10 WWE Stars Who Had Heat With Randy Orton

Randy Orton may be a wisened veteran and all-around family man who is viewed as a locker-room leader now, but the 14-time world champion wasn’t always that way.

In another era, Orton was the enfant terrible of WWE and made plenty of enemies on his way to the summit, while shades of the ‘old’ Orton continued to emerge from time to time.

These are 10 WWE Stars Who Had Heat with Randy Orton.

10. Kurt Angle

As two of the blue brand’s top stars, Randy Orton and Kurt Angle crossed paths with each other quite a bit in 2006, including in the World Heavyweight Championship Triple Threat match at WrestleMania 22 and singles bouts at One Night Stand and Vengeance, as well as on SmackDown.

The Legend Killer clearly learned a thing or two from the Olympic Hero and, years after Kurt’s exit, began adopting the Angle Slam as one of his own signature moves.

Following Randy’s match with CM Punk at WrestleMania 27, Angle tweeted about Orton’s usage of the move, writing (among other things): ‘Orton - relax, I won’t beat your ass. You can use my move.’

While the WWE Hall of Famer would later clarify that he only meant his tweets in jest, Randy apparently didn’t take them that way. As well as responding with: ‘Point being, instead of taking offence to someone using your move, consider it a sign of respect’, Orton supposedly held a grudge against Kurt.

They obviously patched things up and are good friends these days, with their wives Kim and Giovanna being actual BFFs who briefly hosted a ‘Wives of Wrestlers’ podcast together.

9. Matt Riddle

Matt Riddle was a locker-room heat magnet whose personality rubbed a lot of top stars the wrong way, most notably Goldberg and Brock Lesnar. Another politically unwise move was irking The Viper, which is exactly what the Original Bro did while still stationed in NXT.

As Orton told it on the Kurt Angle Show, he was already annoyed by an already small locker room being taken up with the bags of NXT stars – even though the hopefuls from Orlando were only on the road to observe, not actually wrestle on shows.

Then Randy tried to break the ice with the former UFC fighter with an ‘Oh, there’s the guy!’, but Riddle barely acknowledged the invitation to introduce himself to Mr Orton.

From then on, Orton had a bad taste in his mouth for Riddle, but his stance softened when Matt made it to the main roster and the two shared more locker rooms together.

After that, Randy claimed he ‘loved’ Riddle, with the two going on to form the very successful RK-Bro tag team.

8. Roman Reigns

Back in the Summer of 2013, Roman Reigns was a star on the rise and didn’t have close to the backstage clout he does now. Still, that didn’t stop The Big Dog from getting into it with The Viper.

According to reports, Roman and Randy botched a spot during a tag match on a non-televised live event and then had a shouting match about it backstage.

Since Orton was the 10-plus-year veteran and Reigns the rookie, it was expected that the latter would not argue back.

Interestingly, this created something of an internal power struggle of sorts, as Vince McMahon wanted The Shield punished in response, while Triple H wanted to make sure they were kept strong on TV.

A year later, Randy was accused of trying to slow down Roman’s big babyface push by working a ‘crowd killing’ style of match with Reigns on the road which, ironically, put a bunch of heat on Orton.

Regardless, they managed to work through their issues and had a strong match at SummerSlam.

7. Road Dogg

Following their returns to WWE, the New Age Outlaws of Billy Gunn and Road Dogg won the WWE Tag Team Titles and headlined several shows on the company’s 2013 WrestleMania Revenge tour of Europe, tagging with Randy Orton against The Shield.

As Road Dogg has talked about on his podcast, it was during this tour that he began butting heads with Orton.

The heat began when Randy was late for the bus that shuttled the stars from city to city. The Roadie, a more tenure veteran, felt that if he was on time, then Orton should be, too.

They continued to clash over this and that, with the heat even spilling over to the ring itself, where it affected the execution of their matches.

Road Dogg put the beef down to a clash of egos, noting that The Legend Killer wouldn’t bend to him simply because he was an old-timer. There’s obviously no lingering heat, with the WWE Hall of Famer regularly showering Orton with high praise.

6. Kenny Dykstra

Like Randy Orton in his early WWE days, Kenny Dykstra was considered a promising young talent who had all the potential to be a very top guy.

History has shown us that Kenny – whose greatest claim to fame might be that he was the leader of the Spirit Squad – did not go on to have the same illustrious career as the Legend Killer.

Being outspoken about the affair between John Cena and his former fiancée Mickie James can’t have helped Dykstra’s plight, but neither did making an enemy out of Orton.

Speaking with Power Slam magazine in 2008, Randy recounted an incident that happened during a tour of Australia a couple of years prior, which concerned Kenny getting drunk and bothering him at the bar.

Despite repeated warnings to cut it out, Dykstra seemingly didn’t listen and Orton responded by slapping him out cold.

The Apex Predator added that he had ‘never liked’ Kenny, who he considered cocky and disrespectful, didn’t know what he was doing at the time of the interview and didn’t care where he ended up.

Dykstra is now back with WWE, working as a producer on the main roster.

5. Rochelle Loewen

In Randy’s younger and more immature days, a lot of his wrath was directed at the female members of the locker room, in particular the women who had been signed by the company via the Diva Search.

Amy Weber has spoken about how she was hazed by The Legend Killer, but Rochelle Loewen got it way worse.

According to Loewen, Orton destroyed her belongings with self-tanning lotion and baby oil because Rochelle – who wasn’t a fan of the business prior to entering the Diva Search – didn’t know who he was.

After that, Randy had it in for her and, per Loewen’s account, told her that he hated her and did other undisclosed things that were (in her words) ‘inappropriate and verbally abusive’ backstage.

Rochelle – who branded Orton an ‘animal’ and a ‘psycho’ – claimed that the former World Heavyweight Champion was infatuated with her and became very jealous when she moved to SmackDown and began travelling with Randy’s soon-to-be-ex best friend Mark Jindrak.

Both Loewen and Amy Weber quit WWE around the same time, with reports indicating their decision to do so was due to their treatment at the hands of a certain third-generation star.

4. Kofi Kingston

Kofi Kingston looked like he was about to Boom Drop his way through the glass ceiling towards the end of 2009, thanks to a programme with Randy Orton that saw Kofi routinely get one over on WWE’s Apex Predator.

Highlights included Kingston putting Orton through a table in Madison Square Garden, eliminating Orton to win a Survivor Series tag match as the sole survivor and a singles match between the two at TLC.

But after wrestling Orton and John Cena in a triple threat match on the January 11, 2011, episode of Raw, Kofi’s push came to a screeching halt.

The reason was because Kingston forgot to stay down for Randy’s Punt Kick finisher and instead had to take an RKO.

Fans would have been none the wiser, had Orton not shouted “STUPID! STUPID!” at Kofi before making the cover.

After this incident, rumours persisted that Randy’s outburst and annoyance at Kingston cost Kofi a planned victory in the Money in the Bank Ladder Match at WrestleMania 26.

Kofi himself alluded to the supposed heat in a 2012 interview, saying he found the online talk funny while acknowledging that Orton had ‘an attitude’.

This history of heat later played into their 2019 feud over Kingston’s WWE Title.

3. Bubba Ray Dudley

If one WWE star gets injured during a match, it’s bad news. If two WWE stars get injured during a match, it’s really bad news. Three WWE stars getting injured during the same match? Almost unheard of, but it did happen when The Dudley Boyz met Evolution’s Batista and Randy Orton at a house show on March 1, 2003.

Somehow, The Animal tore his triceps and The Viper broke his foot, with Bubba hurting his back by falling on Orton’s foot and breaking it in the process.

Batista has gone on record as saying how much he hates Bubba, who chewed out his injured opponents after the match, blaming them for how it all went down as they boarded an ambulance heading for the local medical facility.

The heat lingered for a long time, with Bubba later detailing how he and Randy only buried the hatchet when The Dudleys made their WWE return in 2015.

Bubba noted how they shook hands, hugged and talked about their prior issues, putting it all down to a collective lack of maturity.

2. The Rock

At WrestleMania XX, Randy Orton found himself standing across the ring from The Great One when Evolution took on (and beat) The Rock N’ Sock Connection in a two-on-one Handicap Match.

That was Dwayne Johnson’s last match for eight years, as he went off to conquer Hollywood. When The Rock came back to act as the WrestleMania 27 host in 2011, Orton wasn’t convinced he was back for the long haul.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Randy blasted The Rock for appearing via satellite, claimed that Rock didn’t want to be associated with wrestling and said that Cena was 10 times the performer Rocky was.

This, naturally, didn’t sit well with The Rock, who had a word with Vince McMahon, who had a word with Talent Relations chief John Laurinaitis, who had a word with Orton.

The Viper later acknowledged that there was heat there, but it didn’t really amount to much in the grand scheme of things.

1. Mr. Kennedy

Ken Kennedy, a charismatic WWE star once tipped to be a long-term main event player, didn’t do himself any favours.

He’d committed several sins following his main roster debut, from frequent injury layoffs to becoming embroiled in a steroid scandal, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he allegedly nearly broke Randy Orton’s neck.

Kennedy delivered a back suplex to Orton in the 10-man tag main event of the May 25, 2009, episode of Raw, with Randy landing in a way he clearly did not like – even if video evidence suggested it wasn’t the potential career-ender that he thought it was.

According to reports, The Viper openly complained about the ‘unsafe’ Kennedy – who was wrestling his first match in several months - and refused to work with him.

The former United States Champion has also claimed that Orton lobbied Cena to complain to Vince McMahon about his work, which ultimately persuaded McMahon to get rid of him.

Kennedy was bitter about the situation for a long time afterwards, but in recent years has come to accept that his firing didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, and he and Orton have since cleared the air.