John Cena Retains Championship Against Randy Orton At WWE Backlash

All Hell broke loose after two different referees ended up becoming collateral damage of Cena and Orton's onslaught against one another. When the second ref went down, that's when Aldis and his team of producers hit the ring to assess the situation. Each one of them fell to an RKO with the St. Louis crowd losing their collective mind with each one of them.

After clearing the ring, Orton had Cena lined up for a punt only to be stopped by R-Truth of all people. Truth rushed to the ring to protect his childhood hero and ate an RKO for his trouble.

That last distraction, however, allowed Cena enough time to recover and hit Orton with a low blow. He then cracked The Viper with the WWE Championship belt and scored the three count from the original referee, who had roused at just the right moment.

Cena closed out the night by grabbing a microphone. He told production to cut his music, because he didn't need it. All he needed was some competition.

This match was promoted as the last time these two storied rivals would ever compete one-on-one. The first time these two faced one another was all the way back on August 9, 2001. A 21-year-old Randy Orton defeated The Prototype at the Brian Pillman Memorial at Oak Hills High School in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio.

They would meet again a year later as members of the Ohio Valley Wrestling roster, before moving on to WWE. Cena and Orton would end up having hundreds of matches with each other across their Hall of Fame careers, when you include live house shows, television programs and Premium Live Events.

John Cena now has 24 appearances left before he retires from in-ring competition forever. His next scheduled appearance, as of this writing, is Saturday Night's Main Event in Tampa, Florida on May 24.