The Most Legendary 2000s Wrestling Feuds Of All Time

The first decade of the 21st century is one of the weirdest times in all of professional wrestling, as the business looked drastically different at the start of it than how it did at the end. On January 1, 2000, professional wrestling was as mainstream as pop music and Disney movies. The WWF was firing on all cylinders, WCW was still popular to an extent, and despite being crippled financially since the moment it was conceived, ECW was on cable television and was a solid number three in the power rankings of American wrestling companies.

However, by December 31, 2009, the business was arguably at the lowest point it had been in many years. Both WCW and ECW were long gone, All Japan Pro Wrestling had a mass exodus that lead to Pro Wrestling NOAH being formed, which would also go on a steep decline by the end of 2009 after the death of Mitsuharu Misawa, and WWE were officially PG again, killing off any of the fans who gravitated towards the company during the heights of the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras. Even companies that are still going strong today, like TNA and ROH, had already had their first golden ages, and were having some teething problems in trying to establish themselves as the distinct number two promotion behind WWE.

But for all of the bad that came out of the 2000s, and believe me there was a lot of it, the decade did produce matches that are now heralded as all-time classics, promos and segments that have take on lives of their own thanks to the power of social media, and rivalries that are so iconic that fans these days will look back on them with all the enthusiasm of a grandparent being asked what it was like when you were allowed to smoke indoors.

The latter of which is what we're here to talk about today, the feuds and rivalries that have stood the test of time for how great they were, and for how much they stood out at a time when wrestling really needed something different. So sit back, relax, and join me on a journey to the decade where social media and the Marvel Cinematic Universe were created, as we take a look at the most legendary wrestling rivalries of the 2000s, and since there are only five spots, don't be offended is left off the list.

A timely inclusion considering that Bully Ray recently challenged Matt and Jeff Hardy to, as he called it, "The last great tag team match" at TNA's Slammiversary pay-per-view, and the fact that Adam "Cope" Copeland told Christian Cage to "Go find himself" at AEW's All In Texas pay-per-view as a reunion between the team formerly known as Edge and Christian looks to be on the horizon. Whether or not you think these three teams should still be playing the hits in 2025 shouldn't take away what they achieved during their rivalry during the height of WWE's Attitude Era.

Technically beginning in 1999 when Edge and Christian and The Hardys had the first-ever tag team ladder match at that year's WWE No Mercy pay-per-view, it wasn't until The Dudleys came along that they started advancing through the gears at an accelerated rate. The Hardys and The Dudleys would have the first-ever tag team tables match at the 2000 Royal Rumble, before Bubba Ray and D-Von snagged the WWE Tag Team Championships from the New Age Outlaws at the following month's No Way Out event. From that point on, between No Way Out 2000 on February 27, to the April 17, 2001 episode of "WWE SmackDown," there were only 62 days where either Edge and Christian, The Dudley Boyz, or The Hardy Boyz didn't have the WWE Tag Team Championships.

WWE is extremely guilty of letting its tag team division rot at times, but when these six men were involved in the early 2000s, it was must-watch TV. A show-stealing Triangle Ladder match at WrestleMania 16 eventually led to the creation of the Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match at SummerSlam that August, and after trading the titles back and forth in various matches proving how evenly matched they all were, they had one of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time in 2001 with TLC 2 at WrestleMania 17. While The Dudleys and The Hardys would technically continue feuding until the end of the Invasion angle and very briefly into 2002, WrestleMania 17 saw the end of a tag team rivalry that is still talked about to this day.

An honorable mention for a feud around this same time, of course, goes to The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, but because the meat and potatoes of that feud took place in the 1990s, it didn't make the cut on this occasion.

The formative years of the Ruthless Aggression era were very strange as WWE threw everything at their audience to make them stick around, as the end of the Attitude Era, as well as the deaths of WCW and ECW, led to many fans leaving. Things WWE tried included necrophilia, lesbians, terrorism, and Torrie Wilson's dad dying from having too much of a good time with Dawn Marie. It was a time to say the least.

But one of the shining lights of that period was the return of Shawn Michaels. Reborn after discovering Jesus Christ following many personal struggles outside the ring, "The Heartbreak Kid" returned to WWE in 2002 as a full-time member of the roster, and rather than having him play the hits with Triple H as part of D-Generation X, "The Game" turned heel and became the biggest villain in the entire company. To counter Triple H's evil, Michaels was his perfect foil, as it was very clear almost immediately that he could not only go as well as he used to, but he might have gotten even better than he was before.

Their unsanctioned match from SummerSlam 2002 is still seen as one of the best WWE matches of the 21st century, and the aftermath would not signal to the fans that this feud was here to stay, but it made HBK's eventual World Heavyweight Championship win at that year's Survivor Series even sweeter. From there, the two would have a hellacious "Three Stages of Hell" match at Armageddon in December 2002 that saw the former friends push each other off ladders and hit each other with flaming barbed wire bats, and would continuously interfere in each other's business throughout 2003.

Even more blood was spilled in 2004, especially in the main event of WrestleMania 20, one of the best main events in WWE history that simply can't be talked about because of the third man in that match. What can be talked about is the conclusion to their feud, their Hell in a Cell match from Bad Blood 2004, which, if you can believe it, is still happening as we speak. While it may have ended on a sour note to some fans, Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels is absolutely one of the defining feuds of the 2000s. 

When you think about wrestling in the 2000s, one of the last things you might think about is women's wrestling, especially in WWE. While they had some progress by reintroducing the WWE Women's Championship at the end of the Invasion storyline, they were still miles behind TNA's Knockouts division that had become one of that company's strongest points, and even the dark age of Joshi wrestling in Japan as the limited footage from companies like GAEA is still as critically acclaimed as the Joshi golden era of the 1990s. However, there is one defining women's feud from the 2000s, one that, if it had never happened, a number of WWE's top female performers today wouldn't be in the business at all.

Lita and Trish Stratus had crossed paths many times in the early 2000s, but it wasn't until 2004 when Lita had gotten back into the swing of things following a lengthy spell on the shelf with a broken neck, as well as ill-fated pregnancy angle involving Matt Hardy, Kane, and Snitsky, and Stratus had turned heel in the most Canadian way possible by slapping a big fat kiss on Christian at WrestleMania 20 right in front of Chris Jericho. Stratus had been dragging Lita's name through the mud over the pregnancy angle and the fact that she had pinned Lita in a Fatal Four Way match to become the WWE Women's Champion, but after Stratus called Lita "chubby," Lita proceeded to do what anyone would do in that situation and break Trish's nose.

The feud was so hot by the end of 2004 that the two women main evented the December 6 episode of "WWE Raw," a match that is labelled as the first-ever women's match to main event "Raw" when it was technically the second, but Lita's infamous Suicide Dive to the outside, Trish's face mask, and the intensity of the match are all factors in that night being a historic one for both women, and women's wrestling in general. Sadly, the momentum was abruptly halted at the start of 2005 when Lita tore her ACL in another singles match against Stratus, and the feud eventually fizzled out, but for a brief period of time in the 2000s, it was the women who ruled WWE, something that is much more common in today's world.

Shining the spotlight away from WWE for a moment, as there were a lot of memorable rivalries across the world in various companies. AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, and Samoa Joe's three-way feud in TNA is seen as one of the finest things TNA has ever produced, Blood Generation and DO-Fixer's work in Dragon Gate is arguably the most influential rivalry of the modern era that no one talks about, and in Ring of Honor, they were going through one of the most critically acclaimed golden ages that any company has ever seen.

CM Punk's rivalries with the likes of Raven, Samoa Joe, and Jimmy Rave are all as memorable as each other, Kevin Steen and El Generico's wars with The Briscoes are some of the greatest tag bouts of all time, and ROH's company wide feud with CZW might be the best example of how to do an "Invasion" style story ever. However, if there is one feud that personified why Ring of Honor in the 2000s is so fondly remembered, it's Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinness, and if you've ever watched an episode of "AEW Collision" and wondered why Nigel keeps calling Bryan every name under the sun, it's because of this feud.

Danielson vs. McGuinness was the simple story of one man becoming so obsessed with being seen as the best wrestler in the world that it eventually tears down his entire life. Bryan was the undisputed king of ROH, but Nigel believed he was better and would go to obscene physical lengths to prove that. Their series of matches is the stuff of legend amongst ROH fans these days, particularly their match in Liverpool, England in 2006, where Nigel gave himself a whopper of a concussion by repeatedly headbutting the ring post, and their ROH World Championship match from the company's sixth anniversary show in 2008.

The lengths Nigel went to would ultimately be a contributing factor to him being forced into an early retirement in 2011, but if you want the full breakdown on what made this feud so special, YouTuber Joseph Montecillo's three-part series covers everything, even their most recent match at the Grand Slam edition of "AEW Dynamite" in 2024.

It's the feud that, time and time again, WWE has heralded as the rivalry to end all rivalries in the modern era. Some of the story between John Cena and Randy Orton may have taken place in the 2010s, and even in the 2020s, thanks to Cena's retirement tour, the bulk of their rivalry in the 2000s helped shape both men into household names for decades to come.

After coming through the same OVW class together in 2002, Cena and Orton's paths have been interwoven throughout their entire careers, and while there are fans in 2025 who were very nostalgic for their rivalry to be rekindled with Cena as a heel, their best work as a pairing came in the 2000s when Orton was such an overpowered heel that "2009 Orton" has become something of a final boss character amongst those same fans. However, it would be in 2007 when their rivalry took off as Orton not only punted Cena's father in the head, but ended up putting Cena on the shelf for three months, taking his WWE Championship in his absence.

When Cena came back, Orton was strategic in how he kept Cena from reclaiming the title, attacking referees to get himself disqualified, and just being the slimiest champion you have ever seen. Things would only escalate when Orton reached his aforementioned final form and having a series of matches throughout 2009 that would see both men trading the WWE Championship back and forth until their 60-minute Iron Man Match at Bragging Rights in October. As time went on, their feud would only become more layered and complicated to the point where many fans had grown tired of it by the time 2013 rolled around, but if Cena and Orton had wrapped up their tale in 2009, it would have been the stuff WWE dreams are made of.

Also, a big shout out to CM Punk and Jeff Hardy, who were feuding at the exact same time, and to many, had the better feud. However, the longevity and impact Cena and Orton's feud had on their careers, and WWE as a whole, they get the nod on this one.