10 WWE Superstars Randy Orton Has Actually Helped Elevate
8. Daniel Bryan
Despite reigning as World Heavyweight champion for the first quarter of 2012 and breaking out as one of WWE's most popular stars in recent years, Daniel Bryan's return to world title glory was far from a lock.
It seemed the company was content with keeping him at the tag team level alongside Kane until the reactions he was receiving in the summer of 2013 became too loud to ignore.
Before challenging John Cena for the WWE Championship at that year's SummerSlam, he was first put in a program with Randy Orton to prepare him for the main event push he was about to receive. Both men were babyfaces at the time, but that didn't change how entertaining their encounters were and how WWE's resident "Yes!" man was able to show the world he was, in fact, a top-tier talent.
Bryan's clean victory over Orton in the main event of Raw set him up to capture the WWE title at SummerSlam and rekindle his rivalry with The Viper soon after. Bryan again beat him for the belt at Night of Champions, only to stripped of it the next night. He ultimately avenged his Hell in a Cell loss to Orton many months later at WrestleMania XXX, where Bryan became the WWE World Heavyweight champion in the main event.