Randy Orton, The Ultimate Anti-Hero

While Randy Orton “hears voices in his head,” we hear some of the loudest babyface crowd pops in the last few years when he hits the ring. If you have this week’s episode of Raw recorded, go back and watch Orton and HHH’s handicap match with Sheamus and The Legacy. Wait for the moment that HHH reaches out to Orton, hits the hot tag, and the Viper steps through the ropes.

The crowd unhinged at that tag. As Orton crashed the match and hit signature move after signature move, the crowd was going nuts. After hitting the chinlock backbreaker (also known as “Above Average” Mike Sanders’ classic finisher the 3.0), he demonstrated why this face-turn will be successful whereas his misguided switch in 2004 when he rebelled against Evolution. Orton stood up, grabbed his head, writhed his neck and looked pissed off. Instead of becoming a taller, lankier version of John Cena, who always looks like he’s posing for pictures with the stupid grin on his face, Orton maintained his edge. He’s remained the Viper.

With our collective fingers crossed, the IWC must hope that Orton’s face-turn and future in this role will be used to please our desire for a rule-breaking crowd favorite, much in the mold of Stone Cold Steve Austin. While the kiddies that make up the majority of the WWE Universe can wear their Jeff Hardy armbands while wearing their John Cena T-shirts and waving their D-X glowsticks, us 20-something males have been begging for a badass face for some time now. It’s why we marked out for HBK kicking Teddy Long in the face a few months ago. It’s why we wish to see The Undertaker crucify somebody again. It’s why we are all nervous about Edge losing any semblance of what made him popular now that he’s on the do-gooder side of this violent, morality play called professional wrestling.

It was a little more than a year ago that Orton first demonstrated his potential as a cross-over rule-breaking babyface. During his reign of terror over Raw, he threw Vince McMahon to the ground and punted him into orbit. He later handcuffed HHH to a rope and DDT’d Stephanie and kissed her in front of her helpless husband. Evil, vicious, Orton was oozing heat to nuclear proportions and 20-somethings were eating it up. We wanted to see who was next in Orton’s course of destruction. A loss to HHH at Wrestlemania is a universally panned main event match derailed his momentum, though, and his push was pulled back. Vince wasn’t quite ready to give Orton the keys to the kingdom, but hopefully this latest direction, which has only begun, will be the time we see Orton’s massive potential.

At Wrestlemania, I can only hope to see Orton rightfully go over his two lackeys in Dibiase and Rhodes. While I wrote a column a few weeks ago about which of these two is more likely to breakout, the bottom line is that both have a long way to go. A victory at Wrestlemania will not make either of them a star. My prediction  (or at least the way I’d book the match) is based on the fact that it is a triple threat and not a handicap match, and the slight dissension projected in the promos between Cody and Ted on Monday night. Figure a 10-12 minute match in which for the first 8 or so, Cody and Ted work as a team. Using the 2-on-1 advantage, it’s acceptable for the heels to get the better of Orton. Then we start to see some one-upsmanship as Ted hits Dream Street and goes for the pin only to have Cody pull him off. He throws Ted out of the ring and lands the Cross Rhodes. He laughs, plays to the crowd and goes for the cover only to have Orton kickout – cue massive crowd pop. Rhodes is shocked, goes for the cover again only for another two-count. Rhodes gets up and storms around the ring kicking the ropes. Ted gets back into the ring and grabs Cody from behind, spins him around and starts landing some big punches in the corner. He hits Dream Street on Cody while Orton is on the ground, stalking him from behind. Cody rolls out of the ring, Ted turns and eats a huge RKO for the pinfall.

In this scenario, Cody and Ted look strong, besting Orton for the majority of the match. Ultimately, since they are heels and intrinsically self-serving, they cannot get along and seal the deal. Meanwhile, Orton gets the victory, the celebration and momentum going forward. I envision Cody and Ted getting split up come Draft time because neither at this juncture has enough support to turn face in a feud between one another.

After Wrestlemania, the world opens up for Orton as a fresh character ready to take on any number of heels. With the Draft around the corner and roster-wide shake-ups coming, my pick would be Chris Jericho. While Orton is still in the infancy of his face-turn Jericho is the perfect selection. Chances are, Edge will win the Big Gold Belt on Sunday and likely defend it in a stipulation re-match (Ladder?) at Extreme Rules. After this Jericho will be running his mouth in need to prove himself again. Jericho has two qualities that make him the perfect candidate as Orton first 1-on-1 feud as a face. First, he is eternally over. Jericho is indeed the best in the world at what he does and that’s make people hate him. Second, Jericho has no qualms with putting somebody over and making them look like a million bucks. Better yet, it won’t hurt Jericho one bit. This is the same guy that ate a pinfall during his tag-title reign with Big Show from JTG. He’s not World Champion. A summer feud between these two could go a long with in establishing Orton as the anti-hero mega-face he could become without doing any damage to Jericho’s credibility.

After that, the list goes on. A feud with CM Punk, Sheamus, Big Show, a heel-turning HHH or my early Wrestlemania XXVII prediction Orton vs. Batista.