2002 was a pretty big year for WWE, with several of the stars that would go on to become top names for the company making their debuts.

At the time, WWE was using Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) as its developmental system, which for younger readers, is essentially what NXT is now.

WWE would sign wrestlers to OVW, allow them to develop there, before bringing them up to the main roster, and 2002 proved to be a successful year for that.

So, without further ado, let's look at the 2002 OVW developmental class, which has a legitimate claim to being the best ever.

The class did feature some stars that didn't make it, and that was always going to be the case, but this particular year featured more stars that made it right to the very top of WWE.

This year Batista, Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar and John Cena all graduated from OVW and debuted on WWE's main roster.

As we know, all four went on to become top stars for WWE, holding a combined 46 World Champions between them.

All three debuted in WWE in 2002, and just three years later, they'd all held world titles and established themselves as top stars for the company. It was truly impressive from all involved.

They weren't the only ones to feature in the class though, and while the four aforementioned names may have been the most successful, other names did become features on WWE's roster.

Also graduating from OVW in 2002 was Charlie Haas, who along with Shelton Benjamin, would go on to form the World's Greatest Tag Team, partnering themselves with Kurt Angle.

Speaking of Benjamin, the Raw star also graduated from OVW in 2002, and remains one of the most under-appreciated wrestlers of his generation. To this day, he's still part of the WWE roster.

Also featuring was Rico, who may have been a comedy character during his time with WWE, but still has two tag team titles to his name.

WWE arguably hasn't ever produced a better developmental class as they did in 2002, and it'll take something quite special for them to ever top that.

This comes as WWE celebrated John Cena's career on Raw last night, with the show taking place on June 27, 20 years from the day to his WWE debut.

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