Royce Keys (fka Powerhouse Hobbs in AEW) made his WWE debut last weekend in the Royal Rumble match in Saudi Arabia. He had one of the longer survival times in the men’s match and eliminated Damian Priest, before succumbing to the numbers game of The Vision. Keys didn’t appear on this week’s Raw, and the rumor mill indicates that he’ll be on the SmackDown roster. It would be very strange for him to debut at the Rumble only to immediately disappear, so I do expect that we’ll see him on the blue brand tonight.

As far as former AEW stars with no prior WWE history are concerned, there’s a wide range of possible outcomes between the strong push Jade Cargill received right out of the gate in WWE, the steady mid-card presence of Penta on Raw, and the low card status that Rey Fenix quickly ended up in after his SmackDown debut. Others like Ricky Saints and Blake Monroe have yet to get called up to the main roster from NXT. There’s no way to tell just yet which one of these buckets Keys will find himself in, other than the Rumble debut being a good indication that he probably won’t be in NXT. WWE has already shown this year with Trick Williams that they are willing to introduce a new star at an upper card level, but that’s because they know he has the promo skills to hang on the mic with the likes of Sami Zayn and Randy Orton.