It’s Royal Rumble season, as the most exciting Pay Per View of the WWE calendar is officially less than two weeks away. And before every Rumble, the second most exciting thing – after speculating about who will win it or return this year – is looking back at past Rumble moments over the years.
As many WWE fans speculate that AEW star Chris Jericho will make his return to Triple H World on January 31 in Saudi Arabia, the WWE itself ranked its 10 greatest ever Royal Rumble returns.
Funnily enough, Jericho is already on the list in No. 10 for his 2013 return. And as is customary, John Cena pretty much wrapped up the No. 1 spot for his 2008 return from a torn triceps that was perfectly kept under wraps.
John Cena’s moment wasn’t bigger either
But as iconic as Cena’s return was back then, it was honestly usurped by another, more recent return. In 2020, there were whispers of Edge coming back to professional wrestling, but nobody really bought it due to the severity of his neck injury; everyone assumed it was too dangerous for Edge to ever return to the wrestling ring and that was that.
Edge, though, made it back in 2020 and went on one last amazing run in WWE, feuding for world titles and putting on instant classics with wrestling icons like Roman Reigns and Randy Orton.
Yet WWE didn’t just snub him for Cena for second on the list. They actually ranked him as low as third, giving the new face of the company and Cena’s heir, Cody Rhodes, the No. 2 spot for his own switch from AEW and Royal Rumble appearance in 2023.
Nothing against Cody, who had an amazing return that was a bit of a storybook, but literally nothing compares to Edge coming back in 2020. It was a real story against all the odds, and seeing him actually there on a WWE show was just unreal.
It’s a small thing, but it’s another example of WWE snubbing a wrestler who left them for AEW while giving Cody maybe a little too much credit at a time when fans are slowly starting to turn against the American Nightmare (a la Cena).
Joe helped manage the pro wrestling site Daily DDT from 2017 to 2019. He has appeared in many wrestling podcasts and has had his work featured by mainstream media sites and professional wrestlers themselves. Joe also covers soccer, writing about Tottenham for Hotspur HQ, Real Madrid for A Trip to Cibeles, and general world football for The Trivela Effect.