Ranking Every Sole Survivor In WWE Survivor Series History
1. Randy Orton (Survivor Series 2003, 2004, 2005)
If you needed any evidence of WWE putting faith in a young superstar look no further than Randy Orton between 2003 and 2005. The Viper not only became World Heavyweight Champion in this period, feuding with everyone from The Undertaker to Triple H, but he also became a three-time sole survivor.
The first time he achieved this goal was in arguably the greatest Survivor Series elimination match ever. Representing Eric Bischoff, Orton defeated Steve Austin's final representative, Shawn Michaels, to hand control of Monday Night Raw back to the former owner of WCW. Sure, he had help from Batista but we can forgive that as this match was so passionate and intense. If you haven't seen it go find it on the WWE Network now.
12 months later Orton was now a face after Triple H and the rest of Evolution had turned on him. The stakes were raised again for this match as the members of the winning team would each be granted control of Raw for one night. Even though Maven and Snitsky were involved in this match it was still quite good. Orton eventually won it for his team, beating both Edge and Triple H by himself to claim victory.
At Survivor Series 2005 Orton was a heel again but this time he was fighting for the honour of SmackDown against Team Raw. By this point becoming a three-time sole survivor was part of Orton's gimmick and boy did he live up to it. Even though he had Batista, Rey Mysterio, Bobby Lashley, and JBL on his team, Orton once again found himself on his own. The Apex Predator knew exactly how to get the job done at Survivor Series by this point and for the second time defeated Shawn Michaels to become a three-time sole survivor.
Perhaps those three victories went to Orton's head as he has only survived one elimination match since then. Let's not take anything away from RKO though, who for that three year period owned the Survivor Series elimination match like no other.