10 Biggest surprise returns in Royal Rumble history

#3 Chris Jericho

After several feuds around the 2011-12 time period, Chris Jericho was written off WWE TV in order to be on tour with his rock band Fozzy for the rest of the year. After a five-month hiatus though, Jericho eventually made his way back to the WWE, as he entered the 2013 Royal Rumble match as the second entrant and shocking the WWE Universe in the process as well.

As expected, Jericho came out to a huge pop and lasted about 47 minutes before being eventually eliminated by the first Rumble entrant that year, Dolph Ziggler. This eventually led to a feud against Ziggler, which Jericho resumed for the next few weeks, however, by the time we got to July, Y2J was once again written off WWE TV in order to focus on his musical career.

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Jericho's next appearance under WWE wasn't 2014 when he returned for a feud against Dean Ambrose and eventually formed a dream pairing with AJ Styles before turning his back on 'The Phenomenal One'.

With Jericho recently signing with AEW, I think it's for the best if we don't expect him to appear at this year's 30-man Rumble match.

About the author

Soumik Datta is a professional wrestling journalist who has been following the business for more than a decade.

In 2017, Soumik joined the Sportskeeda Wrestling team and is best known for his work with the WWE team. He has previously contributed to the Sportskeeda AEW, MMA, and the football team where he specifically covered the Major League Soccer.

In 2024, Soumik crossed 50 million reads for Sportskeeda WWE. While working under Sportskeeda MMA, he interviewed prominent UFC fighters, including Justin Gaethje, Sean O'Malley, and Cory Sandhagen, among others. He is also being followed by John Cena on X (formerly Twitter).

Apart from his love for professional wrestling, Soumik also watches Football and has been a lifelong follower of Liverpool FC and Mohun Bagan. He has also been following the Indian Super League and remains the only content creator to have traveled across India to watch 7 ISL Matches in 7 Days, a video which currently sits at 26K views on his YouTube channel. His channel currently amasses over 120K views.

As aforementioned, Soumik also likes to make content for his YouTube channel and travel to various places either with family, friends, or solo, or go on road trips.

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Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @Thesoumikdatta9

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Know More

A former writer on why John Cena's heel turn has flopped HERE

Edited by Israel Lutete