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WWE NXT star Kelani Jordan entered the women’s Royal Rumble match as the 27th participant in the match, hoping to win the event and book a ticket to WrestleMania 42.
Jordan didn’t end up winning the match but made a huge impact. She went to the top rope and hit a Phoenix Splash. She was then able to showcase her gymnastic stylings in the ring when she took down Bayley, Liv Morgan, Jacy Jayne and Raquel Rodriguez.
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AJ Styles during the Royal Rumble The Dome at America’s Center on Jan. 29, 2022. (Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports)
WWE cameras caught Jordan talking with AJ Styles backstage. The video showed Styles whispering something into Jordan’s ear. Jordan later praised Styles as her mentor.
“AJ Styles is awesome, I mean, phenomenal. But he was someone when I was literally, maybe like two or three months in at the Performance Center, and I was training and I remembered he happened to be there,” she told Fox News Digital. “He was actually in the ring and worked with me and trained with me. I was so new and remember him telling me early on – only like two or three months in – he was like, you have something special, keep going, believe in yourself, and just keep pushing yourself. He’s like, you have something special and that was very early on, so him being able to see me when I was only two to three months in and now being in my first-ever Rumble, it was like just a crazy moment.
Kelani Jordan enters the ring during NXT at the WWE Performance Center on Jan. 13, 2026, in Orlando, Florida. (Conor Kvatek/WWE via Getty Images)
“After the Rumble, he just mentioned how proud he was of me, how I kept my foot on the gas, I kept pushing, I didn’t allow anything to stop me and I took the risk. The Phoenix Splash was something I was kind of questioning should I do it, should I go for it? This is a big stage. What if it doesn’t go well? And I remember him telling me, he’s like, without risk, there’s no reward. You go for it, you shoot for the stars. And then it went well, and I remember he told me never forget that, never doubt yourself, believe in yourself because you can do it. And so that was just something like … he believed in me in that moment more than I believed in myself.”
Styles lost to Gunther at the Royal Rumble, forcing him into retirement.
As he celebrated a long career on “Monday Night Raw,” The Undertaker appeared and let Styles know he was going to be a part of the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2026.
AJ Styles enters the arena during WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium on April 3, 2022. (Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports)
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For Jordan, she made a valiant effort to defeat Lola Vice in an underground match at NXT Vengeance Day. However, Vice got the better of her.
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