{"id":151423,"date":"2026-01-23T17:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=151423"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:54:45","slug":"report-powerhouse-hobbs-signs-with-wwe-ending-6-year-aew-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/01\/23\/report-powerhouse-hobbs-signs-with-wwe-ending-6-year-aew-tenure\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Powerhouse Hobbs Signs with WWE, Ending 6-Year AEW Tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"

As per Fightful<\/a>, Powerhouse Hobbs has now signed with WWE, effectively ending his tremendous run in AEW after six years.\u00a0 Hobbs is one of the most successful “homegrown” AEW talents since the promotion’s inception back in 2019.<\/p>\n

He began his career with All Elite Wrestling, starting off on AEW’s YouTube program AEW Dark. Eventually, the former Will Hobbs would graduate to the big leagues, becoming the muscle of Team Taz, alongside Brian Cage, HOOK, and Ricky Starks, now known as Ricky Saints in NXT. It’s been speculated that Hobbs’ contract was due to expire in early January 2026, with many believing he was WWE-bound.<\/p>\n

Multiple reliable news outlets have seemingly confirmed that Powerhouse Hobbs is now indeed signed with WWE, as his contract elapsed on January 15. The final time we saw him on AEW television was when he dropped the AEW World Trios Championship, alongside his The Opps stablemates, Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata, to JetSpeed.<\/p>\n

Another report from BodySlam+<\/a> indicated that Powerhouse Hobbs may already have a new name in place for him, with WWE trademarking the moniker “Royce Keys.”<\/p>\n

When Will Powerhouse Hobbs, Potentially Royce Keys, Debut?<\/h2>\n

Powerhouse Hobbs is just right on time as the Royal Rumble Premium Live Event is just around the corner, less than a week, in fact, so many think that is the perfect place to debut him. However, WWE has the habit of keeping stars on the back burner for a bit, using vignettes to hype them up or looking for the perfect storyline to launch their WWE career, with prime examples being Rey Fenix, his brother Penta, and even Talla Tonga, AKA Hikuleo.<\/p>\n

Could we see Hobbs pop up in the Men’s Rumble? Absolutely, but WWE may have cold feet and feel like the WWE Universe needs to know him more before putting him on TV, hence the build-up and video packages that WWE has utilized for past former AEW and NJPW stars, with the exception of JC Mateo, formerly known as Jeff Cobb, who debuted immediately without warning but with cause.<\/p>\n

That said, a Chamber spot could also be on the table and let Hobbs run roughshod over the field before being ultimately eliminated, but that’s highly unlikely, as Powerhouse Hobbs shouldn’t be eating a pin in his first night in the company. There’s also WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event<\/a>. Could Hobbs get involved in one of those matches?<\/p>\n

Aside from a Rumble appearance, the Raw after WrestleMania tends to be the biggest stage when it comes to debuting new stars, and could be just the right fit for the newly-signed Powerhouse Hobbs without getting lost in the shuffle in the current Road to WrestleMania, where everyone kinda has a feel for which storylines we’ll see.<\/p>\n

\"A
Photo Credit: By West Smith<\/a> – https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/west_smith\/52542959315\/, CC BY 2.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=128834856<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe Powerhouse Hobbs pops up in NXT, feuding with his old Team Taz teammate Ricky Saints, giving Hobbs an easier go-around by having him face a familiar foe.<\/p>\n

Whenever Powerhouse Hobbs appears for WWE, he will be one big unit that can single-handedly become one of the biggest stars in the company.<\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/b><\/strong><\/amp-ad><\/amp-ad><\/amp-fx-flying-carpet><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 WWE \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0<\/span>Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/span><\/a><\/u> for more on Powerhouse Hobbs and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/span><\/em><\/amp-ad><\/amp-fx-flying-carpet><\/p>\n

You can check out WWE programming on\u00a0<\/span>Netflix<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(Raw, WWE archives, WWE Unreal, and other specials),\u00a0<\/span>USA Network<\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0The CW<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(NXT),\u00a0<\/span>ESPN\u00a0<\/span><\/a>(WWE PLEs),\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Tubi<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0A&E<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments) and\u00a0Peacock<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(Saturday Night\u2019s Main Event). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on\u00a0<\/span>YouTube.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As per Fightful, Powerhouse Hobbs has now signed with WWE, effectively ending his tremendous run in AEW after six years.\u00a0 Hobbs is one of the most successful “homegrown” AEW talents since the promotion’s inception back in 2019. He began his career with All Elite Wrestling, starting off on AEW’s YouTube program AEW Dark. Eventually, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3735,"featured_media":151426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4677,2,12,6,2192,4,3],"tags":[7238],"class_list":["post-151423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aew","category-featured","category-news","category-north-america","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-powerhouse-hobbs"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151423"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151431,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151423\/revisions\/151431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}