Royal Rumble 2013: How John Cena's Win Is Good for the WWE

With his big win at last night’s PPV, John Cena has become only the fourth man in history to win two Royal Rumbles. It's was predictable and there will be many disappointed fans, but there is still good to come out of this.

John Cena wasn’t the best choice to win the Royal Rumble, but he was also far from the worst.

The big downer is that WWE blew an opportunity to elevate another star closer to Cena’s level. But on the plus side, his win will regenerate some of the prestige that both the Royal Rumble and the WWE championship have lost.

CM Punk's reign as WWE Champion was all sorts of incredible and did wonders for the title, but it was marred a little by the fact that Cena main evented far more PPVs than Punk did.

The Rock now holds the title and with Cena gunning for the gold, the WWE Championship will get the sort of spotlight it should’ve gotten for the last 434 days.

The Royal Rumble itself has also lost a bit of its shine in recent years. It’s always said that the winner of the Royal Rumble gets a ticket to the main event of WrestleMania, but that’s far from the truth.

The last time a Royal Rumble winner was in the main event of WrestleMania was four years ago when Randy Orton faced Triple H at WrestleMania XXV.

Since WrestleMania XX, only three of eight 'Mania's (including XX) were headlined by a Royal Rumble winner.

In fact, in the last two years the winner of the Royal Rumble has opened WrestleMania. Not that I need to remind anyone, but Sheamus’ Rumble victory last year secured him all of 18 seconds at the grandest stage of them all.

The WWE championship has suffered a similar lack of attention at WrestleMania since Orton and Triple H clashed four years ago.

WrestleMania XXVI was main evented by a non-title match. And though Cena and Miz competed for the strap at WrestleMania XXVII, Miz and the WWE championship were far in the background compared to Cena and The Rock.

Cena and The Rock would again take the spotlight at last year's ‘Mania, with the WWE Championship being the third most promoted match on the card. It wasn't even featured on the cover of the DVD.

There were certainly better candidates for Royal Rumble winner this year, but at the very least the Royal Rumble and the WWE Championship are important again in 2013’s Road to WrestleMania.