John Cena made a surprise appearance at the Royal Rumble, entering the ring at Number 30 — the last wrestler to enter. As usual Cena’s appearance generated both a fevered pop from half of the audience at Madison Square Garden and also tremendous heat from the other half. Cena is one of those rare wrestlers who can both attract and antagonize the audience.

Anyway, back to the Rumble. Cena got a relatively easy win over Triple H, who I really thought would win it because the WWE has usually been quite transparent about who usually wins the Royal Rumble. The wrestler who gets the biggest push over the first half of the year always gets to win the Rumble so that he can fulfill his “fairytale” run towards Wrestlemania. They’ve done it for Batista, they’ve done it for Rey Mysterio and of course they’ve done it for Cena before. This win was a a bit of curve ball for me.

The dilemma here is with Cena and Triple H both faces, there is no clear villain in a possible Cena Vs Triple H title match at Wrestlemania. A possible three-way match with Orton has been floated but that’s not really a good option. But then, as a fellow wrestling fan mentioned, Cena is both a face AND a heel. So a win by Trips over Cena at Wrestlemania would be as good a win over a heel as any. And the WWE gets to reap the financial benefits of having Cena as a main eventer at the biggest pay per view of the company.

Let’s see how it will develop over the next few months.