Opinion
Deez: Randy Orton’s Most Despicable Deeds
Chris Deez sets out to list some of Randy Orton’s most infamous acts!
As a WWE fan of around 25 years and with an extensive knowledge of the company’s history, I have seen a lot. A lot of good and a lot of bad. A lot of squeaky clean baby-faces and a lot of downright dirty heels. I challenge anyone to find me a more dastardly heel than Randy Orton. Orton burst onto the scene way back in 2002, carving out a hall of fame career littered with its fair share of despicable moments. A pretty controversial figure both in and out of the ring, Orton has certainly given us a lot to talk about over the years and a lot of memorable moments inside the squared circle.
In a mix of shocking, disgusting, memorable and downright dirty moments, join me as I run down my personal Top 10 list of Randy Orton’s Most Despicable Deeds!
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The ultimate sign of disrespect.
In a moment that Carlito would be proud of, Orton committed an act that a lot of people deem to be the most disgusting you can inflict on another person. We watched in shock as Orton spat in the face of the hardcore legend Mick Foley and then took it a step further doing the same thing to Harley Race. This led Triple H to demand that Orton handed over his World Heavyweight Championship, Did Randy listen? Hello no! Hunter was the next in line to literally feel the venom of the Viper.
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The 2nd dirtiest player in the game.
Remember Rated RKO? One of the most dangerous tag teams we have ever seen with a phenomenal resume to prove their credentials, the tandem took things a step too far when they attempted to cave in Ric Flairs skull. The “Nature Boys” head was “crushed like a grape” after a brutal attack, with Randy & Edge delivering a brutal Conchairto. Arguably the greatest to ever lace his boots, there was surely no better target than Flair for solidifying yourself as the top heel team in the business.
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You can’t see him…
Showing that being a great heel doesn’t just come from spitting vitriol into a microphone, Orton would physically decimate John Cena after the leader of the Cenation tore his pectoral muscle in a match with Mr. Kennedy, Orton targeted Cena’s injury after the match, delivering two brutal RKOs along the way and putting Cena on the shelf for a number of months, in turn forcing him to vacate the title that Orton himself would later go on to win. Taking out the ultimate babyface? That’s a sure fire way to solidifying yourself as the top heel in the company.
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Setting The Undertaker on fire
If you want to make a name for yourself, who better to go after than The Phenom? Randy and his hall of fame father, “Cowboy” Bob Orton, had not long defeated The Undertaker in a two-on-one handicap casket match when Randy sent the ultimate message by setting the casket on fire. If there had been any doubters to Orton labeling himself the “Legend Killer”, they were certainly silenced here.
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The girls just keep falling for him…
Way back when, there was a period in time when Randy was actually a believable babyface who you didn’t expect to betray you at a moments notice. This was all set to change though as Orton struck his then-girlfriend Stacy Keibler with the most “out of nowhere” RKO you’ve ever seen. Not content with taking out his better half, Orton would take things to the next level when he gave the Fabulous Moolah a beautiful birthday present – an RKO – in front of her hometown fans.
I’m sure he bought her some flowers too… erm…
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The Undertaker’s last ride
Not content with trying to burn The Deadman to a crisp, Orton dragged the legends carcass onto the back of the recently departed Eddie Guerrero’s low-rider, Randy then drove Taker straight through the SmackDown stage in another heinous attempt to kill a legend. While the attack itself was bad enough, this one struck a chord through the WWE Universe. The disrespect on show, using Latino Heats prized possession, elevated Randy to a new level of heeldom. You must be thinking “there’s no way he would disrespect Eddie any further…”
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Insulting the legacy of Eddie Guerrero
Well you’d be wrong! How about driving that very low rider out on to the stage? How about reading out offensive quotes from Eddie’s biography? Yep, Orton once again stepped things up and sunk to a level further than we could have ever expected. I will never forget the exact moment when he told Rey Mysterio that Eddie Guerrero was residing in hell and not in heaven. I was absolutely shocked, angry and devastated… all of the things a heel is meant to make you feel. A truly disgusting act that Orton pulled off to absolute perfection.
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Ears to you Jeff.
Now this one made me feel a bit queasy, something that doesn’t happen often. During his feud with Jeff Hardy, Orton disgustingly tortured the charismatic enigma by pulling at his ears and spacers for weeks. However, this was taken to the Xtreme (get it?) during their subsequent hell in a cell match when Orton would insert a screwdriver into Hardy’s earlobe and twisted it vigorously. I can still picture the uneasy faces of the people in attendance. This was Orton at his psychotic, deranged best.
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Punting John Cena’s father in the head
Ah… The Punt. The most brutal attack In Orton’s arsenal. Rightfully outlawed, the punt kick was responsible for taking out many respected legends. However it found a new unexpected victim after Orton lost his title to John Cena at SummerSlam 2007. Vince McMahon would lay down a challenge for Orton, demanding that he proved himself worthy of another title shot. It was here that Orton would make an impact that sent shock waves through WWE and especially the Cena family.
With John Cena at his mercy, Orton lined up a devastating punt to the head, but to everyone’s surprise he would stop just short of the delivering the fatal blow. Instead, Orton rolled out of the ring, grabbing Cena’s father from over the barricade and punting him in the head at ringside before simply walking away. Calculated, cruel, disgraceful… perfect.
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Rated RK… Oh…
Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t seen the 2020 Royal Rumble yet but… what the hell are you waiting for?
I don’t like to rank peoples misery (yes I do) but I think it’s safe to say that Edge’s sudden retirement in 2011 was the most heartbreaking case of a superstar stepping away before their time. Edge was on top of the mountain at the time, having to relinquish his championship as a result of doctors warning him that further in ring activity could potentially kill him. Nobody saw Edge returning. Daniel Bryan did it sure, but Edge… no chance. That was until the most unbelievable return OF ALL TIME as Edge entered the Royal Rumble match to a thunderous ovation the likes of which you will rarely see.
This past Monday Night Raw saw Edge appear and address the crowd of his situation and his intent to return to active competition. Edge was interrupted by longtime friend and former tag team partner Orton, who hit the ring to welcome home his compatriot. Orton would then tease getting the band back together before striking Edge with one of his famous RKOs. Not intent on betraying one of his closest allies, Orton would deliver another crushing Conchairto to the previously injured and rehabilitated neck of Edge, resulting in some of the most furious heat I have ever heard. What made this so special was Orton’s performance throughout, his face painted with discomfort, despair and doubt. He sold this attack to perfection, showing that even he knew he had gone way too far this time.
So those were my personal Top 10 despicable deeds in Randy Orton’s long and illustrious career. Most superstars would be happy to have 1 or 2 of those over the course of their time in WWE, but I had to cut out at least another 15. Randy Orton has set himself apart and proved himself to be the greatest heel of his generation. Possibly ever other generation before him too.
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Opinion
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
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Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!