10 WWE Superstars Randy Orton Has Actually Helped Elevate

To no one's surprise, Randy Orton recently re-signed with WWE, and by the time it expires in 2024, he will have been with the company for nearly two and a half decades.

This came after Orton teased jumping to All Elite Wrestling, where he has a fair amount of close acquaintances, on social media. As refreshing as it would have been to see him in a different environment for the first time in his career, there's no denying the massive impact he's had on WWE since his 2002 debut and the value he still has as a performer.

The days of Orton reigning as a world champion are likely over, but that doesn't mean he can't continue to serve as a stepping stone for the talent of tomorrow. He's mostly been a background player for the past year but has been elevating other Superstars his entire career. Other than Triple H and John Cena (who were already main event players when they went to war with him), almost everyone Orton has lost to over the years has been better off for it.

That can be credited to his innate ability to make his opponents look great and feel like they're on his level. From Aleister Black to Ricochet, there's many more superstars who have a lot to gain from feuding with him in the future, but the following 10 notable names were the first to benefit from being put over by Orton.

Edge already had two reigns as WWE champion on his long list of accolades by the time he joined forces with Randy Orton in late 2006, but Rated-RKO undoubtedly played an important role in getting him back to where he belonged in the main event scene.

The Rated-R Superstar's chemistry with Christian was of course off the charts, but his alliance with Orton was so vastly different in a positive way. Their similar egocentric personalities made them a force to be reckoned with in Raw's tag team division and led them to becoming World Tag Team champions soon after.

Orton was also floundering on his own around this point and benefited from the five or so months he teamed with Edge for. Their matches with D-Generation X cemented them as the flagship show's top heels once again, and although their time as a tandem was cut short, it was incredibly entertaining for as long as it lasted.

Both men eventually went their separate ways and unfortunately never got the chance to engage in a full-fledged feud with each other before Edge moved to SmackDown in the spring of 2007. However, there's a good chance Edge would have never amounted to the success that he did on the blue brand had he not first been built back up while with Orton.