The three deadliest letters in the wrestling business; RKO is one of the most entertaining finishers in WWE today. While it is famous for coming out of nowhere, there have been times when the counter to the move came out of nowhere too. It is performed by WWE veteran, Randy Orton and although he enjoys RKO-ing his opponents (and sometimes, his partners too), at times, he was completely fooled by his opponent's presence of mind.
The counters have been nothing short of spectacular ranging from skillful in-ring work to amazing athleticism and, sometimes, brute force and clever thinking too. Some wrestlers were able to avoid the RKO in an artful manner.
9 Christian
One of the hottest feuds heading into Summerslam 2011 was the one between Randy Orton and Captain Charisma, Christian. After finally winning the World Heavyweight Championship back at that year's Money In The Bank PPV after two unsuccessful attempts, a no holds barred match for the championship was set for Summerslam.
The match was decent with quite a few good spots. One of those was when Randy was going for the RKO, but Christian beautifully worked around it and countered it into his finisher, The Killswitch. The peeps loved it for sure!
8 Keith Lee
"The Limitless One" Keith Lee made his main roster debut in August 2020 and immediately went on to make a huge statement by defanging WWE's resident Viper, Randy Orton. Their first encounter ended in a disqualification thanks to interference from Drew McIntyre on an episode of Raw, but their rematch at the Payback pay per view saw Lee pick up a clean victory over Orton after hitting him with the Spirit Bomb.
In one of their encounters on Raw, Randy tried to RKO his opponent after sidestepping a turnbuckle splash only for Keith Lee to not budge and stand firm on his ground; a glorious moment indeed!
7 The Miz
The 2010 Money In The Bank winner, The Miz, cashed in on Randy Orton after Orton had defeated Wade Barrett in a WWE championship match on the 11/23/2010 episode of Raw, thanks to a timely interference by the then-fired John Cena. Randy was favoring his knee throughout the match owing to a pre-match attack by The Nexus.
During the cash-in, Randy put up a fight, but in the end, while going for the RKO, The Miz cleverly countered it into the Skull Crushing Finale, pinned Randy, and went on to become the new WWE Champion.
6 Kurt Angle
In the opening round of the 2006 King Of The Ring tournament, Randy Orton had a mighty task on his hands as he had to get through The Wrestling Machine, Kurt Angle to advance. Two weeks earlier, Rey Mysterio beat both of them in a Triple Threat Match at Wrestlemania 22 to become the World Heavyweight Champion.
In the closing moments of their match on the April 14th episode of Smackdown, Orton was going for the RKO but Kurt had other ideas. He caught Orton by his shoulders, swatted them down to the mat, got a hold of his ankle, and locked in the Angle Lock. He's called a wrestling machine for a reason!
5 Matt Riddle
RK-Bro is easily one of the best things happening on WWE's flagship show every Monday night. The unlikely duo of Randy Ortona and Matt Riddle has captivated the audience thanks to Orton's serious (and sometimes, out-of-character demeanor) and Riddle's extremely laid-back goofy character.
It wasn't all easy-going for the tag team as initially Randy and Riddle met in the ring as foes where Randy wanted to teach a lesson in respect to his opponent. In the final moments of the match, as Randy coiled and jumped up to hit the RKO, Riddle countered it into a rolling crucifix pin and got the victory, much to everyone's surprise!
4 Mustafa Ali
In the words of Randy Orton himself, this is one of the best counters to an RKO he has seen, and rightfully so. Mustafa Ali and Randy Orton faced off at the 2019 Hell In A Cell PPV. The match was at a good pace with both individuals landing good moves at regular intervals on each other.
As the Viper went for his finisher, Ali, who seemingly took the move fooled everyone by doing a front handspring, much to the awe of the WWE Universe (and Randy too) before rolling him up for a near fall.
3 Shinsuke Nakamura
It was a first-time-ever match on an episode of Friday Night SmackDown when Randy Orton took on "The King Of Strong Style" Shinsuke Nakamura with an opportunity to become the No 1 contender for Jinder Mahal's WWE Championship at that year's Hell In A Cell.
The crowd was involved in the match till the very end and were firmly behind Nakamura. The most talked-about moment in the match came about when Randy was about to hit the RKO when Shinsuke, in mid-air, countered it into an armbar. Although Orton powered out of it, The Artist had the last laugh as he pinned Orton after he hit him with The Kinshasa.
2 Cody Rhodes
It was in 2013 when The Authority and Daniel Bryan storyline was 3 months in. On an episode of Raw, Cody Rhodes "politely" confronted Randy Orton and HHH, asking why Randy wouldn't fight Bryan and how the two having a match would be "best for business." Triple H instead booked a match between the former Legacy members with a stipulation that if Cody loses, he will be fired.
The match was action-packed with the crowd as well as Michael Cole showing their support for Cody throughout. The highlight of the match was when Randy was setting up Cody for the RKO when the latter reversed it into a Cross Rhodes, his finisher named after himself, for an extremely near fall.
1 AJ Styles
This is by far one of the most underrated counters to the RKO ever. In 2017, "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles and that year's Royal Rumble winner, Randy Orton went head to head in a match on SmackDown to determine who gets to challenge Bray Wyatt for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 33.
The outcome was predictable but the way the match played out surely made the audience question their assumption. In a very interesting moment, Styles set up Orton for a Phenomenal Forearm, launched himself onto the ropes, scouted that Randy was going to RKO him mid-air and cleverly, dodged it by landing back on the apron. Four years later, Randy got his revenge on a recent episode of Raw when he countered the forearm into an RKO and also, reuniting with Matt Riddle to become RK-Bro.