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 card consisted of six matches. The matches resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters to build tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown! brands, with storylines produced on their weekly television shows, Raw and SmackDown!. The buildup to the Royal Rumble match began on the December 23 episode of Raw, when Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff informed viewers that the upcoming Royal Rumble match would feature 15 wrestlers representing the Raw brand and 15 wrestlers representing the SmackDown! brand, since this would be the first Royal Rumble match to take place after WWE's brand extension. The buildup continued on the January 2 episode of SmackDown!, where a vignette aired hyping the impending return of The Undertaker in the Royal Rumble match. Later that night, Paul Heyman announced that Brock Lesnar and Big Show would wrestle in a match at the PPV, with the winner receiving a spot in the Royal Rumble match. On the January 6 episode of Raw, Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels argued over who would be drawing the #1 entry in the Royal Rumble match. On the January 13 episode of Raw, a Royal Rumble qualification match took place in which Jeff Hardy defeated Raven. Later that night, Jericho defeated Batista, Kane and Rob Van Dam in an over the top rope Challenge to earn the right choose an