surprise Royal Rumble debut, but he says fans had the situation completely wrong.
While speaking with Baby Huie of 107.7 The Bone, Keys explained that he was never sitting at home or being kept away from WWE events. He was traveling with the company every week and working dark matches before Raw and SmackDown while learning the WWE system.
Keys said he did not even know which brand he would be joining when he first signed his WWE contract. Once the deal was official, he personally asked Paul “Triple H” Levesque to let him wrestle at every television taping.
“I didn’t know where I was going when I started. I just knew that once I signed, I was a WWE Superstar.”
“What I did ask Hunter—and he had no problem with it, it was a ‘hell yeah’—was to do dark matches at every single TV taping. That was every Raw and every SmackDown, every week, for almost three months.”
Keys said fans began questioning his status after his Royal Rumble appearance because those dark matches were not shown on television. However, he was still on the road and regularly opening WWE events before the broadcasts began.
“Once I debuted at the Rumble, people were like, ‘Where did he go?’ I was on the road every single week opening up the shows.”
“Of course, you’re not going to see dark matches unless you’re in that city, but I was on the road every single week for about three months doing dark matches, getting feedback and getting better.”
Keys then directly addressed the online claims that WWE had already buried him. He made it clear that his absence from television was part of his development, not punishment from management.
“I’m throwing that out there for anybody who was saying I was missing or I was buried, or whatever the internet says. No. I was learning.”
“The best training, I was told, is on-the-job training.”
Keys believed working in front of two different live crowds each week gave him the best possible opportunity to adjust to WWE.
“What better way to get on-the-job training than being in front of a live crowd? Two live crowds every single week, two different crowds and two different cities. That was the best.”
Keys has since become a regular part of WWE programming and is preparing for one of the biggest matches of his career at SummerSlam. His comments make it clear that the months following his Royal Rumble debut were not wasted—he was putting in the work away from television and getting himself ready for a larger role.
What do you think about Royce Keys shutting down the claims that WWE buried him after the Royal Rumble? Let us know your thoughts and leave your feedback in the comments.
