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Randy Orton is one of the most recognizable names in WWE. He has been performing in WWE for nearly two decades and has formed great partnerships during his time in the company.
Unsurprisingly, Randy has never performed for any promotion other than WWE. However, he has managed to befriend many wrestlers who have now parted with the company.
AEW is one company that is giving WWE a tough time, and it’s good to see that the new promotion has pulled many top superstars over the past couple of years. The Viper has a number of friends who are now performing for AEW.
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CM Punk, Adam Cole, and Bryan Danielson recently made their AEW debuts. Take a look at six AEW wrestlers who are good friends with Randy in real life.
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#6. Randy Orton is friends with AEW star Jake Hager
Randy and Jake Hager (known as Jack Swagger during his time in WWE) competed in several matches against each other in 2000s. Hager had a decent run in WWE before he went on to join AEW.
Hager competed in WWE for over a decade before parting ways with the company. During his time in WWE, Hager made several good friends, including Randy.
Hager joined The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast for episode #272. He spoke about many topics during the podcast, including his friendship with Randy and the "dive" debate.
“Randy and I were always good friends. Some people don’t like Randy but I personally love him. I’ll take a guy that tells me how he feels 100% than someone who is going to sugarcoat it. What people don’t get about Randy (which I can understand) is that Randy is his father’s son. He understands this business more than a lot of people think he does. He looks at a lot more through his father’s eyes in the way he does things and thinks about things. He is definitely an old soul but he grew up in this business so he has that perspective and he doesn’t want 99 super-kicks in a match, which I get but at the same time you have to do what the market dictates. Social media is a fun thing where you can say how you really feel and it is going to cause a stir about somethings and point a light on things and we all have a voice and that is what it is for. He just has a special touch for getting under people’s skin and I’m sorry but it is hilarious.”
The two men haven’t faced off in the ring for nearly a decade. However, recent events have shown that anything is possible in the world of wrestling. The two wrestlers could end up coming face to face in AEW or WWE in the years to come.
#5. Randy Orton is friends with AEW star Christian Cage
Randy has faced some of the biggest names in the business from WWE, AEW, and many other wrestling promotions. Christian Cage is one man who has a lot of history with The Viper.
Christian found himself in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship picture after Edge’s retirement in 2011. He had some quality matches with Randy during that time. Many fans are already aware of Randy’s friendship with Edge, and The Apex Predator spoke about his relationship with Captain Charisma during the Broken Skull Sessions with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
“Christian is one of the best minds when it comes to creatively looking at a match and figuring out how to execute them. There's stuff I've done with him that I've never done before or after because it was all him. I was able to execute his ideas the way that he saw them. I have to give credit where it's due, he knows his shit.”
Orton named Christian as one of the men closest to him during his time in WWE. He claimed that the now AEW star gave him a lot of ideas that helped him put on good matches.
Christian is part of the AEW roster and has already won the Impact World Championship once. It’d be great to see Randy compete against the AEW star on a big stage someday.
#4-3. Former AEW World Tag Team Champions Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood (FTR) are good friends with Randy Orton
In 2019, Randy Orton aligned himself with FTR (previously known as The Revival in WWE) before the duo headed to AEW. Collectively known as FTRKO, the three men became a pain in the backside of The New Day for some time.
Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood sat down with Jim Cornette for an interview on his podcast. FTR spoke about many different topics related to their AEW debut. They also spoke about their partnership and friendship with Randy.
“With Randy, who has become one of our mentors and one of our really close friends, we talked to him every single day. He fought for us so hard to get us on TV with him every single week because he believed in our work ethic and he believed in what we brought to the table. And we watched him go to Vince every single week, or Hunter or whoever, and say, ‘we gotta keep this up’.”
FTR revealed that Randy continued to push heads in WWE to keep the duo on screen every week. However, Wheeler and Harwood asked for their release from WWE before they went on to join AEW.
FTR is now one of the premier tag teams in AEW, and they could look to reunite with Randy at some point in their career.
#2. AEW Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes is good friends with Randy Orton
Randy’s former tag team partner Cody Rhodes is at the top of AEW today. The two men worked in WWE as part of The Legacy. Randy and Cody won a few titles separately while working together.
After being released from WWE, Cody started to work for other promotions. Meanwhile, Randy continued his phenomenal run on WWE and took a jab at Bullet Club during one of his promos.
A fan of Bullet Club took to Twitter to ask Cody to call Randy out for what he said. However, Cody displayed nothing but love for his former WWE colleague.
"You crazy?! Randy could call me a rat piece of sh!& and I wouldn’t care. Without him, I wouldn’t have cleared a million dollars by 24 without a college education. Learned a lot about wrestling from him, and pretty much everything I know about travel from him," - Cody Rhodes
Cody and Randy are both multi-generational wrestlers. They’ve worked together and against each other in the ring. Cody will definitely try to bag The Apex Predator for AEW before he decides to hang up his boots.
#1. Chris Jericho proved his friendship to Randy Orton before joining AEW
Former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho had some great matches with Randy when the two were part of WWE. Jericho and Randy shared the ring on several occasions, and the two greats always showed why they’re the best in the industry.
Jericho is usually overprotective of his friends in the ring. At WWE SummerSlam 2016, Randy had a dream match with Brock Lesnar. The Beast Incarnate lost his cool during the contest and busted The Viper’s skull open, leaving him in the middle of the ring with a concussion.
The AEW star wasn’t pleased with Lesnar and confronted him on what he’d done to Randy. Accordingly to Y2J, he was looking out for a good friend when he did so.
The Viper later spoke about the incident and said that Jericho wanted to ensure that "his boy" was fine in the ring:
“Basically, what happened is Jericho saw what was going on in the ring and wanted answers as to whether my best interests were in mind as far as my health and safety,” explained Orton. “I had my family there, sitting front row, and Chris knew that as well. He was just coming up to check on his boy, that’s what it boiled down to, and I think that’s awesome.”
Jericho and Randy are currently performing on rival promotions, but they haven’t shied away from interacting on social media. Will Orton join AEW one day and face Chris Jericho again?
