5 WWE Superstars who complained to management about colleagues
Regardless of their on-screen roles as babyfaces or heels, WWE Superstars have to work together to tell compelling stories and entertain audiences around the world.
CM Punk and John Cena, for example, were involved in heated rivalries on WWE television in the early 2010s, but both men have made it clear in out-of-character interviews that they have a huge amount of respect for each other.
On the flip side, there have been some Superstars throughout WWE history who have taken exception to something that has happened with their in-ring rival – so much so that they felt the need to complain about them to WWE management.
In this article, let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at five WWE Superstars who complained to the company’s higher-ups about their colleagues.
#5 Randy Orton complained to WWE officials about Kofi Kingston
Throughout the 2010s, there was a long-standing rumor that Kofi Kingston’s WWE push in 2010 came to an abrupt end after Randy Orton complained about him to company officials.
The two Superstars competed in a Triple Threat match – also involving John Cena – on a January 2010 episode of RAW to determine a No.1 contender for Sheamus’ WWE Championship.
Orton was supposed to win the match by hitting Kingston with his trademark punt kick to the head, but the future New Day member kept getting back to his feet every time “The Viper” positioned himself to deliver the move.
This led Orton to improvise by hitting Kingston with an aggressive RKO to pick up the victory, while he repeatedly shouted “Stupid! Stupid!” at his opponent before covering him for the pinfall.
Nine years after the incident, Kingston retained the WWE Championship against Orton at SummerSlam and Clash of Champions in 2019.
Speaking to FOX News during the time of the storyline, he confirmed the rumor about his on-screen rival complaining about him a decade earlier.
"It was a very real thing, not a storyline thing, when Randy Orton didn't want me to get to a certain point in WWE. As you saw ten years ago, I was kind of on the rise and logic would suggest that I would have become Champion based on the run I was having at the time and Randy Orton put a stop to all of that."