8 Times The Wrong Wrestler Won The Royal Rumble

6. John Cena (2013)

John Cena Royal Rumble 2013
WWE.com

Fantasy booking warning, but John Cena winning the Royal Rumble in 2013 and taking on The Rock at WrestleMania 29 in Once In A Lifetime II may have set off a chain of events that WWE is still reeling from today. The 2013 Royal Rumble saw The Rock end CM Punk's 434-day WWE Championship reign, setting up the Cena/Rock rematch with the title on the line.

When Cena eliminated Ryback at the last, it was all but guaranteed that The Rock would be pinning CM Punk in the main event. Sure, some still held out for an improbable Punk victory, but that was optimism taken to new heights. Lost in all of this was the damage done to Ryback, who was still extremely popular at this time.

If the roles had been reversed, Royal Rumble 2013 would have seen Punk defend against John Cena and The Rock walk out as the Rumble winner. That way, Punk would have the 'Mania main event he deserved against The Rock, and Cena is freed up to take on The Undertaker at the Show of Shows.

Cena winning in 2013 was an eye-roller, to say the least.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.