6 Times Wrestlers Lost A Match In Order To Move Up The Card

4. Randy Orton - Vengeance '04

Randy Orton Vengeance 2004
WWE.com

2004 will be remembered for many reasons and the emergence of Randy Orton as a major player in WWE will surely be one of the main ones. Orton won the Intercontinental Championship on the final pay-per-view of 2003 and held it all the way through the first half of the next year, defeating Mick Foley in a feud that put him on the map, before also defending the title against Rob Van Dam, Chris Jericho, and others.

Whilst Orton was holding tight to the IC title, Chris Benoit was defeating all-comers as World Heavyweight Champion. Whilst he was successful inside the ring, he wasn't proving to be quite as profitable a champion as previously hoped. Fans weren't interested in seeing Benoit vs. Triple H anymore, and fresh blood was needed.

Two birds were about to be hit with one stone. WWE was also in the midst of a schoolyard argument with Brock Lesnar, and the hope was that a young prodigy could come through quickly so Lesnar's position as youngest world champion could be removed. Orton's timing was impeccable.

However, before moving up Orton had to drop the Intercontinental Championship, which he did at Vengeance '04 against Edge. Two weeks later The Legend Killer won a battle royal to become the number one contender to Benoit's championship at SummerSlam, and the rest is history.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.