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| Bratty Orton is the best Orton Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Randy Orton has mostly been a disappointment in his WWE career. The fans never took to him like they took to Cena, despite WWE hammering his square peg ass into every round hole they could find. Hey, that method worked for Triple H, didn't it? He was cantankerous and had an affinity for controlled substances. When his ship had sailed after Mark Henry made him the highest-profile inductee into the Hall of Pain, he coasted on his laurels, in character of course. He was the guy who won, which made for a boring selection for consumption for a fan like me. As long as he did RKOs out of nowhere, though, the live crowds gave the reactions Vince McMahon craved.
For as much as I've hemmed, hawed, raged, and sighed quietly about Orton's burgeoning malaise, his general yuckface bringing had a sterling silver lining. It set the table for the utter brilliance he's been projecting since he became the Face of WWE. Would a sulking, attention-starved Orton elicit as much a reaction if he had been lighting the world on fire in the years prior? Would his over-explaining have carried as much weight if the general consensus on him as a performer wasn't that he was lacking? Would his utter entitlement be as stark if the Wellness violations and the rumors of his maltreatment of women in WWE ended up keeping him in the back of the pack with the Mr. Kennedys and MVPs of the world?
Line-blurring storytelling is all the rage in WWE, but the best examples of any kind of angle-building aren't in what's said. It's in what gets shown. CM Punk's original pipe bomb was great, and I'm taking nothing away from it, but I think trotting someone out to make folks at Deadspin or whatever wonder if what's happening on TV is real or not is low hanging fruit. The easy scores should always be supplemented with the harder-to-get, more nutritious grabs from higher up the tree.
Orton's build blurs every single one of those lines, but it did so without the headline-grabbing panache of Punk sitting cross-legged on a stage. Usually, subtlety and Orton don't mix, and a lot of what made the Viper's character development so satisfying has been the recounting of events in the driest possible mode. However, the matter-of-fact nature of Orton's character, coupled with the entitlement and the golden child treatment and the needless aggression towards any slight and the alpha-male posturing with The Shield has all played into this perception of the man perpetrated by fan rumors, dirt sheet reports, and news items about his various bad behavior. WWE almost undoubtedly wanted a spoiled brat as their main villain over the beginning of the Authority's reign, so why not go with the guy that they believe everyone thinks is the biggest immature manchild this side r/MensRights?
John Cena, the character, being right made the most sense in the world. WWE found a character against whom his earnestness could resonate the loudest. Orton also becomes the one character who could beat unstoppable one-armed juggernaut Cena and get away with it. Truthfully, Damien Sandow could and should have defeated Cena at his weakest, especially since his follow-up would be two gimmick matches leading into the Intercontinental Championship race. To be completely fair, once the two big titles are unified, the IC Belt becomes what the World Heavyweight Championship was, but at the same time, I'm not sure beating Big E Langston, still in his nascence as a character, carries the same cache as besting Cena, regardless of physical state. WWE dropped the ball huge on Sandow, at least in the short term. But I digress.
Anyway, WWE found a way to make slight amends for an autumn of mostly wasted potential. I find that they were able to fabricate redemption in the form of arguably the most tired feud in their history, but this Cena/Orton go-around feels so much different than their former tangos.
The credit can go completely to Orton, who has become one of the best characters on the show, even if only by accident.