7 Things You Should Know About WWE Royal Rumble 2003

3. Shawn Michaels' Rumble Return Was Short Lived

This was the first Rumble match that featured Shawn Michaels since his win in 1996. He was in WWE Title matches in 1997 and 1998, then he was injured from 1999 to 2002. We didn't know if he was ever going to wrestle again, but he was back for the 2003 Rumble in a big way. Michaels drew the number one spot in the match. Chris Jericho's music started and instead of Jericho entering, it was Christian posing as him. Jericho snuck up from behind Michaels and hit him with a low blow. Great move! Jericho grabbed a chair from ringside, he went back into the ring and he nailed Michaels in the head with a chair shot. Shawn put his hand up to block it, but he still came up bleeding. You could actually see Shawn put the blade to his head right after, but the camera cut away when a ref yelled at Jericho. That's the key to blading. Never show it. Move the camera away from the person doing the blading. Their showdown ended with Jericho dumping Michaels over the top. Michaels was in the match for only 2:30. It was a fantastic angle that set up the Michaels/Jericho mach at WrestleMania 19 a few months after this. It was sad that Michaels was only in the match for such a short amount of time, but in the long run it worked out for the story they were telling. Jericho lasted the longest in the match, by the way. His time was 38:54. He also eliminated the most guys by tossing out six of them.