The 2003 Royal Rumble was the 16th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown! brand divisions. The event took place on January 19, 2003, at the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the first Royal Rumble event produced under the WWE name after the promotion was renamed from World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to WWE in May 2002. It was also the first Royal Rumble to occur under the first brand split.
As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. However, due to the brand split introduced in March 2002, the winner received a match for their respective brand's world championship at WrestleMania XIX, either Raw's World Heavyweight Championship or SmackDown!'s WWE Championship. The main event was the 2003 Royal Rumble match, which was won by SmackDown!'s Brock Lesnar, who last eliminated The Undertaker, also from SmackDown!.
The primary main event from the Raw brand saw Triple H versus Scott Steiner for the World Heavyweight Championship, which Steiner won by disqualification resulting in Triple H retaining the championship, as titles do not change hands by disqualification unless stipulated. The main event for the SmackDown! brand was between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit for the WWE Championship, which Angle won by making Benoit submit to the Ankle Lock, thus retaining the championship.
Production
Background
The Royal Rumble is an annual gimmick pay-per-view (PPV) produced every January by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four", and was considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with King of the Ring until that PPV's discontinuation after 2002. It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. The 2003 event was the 16th event in the Royal Rumble chronology and took place on January 19, 2003, at the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the first Royal Rumble to occur under the first brand extension introduced in March 2002, which split the roster between the Raw and SmackDown! brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform on their respective shows, thus the 2003 event included wrestlers from both brands. It was also the first Royal Rumble held under the WWE name, following the promotion being renamed from World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to WWE in May 2002.
The Royal Rumble match generally features 30 wrestlers and, since 1993, the winner traditionally earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. As a result of the brand extension, the winner of the 2003 Royal Rumble match earned a match for their brand's top championship at WrestleMania XIX: Raw's World Heavyweight Championship or SmackDown!'s WWE Championship. This made it the first Royal Rumble to feature the World Heavyweight Championship, following its introduction on Raw in September 2002 after the WWE Undisputed Championship became exclusive to SmackDown! and was renamed to the WWE Championship. This was subsequently also the first time in which two world championships were eligible to be challenged for by the winner of the titular match.
Storylines
The event comprised six matches that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown! brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Raw and SmackDown!.