Randy Orton
American professional wrestler (born 1980)
Randal Keith Orton (born April 1, 1980) is an American professional wrestler. He has been signed to WWE since 2000, where he performs on the SmackDown brand. Widely regarded as one of WWE's greatest professional wrestlers, Orton has the tied-third most world championship reigns in history, and a career spanning over 20 years.
Orton is a third-generation professional wrestler; his grandfather Bob Orton, father Bob Orton Jr., and uncle Barry Orton were all wrestlers. Before being signed by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), he trained in and wrestled for the Mid-Missouri Wrestling Association-Southern Illinois Conference Wrestling (MMWA-SICW). He was then signed by the WWF and was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), where he held the OVW Hardcore Championship twice.
Orton debuted on the main roster in 2002, soon joining the Evolution stable, and as part of the group, became the youngest world champion in WWE history after he won WWE's World Heavyweight Championship in 2004. He was kicked out of the stable as a result, and entered singles competition. Orton has held the WWE Championship 10 times and the World Heavyweight Championship four times. He was the final holder of the World Heavyweight Championship, which he unified with the WWE Championship to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion in 2013.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Randy Orton” is american professional wrestler (born 1980). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Randy, Orton and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american professional wrestler (born 1980)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q44449. VIAF identifies the subject as 95352964. The Library of Congress control number is n2009005842. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2000, 2002 and 2004.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Randy Orton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.