Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton Set For Last Man Standing At Crown Jewel

WWE made it official on SmackDown on Friday, October 23: Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton will settle their rivalry in a Last Man Standing match at Crown Jewel 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The stipulation announcement gives a brutal, decisive framing to a feud that has simmered for months without a clean resolution. Last Man Standing matches carry an inherent finality — no countouts, no disqualifications, just two competitors fighting until one can’t get back to their feet — and that alone suggests WWE is looking to close this chapter of the Rhodes-Orton story once and for all.

It’s a sensible move on a few levels. Orton has spent a significant stretch of SmackDown programming tangled up with Rhodes rather than pursuing Sami Zayn’s Undisputed WWE Championship, even as Zayn looks increasingly vulnerable at the top of the card. A definitive stipulation like this gives their rivalry a natural exit ramp, freeing Orton to turn his attention toward the title picture — and toward a crowded one at that, with names like Kevin Owens, Trick Williams and Johnny Gargano all circling Zayn’s championship.

For Rhodes, the match also opens the door to something fans have speculated about for a while: some kind of reinvention. Rhodes himself has pushed back on the idea that any dramatic shift in look or attitude automatically signals a heel turn, famously describing such changes as simply “another layer of paint” rather than a full character switch. Whether that was a subtle hint at what’s coming or just a passing comment, a Last Man Standing blowoff with Orton would be the right moment for Rhodes to emerge from the rivalry looking — and maybe acting — differently, without necessarily abandoning his babyface core.

The Saudi Arabia setting adds another wrinkle worth watching. Crown Jewel events have generally stuck to inside-the-ring storytelling without much of the crowd-brawling chaos common to Last Man Standing matches elsewhere, though there have been notable exceptions — the ramp-based spots between Bianca Belair and Bayley at Crown Jewel 2022 come to mind. Given the stipulation and the history between these two, there’s a real chance Rhodes and Orton push the match into similarly inventive territory, whether that’s battles around the entrance stage or something more unconventional.

What happens after Crown Jewel may end up being just as important as the match itself. If this is indeed the rivalry’s true conclusion, it sets up Orton for a run at Zayn’s title in a stacked SmackDown landscape, while potentially teeing up new directions for Rhodes — possibly including a future return to the Orton feud down the line, once the dust from this chapter has settled. For now, though, the focus is squarely on Riyadh, where one of WWE’s longest-running modern rivalries is set to hit its most violent chapter yet.