Royal Rumble flashback: 5 things that happened at the 2003 Royal Rumble

#3 John Cena made his Royal Rumble debut

Cena was the face of the WWE for over a decade

Cena made his WWE television debut on June 27, 2002, an episode of SmackDown by answering an open challenge by Kurt Angle. The rest, as they say, is history as Cena went on to become one of the biggest superstars of all time. At the Royal Rumble, Cena has been a top performer, winning the 2008 and 2013 Rumbles. He also has the 7th most number of eliminations in a single Royal Rumble at 7.

Before the 2003 Royal Rumble came around, Cena developed a character of a rapper who cut promos while rhyming. He made his Royal Rumble debut at the 2003 Royal Rumble match. At that time, his star was slowly rising and wrestling pundits, Jim Ross included, had labelled him the fastest rising star on the SmackDown brand and a future main event player.

Cena entered the match at number 18 and lasted an impressive 19 minutes 38 seconds, the fifth-longest time in the match behind Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Matt Hardy and Kane who lasted 38 minutes 54 seconds, 32 minutes 56 seconds, 27 minutes 13 seconds and 20 minutes 24 seconds respectively. When Cena entered the match, he began rapping outside the ring until RVD went to the ringside and tossed him into the ring.

Despite not having any eliminations, the time he spent in the match itself was impressive. His debut was, therefore, a good one.