11 WWE Rivalries That Defined The 2000s

11. John Cena Vs. Randy Orton

Hey, we might have all been sick of this match and its 8,952 incarnations before the year 2010 rolled around, but there's no doubting that it was an important rivalry, one of the most important of the 2000s.

The OVW-trained Cena and Orton both debuted on Smackdown in the spring of 2002 as part of WWE's concerted effort to push some of their young prospects, which also included the likes of Brock Lesnar and Batista. The two men started off as whiter than white meat babyfaces but gradually developed into top-tier performers over the next two years. A major rivalry between the two was seemingly inevitable.

Their first singles match, a sub-four minute effort on the November 14th, 2005 Eddie Guerrero tribute show episode of Raw was pretty damn innocuous, and the two would run into each other intermittently until they clashed in their heavily-hyped WWE Title match at SummerSlam 2007.

That match was a scorcher worthy of headlining one of the biggest pay-per-views of the year. Clearly, WWE had a winning formula here, with the devious, calculating Orton and the heroic, never-say-die Cena and they continued to book them in marquee matches at Unforgiven '07 and No Way Out 2008.

In 2009, Cena and Orton clashed on four separate occasions in singles matches on PPV (SummerSlam, Breaking Point, Hell in a Cell and Bragging Rights), and many more times in multi-man efforts. While the action varied in terms of quality, the fans were always into it as they were totally caught up in the Cena/Orton narrative.

Was the feud play-out by the end? Yes, but it carried WWE programming for a significant period of time and produced some truly special matches, so it makes the list.