The Rock's World Championship Wins - Ranked From Worst To Best

9. Royal Rumble 2013

The Rock Royal Rumble 2013
WWE.com

Ah yes, the crushing inevitability. When John Cena tossed Ryback over the top rope to win tthe 2013 Royal Rumble match, the outcome of CM Punk vs. The Rock stopped being a topic worthy of discussion. In truth it was fairly inevitable beforehand, but as Cena vs. Rock II was on the WrestleMania cards this was the only way to go. That CM Punk’s 434-day reign as champion ended in this manner still angers many to this day.

The match itself was fine. Punk had settled into a consistent big match groove at this point, and whilst Rock struggled to keep up the atmosphere and aura was enough to get them through. Everything was going fine until the dogsh*t overbooked finish however. The Shield was banned from ringside, yet as the lights went out everyone and their dog knew what was happening. Michael Cole starts screaming about The Shield, and the lights return with Rocky flat out on the floor. Punk wins, but his celebration is premature as Vince McMahon comes out to strip him of the title.

This all leads to Rock’s grammatically confusing ‘You don’t take it from him. I am’ speech, the match is restarted, and Rock picks up his 10th world championship because ‘The Rock vs. John Cena II’ at WrestleMania isn’t quite enough.

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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.