Ranking All 30 WWE Royal Rumble Winners

13. John Cena – 2013

steve austin 2001 royal rumble
WWE.com

WrestleMania title shot: Defeated the Rock at WrestleMania XXIX

Well, someone had to end part-timer Rock’s title reign, and you knew John Cena had to get redemption for his WrestleMania XXVIII loss, so this felt pretty ordained from the moment Rock announced he would wrestle for the WWE Championship at the 2013 Royal Rumble. So when Cena entered the Rumble at #19, it was pretty obvious he was going the distance.

Cena/Rock I was a pretty awesome match. Seeing the Rock in his first one-on-one match in ages was epic, and he and Cena delivered. The rematch lacked the intrigue and suspense the first one did – the idea that WWE would put its biggest title on a part-time wrestler for months on end was just ludicrous, so it was fairly transparent that Cena would win.

Still, the match itself was pretty decent, WrestleMania XXIX set a company record for highest-grossing live event and Cena would hold the title for four months before dropping it cleanly to Daniel Bryan in a spectacular match. Overall, not too bad for Cena’s second Rumble win.

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.