Randy Orton will walk into his hometown on Saturday night with one goal in mind: winning the Undisputed WWE Championship. John Cena and Randy Orton have a storied history with one another, but Randy Orton is no stranger to the Backlash event. He’s competed on the show nine times already, with Saturday being his 10th appearance. Cena plans to “ruin wrestling,” but Orton plans to win the WWE Title as he did back in 2009.
Randy Orton is 3-6 All-Time at Backlash
Randy Orton has won just two singles matches at the Backlash event. In his past two matches on the show (2022 and 2024), he came up short in tag matches against The Bloodline. Orton won his first-ever match at the event, a brutal No Holds Barred match against Cactus Jack.
His only other wins came in 2009, a rare six-man tag match for the WWE Title where Orton walked home with the belt, and 2020, where he defeated Edge in “The Greatest Match Ever.”
Randy Orton is 1-3 in WWE Championship Matches
The lone WWE Title win Randy Orton had at Backlash came in a six-man tag, which just doesn’t feel right. Orton teamed with his Legacy brothers, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, to take down Batista, Shane McMahon, and Triple H. The Game was the WWE Champion heading into the event, but the rules stated that if Legacy won, Orton would leave Rhode Island as the champion. That’s exactly what happened, and it’s a one-of-a-kind title change that hasn’t been seen since.
It could be argued that Orton’s most dreadful loss at Backlash came in 2017. The Allstate Arena was left shocked as Jinder Mahal became the WWE Champion in the main event, marking the second time Orton has walked into Backlash as champion but left empty-handed. The other time was part of a fatal four-way elimination match back in 2008 against Triple H, John Cena, and JBL.
Overall, Orton is 1-4 in title matches at Backlash. Back in 2018, Jeff Hardy defeated Randy Orton to retain the United States Championship, meaning Orton’s only win in a title match came when he had two partners by his side. It’s quite a unique circumstance, but that’s how it goes down in the history books.
Last Backlash Win with Fans in Attendance: 2009
Sure, Randy Orton took down Edge at the 2020 Backlash show, but no one was there to see it. Orton and Edge had a cinematic-style match, one that became a focal point of the ThunderDome era. In 2022, Orton teamed with Riddle and Drew McIntyre but fell short to Roman Reigns and The Usos. Last year, Orton and Kevin Owens were unable to defeat Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga in a street fight. It’s been 16 years since Randy Orton has won at Backlash with fans in the crowd, and there would be no better place to rewrite history than in his hometown of St. Louis.