20 Awesome WWE Royal Rumble Debuts And Returns

10. Chris Jericho (2013)

edge royal rumble
WWE.com

This is an interesting entry as we start moving into some of the bigger returns and debuts on the list.

In 2013, Chris Jericho was moving into a phase of his career where he would appear for a period of time, disappear, then reemerge for another run. In this case, Jericho has been gone since August 2012, returning unannounced at the 2013 Royal Rumble as the #2 entrant, resuming a feud with Dolph Ziggler, who was #1.

The pop from the crowd was pretty damn loud, and Y2J would last until the final six. He would go on to lose to Fandango at WrestleMania 29 that year, but his return and the crowd reaction showed that there still was plenty of interest in Jericho, and we would be treated to better Y2J moments in future years.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.