The Orton/Cena feud. While the matches are generally good, Cena and Orton don't have much chemistry on the stick. Their staredowns never matched Rock/Austin staredowns. (The absolute s i l e n c e during Cena and Orton's staredown in the 2011 Rumble is incredible.) It doesn't help that, unlike with Rock/Austin, the dynamic hasn't changed one bit over the years. Eventually the company got the message and they haven't done another run of the feud since 2014.
A few fans believe that Cena's true Foil was CM Punk or, to a lesser extent, Edge. Randy's rivalry with Christian is regarded as the closest he ever came to a similar dynamic, but it never came to full fruition thanks to Christian being at the tail end of his career by that point.
Awesome Music: Voices by Rev Theory, his second theme. There's a good reason he's never had another one since, and it's that this song is downright iconic.
Not only has he not been pushed as hard in 2012-2013 as he has in previous years, but he just doesn't come off as nearly intimidating as he used to personality-wise. It becomes readily apparent when he tries to get former arch-rivalsSheamus and The Big Show to team up with him against The Shield. The bizarreness of this is actually lampshaded at one point by The Miz, who essentially says that when Randy Orton of all people is the voice of reason in a situation, that situation's extremely screwed up. As of 2016, this has been safely averted. His crowning achievement was sneaking into Raw after the brand split and RKOing Brock Lesnar, of all people, outta nowhere.
He's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his atrociousWrestleCrap-worthy WWE Championship match with Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33. Which featured Bray displaying his newfound "powers" by causing maggots and centipedes to appear in the ring through the incredible mystic arts of Power Point projections. This farce of a match benefited neither man. No possible outcome, Randy's actual win included, could dispel the insane amounts of Narminess that the match created, counting this as Badass Decay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the WWE Championship itself. Then came the now infamous House of Horrors match... See Nightmare Retardant down below for more information on that stinker. It doesn't help that he lost that match. Then comes Backlash 2017. Where he drops his WWE championship to Jobber-to-the-stars-turned-overnight-Main-Eventer Jinder Mahal. Yes you read that right, the same Jinder from Job Squad 4.0 3MB.
Base-Breaking Character: While casual fans tend to love him, Smarks are ridiculously broken when it comes to their attitude about him on many counts:
Is Orton a legitimate talent worthy of his accolades, or another company-manufactured Creator's Pet who gets by on his connection with Triple H and his decent pedigree? (Insert obligatory joke here.)
Does Orton wrestle a simplistic style because he's incapable of doing otherwise, or does he have a method to his madness and know exactly what he's doing, preventing injuries while still keeping up strong psychology?
Which Randy Orton incarnation was/is more interesting/effective — the sadistic, vicious Viper or the cocky, suave Legend Killer?
As of late 2013/early 2014, a third contender has been added: craven, paranoid, overmatched (would-be) Champion.
To put this in perspective, what you think of a guy like John Cena divides rather neatly along age (or, rather, whether you got into wrestling pre- or post-2004 or so) and how aware one is of in-ring technical nuance and backstage booking practices. With Orton it's a bit more complicated. There are a contingent of smarks that really like Orton despite his having a lot of the same attributes that prompt their vitriol for John Cena. He was a "handpicked golden boy" from youth, is almost perpetually in the main event scene, is thought to have backstage powers, and has been running a similar character and moveset with very little variation for years. He's also not the greatest talker (although people that think as much of Cena usually aren't giving the devil his due), and — unlike Cena — has or at least had a reputation out of character for being a bit of a dick. Some of the reasons why Orton's not given the Cena treatment to such a huge degree may include:
His win/loss record isn't nearly as unbalanced as Cena's is.
His anti-hero face character is a lot more of a vogue nowadays whilst Cena's straight hero gimmick is a dated concept that a more cynical type can't get behind. Think Golden Age Superman vs... well, really most modern portrayals of superheroes.
He's thought to be — especially when he puts forth the effort — a better technician and in-ring storyteller than Cena.
He had turned heel — and in fact played a very good heel and foil to Cena. Beyond that, it's a known fact he much prefers playing the heel and is only ever used as a face due to popularity.
He's also garnered a small level of sympathy once he owned up to his substance abuse problems and self destructive tendencies outside the ring.
It's worth noting that Orton has picked up a reputation as a bit of a "wrestler's wrestler," much admired and respected by his fellow performers even as he divides general audiences. The Revival have cited him as one of the best professional wrestlers in the world.
Legacy as a stable are remembered for a failed attempt at turning Ted DiBiase Jr. and Cody Rhodes into stars (Cody would break out much later) and for the colossal ton of Ho Yay between the three. It was noted how none of them ever seemed to wear pants backstage.
Randy himself was known for taking his shirt off at every opportunity and having questionable photos online rather than his in-ring achievements. As of The New '10s, he has transcended this.
Creator's Pet: The reason that Orton has been pushed to the moon is because Vince McMahon is a huge supporter of Orton's, so much so that Orton reportedly has backstage powers.
Designated Hero: After allying with The Wyatt Family through much of late 2016 and early 2017, Randy turned against Bray on the February 28th edition of Smackdown by... dousing the Wyatt Family compound, the last resting place of Sister Abigail, in gasoline and burning it to the ground. It was supposed to be a Heel–Face Turn, but a lot of people were asking why they should get behind a guy who literally burns Bray's home to the ground in front of him while Bray was desperately begging Randy not to and had a total breakdown afterwards, complete with Broken Tears.
If it's true that the winners write the history books, then it's a wonder Orton's pen hasn't run dry.
WWE seems to be aware of this too. His face turn in 2009 has consisted simply of Orton attacking heels instead of faces, and playing to the crowd slightly more than when he was heel.
Randy's come out on record several times in 2012 saying that he would much rather play a heel. He got his wish the following year, but it subverted the above trope, as he's been made to seem significantly less threatening. For what it's worth, though, he does seem to be enjoying himself in the role.
Harsher in Hindsight: The storyline where he threatened Kelly Kelly takes on a slightly more sinister light as if his infamous radio interview years later where she was brought up and he spent a few minutes Slut-Shaming her. What's more is that in a shoot interview, Kelly claimed that she was uncomfortable with some of the things he was scripted to say to her on TV and asked for them to be changed.
In his debut, a then-heel Stacy Keibler got him to strip and arranged to be caught in a compromising position with him. Fast forward to late 2004 when Randy got Stacy, now his girlfriend on-screen, to participate in a live striptease segment on Raw, and later RKO'd her in his quest to beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania 21.
His giving the RKO to The Fabulous Moolah in 2003 was seen as a Kick the Dog moment at the time (given she had just turned 80). Once Moolah's dirty laundry became public in The New '10s (financially abusing her trainees, sabotaging careers of people she didn't like, pimping out trainees and forcing them to become dependent on her) it now looks like Laser-Guided Karma.
With Triple H and Batista in Evolution, a boatload of it with Edge in Rated-RKO, and with John Cena pretty much any time they're within ten feet of each other.
Most of the cases with John Cena.
Taken to an absurd degree with Legacy, to the point where it's what the stable is best known for.
His Punt Kick has become this. It was under legitimate ban status for a while and had completely disappeared from his moveset but in recent years, he's at least teased using it. He's never been allowed to connect with it, though - any time he tries it will get stopped somehow, and if he manages to actually see the move to completion, it always gets dodged or countered.
This served to make it even more impactful and shocking when he brought it back out for the first time in about seven years to beat Edge in 2020.
The "RKO Outta Nowhere" vine, which consists of images of Orton photoshopped into other vines where normal falls and mishaps turn into Randy RKO-ing the victim to the ground (and usually posing afterward), suddenly went viral in 2014. Randy himself even acknowledges the meme and re-tweets his favorites. Officially became an Ascended Meme with the RKO T-shirt and the way he delivered an RKO to Brock Lesnar on Raw on 8/1/16.
"Randy Orton is an AEW recruiter", thanks to a trend in 2021 of legends that he beat up not long before showing up in AEW. The Big Show, Christian and Mark Henry are all legends that decided WWE was no longer for them shortly after an encounter with Randy Orton, leading to joking theories that he is secretly an AEW spy tasked with poaching hall of famers.
"The closest Christian will ever get to touching this title...is when I nail him over the head with it. Again."
Some of the things he's does in his "Viper" gimmick (such as flailing his arms about and punching the ground) can be seen as pretty silly-looking at times. In fact, during a tag match after WrestleMania, Jerry Lawler started giggling a little when it started to look like Orton was just humping the ground, retorting with "He's so snake like!"
And of course, there's the stupider Malaproper moments in some of his promos, too.
That random jumping split after he RKO'd Mark Henry.
His post match assault of Christian following his DQ loss at Money in the Bank featured some truly goofy facial expressions.
On an episode of Smackdown, while Randy's on the warpath looking for Alberto Del Rio, he stops for a moment backstage to torment Ricardo Rodriguez. RKO? No. Punt. Nope. note Apparently Randy's no longer allowed to use the Punt, presumably because he has to act somewhat like a face — or maybe because it's too easily imitated by small children that might be watching. He does douse poor Ricardo in coffee and chilinote which Rodriguez sold as if he were being set on fire by the way — which was admittedly funny, but didn't seem like a very Randy Orton thing to do.
Injuring his shoulder performing his wake-up taunt for the RKO probably goes down in history as stupidest wrestling injury ever. Though Sami Zayn doing the same thing while being fired up for his main roster appearance in Montreal may surpass it.
This sentence will stick with him for the rest of his career, one he'sveryashamed of: "Let me tell you something, bro, Eddie ain't in Heaven, Eddie's down there…in Hell!"
The now infamous House of Horrors match he had with Bray is quickly turning into this.
Mostly his Twitter. He's supposed to be The Stoic and all that gets blown to pieces when you hear him do some of the typical "lmao"-type tweeting. When he actually used the word "Yippee," it made it a little harder to take his "Viper" character seriously.
His entrance at WrestleMania 33 looked very much like sperm was being sprayed over the audience. He later regretted it as well.
The appropriately named House of Horrors gimmick match Randy had with Bray Wyatt is bordering on So Bad, It's Good territory a la The Final Deletion, but most people expecting a serious segment view it as horrible instead.
Overshadowed by Controversy: He's still dogged by the stories of being a backstage bully to this day, especially the Amy Weber incident, which was twisted around and confused with other backstage gossip. The story about him defecating in her handbag actually happened to Sable, years before he was even in the company. The other story involved Randy apparently spreading flyers of a strip club Amy Weber used to work in all over the locker room, but Amy set the record straight in 2020; the boys found an advertisement for a Japanese strip club that used a photo she had taken years before for a catalogue (which was also stolen by the way, and she promptly took them to court over it) and it was more playful ribbing that didn't bother her as much. The actual incident was Randy attacking her on the plane home, knocking her out of her chair as 'punishment' for taking two Ibuprofen from the men's locker room at the advice of the trainer after she'd got injured. Coupling that with his Slut-Shaming of Kelly Kelly in an interview, and it cemented his reputation as the resident misogynist bully.
While him winning the WHC from Christian sent him right to the bottom of the heap to a majority of the Smark audiences, others have claimed that the matches he's had since have been Randy at his most entertaining in years.
A bizarre thing happened after Randy cashed in on Daniel Bryan (with Triple H's help) to win the WWE Championship Title. Initially, of course, this turned him heel (and, in fact, might have been the only thing he could have done at the time to make a successful heel turn) and one would think that he would became and remain the object of a lot of fans' vitriol for this action. But after Batista's win at the Royal Rumble, all of the heat that was reserved for Orton was siphoned off onto Batista, so that Orton just became another heel and not the embodiment of the fans' overall frustration with WWE's booking.
People like face Orton less because Randy tends to be very bland in that role, and thus lamented when Randy came back as a face in 2016. However, his time away from the company had seemingly rejuvenated his batteries — not only was Randy talking and acting energetically, who also seemed not to give a damn about the officials in the back and made numerous innuendos and jokes that were genuinely funny, including a dig at Brock Lesnar's then-recent steroids scandal. People were sold on the new Randy almost immediately.
And then it only got better with his RKO Outta Nowhereon Brock Lesnar during his return to Raw. And capped off by running into the crowd and giving Stephanie McMahon a major headache trying to get him out of the building. He won over nearly all of the remaining skeptics with that.
Joining The Wyatt Family seemed like it would cause fans to turn on him (or the faction itself) at first but instead it seems to have only amplified the popularity gained from the above; possibly because the company seems to be committing to it instead of setting up an inevitable Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal as quickly as fans expected, and because it has helped to massively overturn the Badass Decay of both Orton and the Family as a whole... at least until Randy pointlessly turn on Bray after helping Bray win the WWE Championship, burning the Wyatt Family compound down, leading to a truly awful pair of matches against Bray at Wrestlemania 33 and Payback 2017. After this, the IWC's sounds of apathy towards Randy were deafening.
His run in 2020, arguably the year everyone remembered why Randy Orton is considered a legend. His feud with Edge revitalized him, as it brought back this diabolical streak he has been missing for a while. What he's does to a lot of legends in WWE, just how ruthless he was, it led to everyone agreeing that Randy deserves another run as Champion, which also came to be when he defeated Drew McIntyre at Hell in a Cell the same year.
So Okay, It's Average: This is the most common form of criticism towards Randy at the latter stage of his career. His matches are competently laid out, every well-executed move flowing smoothly into the next, with appropriate peaks and troughs at the appropriate time to communicate the intended story to the audience. However, while he never puts a foot wrong, he also never does anything fresh, new or interesting. He seems content to coast towards his guaranteed respectful send-off and Hall of Fame induction operating at a constant 5/10.
He visibly went easy on The Fabulous Moolah when he RKO'd her.
The whole House of Horrors match, which was just a glorified Boiler Room Brawl in a house. Especially when Bray Wyatt had it go from blue lighting to red lighting when it was over instead of burning it to the ground.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: When his leg was broken by CM Punk during their 2011 feud. Given Orton's history of using said leg to deliberately concussion-kick people (including Punk himself and his New Nexus stablemates) — often unprovoked and/or just For the Evulz — many fans were instead wondering what had taken his enemies so long to figure out such a Just Eat Gilligan solution.
by Rev Theory, his second theme. There's a good reason he's never had another one since, and it's that this song is downright iconic.