WWE Royal Rumble: Ranking Every Winner After Lynch, Rollins Wins

Credit: WWE.com

27. Randy Orton (2009)

Randy Orton, depending on the day, is either one of the greatest of all time or just another guy going through the motions. In 2009, Orton was establishing him as the former through some top notch character work. As leader of The Legacy, Orton was cold, sadistic, and came off as legitimately dangerous.

At the Royal Rumble, the arching narrative of the match was largely centered around Orton and his henchman in his Legacy faction, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, Jr. In fact, all three made it to the final four, in which they faced off with Triple H, Orton’s nemesis at the time. While “The Game” was able to overcome Rhodes and DiBiase, he was ultimately unable to conquer Orton, and “The Viper” captured the ticket to WrestleMania XXV’s main event.

Incidentally, in the time between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, Triple H was able to capture the WWE Championship, meaning that he and Orton would square off on the Grandest Stage of Them All.

While the ensuing feud was red hot, infamously involving home invasions and assaults on family members, the match itself was a dull affair, mostly owing to the stipulation that Triple H would lose the Championship if disqualified. This meant that the contest itself was contested mostly cleanly, with the two wrestling a standard match far removed from the blood feud that fans had seen on television. Triple H ultimately won the match, though Orton would win the belt in a six man tag match at the next month’s Backlash pay-per-view.

Orton would go on to feud with Batista, briefly losing the Championship, but regaining it when “The Animal” suffered a legitimate injury. He would finish out the year with a series of matches with John Cena that WWE’s revisionist history has declared an epic rivalry, but which audiences quickly grew tired of. Overall, not a great year.