Randy Orton: Another Title Run Wasted

The headline may be a little presumptuous, but since I’m anticipating an end to Randy Orton’s first reign as champion since turning face at Survivor Series, I’d say it’s spot-on.

A few months ago, prior to Orton winning the WWE Championship that was none other than a thrown together mess of a Six Pack Challenge main event, I wrote a column about why RKO shouldn’t carry the strap at this point. My rationale was that, while he was the hottest act in the company, he had yet been part of a truly strong program against an opponent of equal stature and that if WWE wanted to make him the face of the company, his championship victory needed to feel important.

Defeating then-champion Sheamus and John Cena along with a cast of under-booked former champions and Wade Barrett didn’t do Orton any favors. The victory didn’t mean anything and the follow-up was lacking. Despite Orton getting the biggest pops on the roster and the company’s top prize being strapped around his waist, he still was without storyline. His character had no direction.

The belt had no true competition. Instead, we have sat through weeks of John Cena’s inconsistently booked struggle with the Nexus while Orton stands on the sidelines having to continually remind people that, oh yea, he’s the champ.

Sunday at Survivor Series, we’ll finally get some movement on the Cena-Nexus stalemate. Cena’s morals will be tested as he is forced to do the “right thing” and call it down the middle or do the “wrong thing” and screw over Orton to win his freedom and save his job. I won’t say this isn’t a compelling storyline. Cena has sold the angle very well and it has greatly elevated Barrett as a hated S.O.B. in the eyes of the WWE audience.

Orton has even played well in the storyline the last few weeks, maintaining his hellish edge in making sure everybody knows that he doesn’t care about Cena, he doesn’t care about Barrett, and he doesn’t trust either of them. Unfortunately, the story of the match will still be Barrett vs. Cena with the champ as a prop.

There are two logical ways the match could go:

First, Cena does the “wrong thing” or at least fails to be completely down the middle. He could let Barrett get away with a few dirty tricks and hit a slow count on a pin attempt by Orton. He can appear conflicted throughout with it eventually resulting in some sort of distraction of Cena, leading to Barrett using a foreign object to score the victory with Cena forced to count the pinfall and award Barrett the WWE Title.

This would lead to Cena earning his freedom, battling Orton for a chance at winning the belt himself, likely resulting in a Cena vs. Barrett main event title blow-off in which Cena finally gets it payback by beating Barrett for the belt and finally leading into the true money feud of this entire storyline being Orton’s return for the belt that he feels he should never have lost.

Second, Cena does the “right thing,” which is actually my preference. He does his conflicted bit as described above, ultimately leading to Orton hitting the RKO on Barrett in the middle of the ring and covering him for a three-count. Orton stands up, looks at Cena, puts out his hand as the two shake before Orton poses in the corner. Barrett continues to lay comatose in the ring to sell the RKO and Cena walks with his head down up the ramp. This leads to Barrett threatening to fire Cena before reconsidering. He tells Cena that he has talked to the Anonymous GM and signed a match between the two of them tonight and the match is a No. 1 contender’s match for the WWE Title at TLC.  Cena looks confused, yet excited to get his hands on Barrett.

The match starts; they brawl a bit outside the ring before Nexus shows up to beat down Cena. They lay into him in the middle of the ring and the ref throws it out for a DQ victory for Cena. Barrett announces that Cena is now the No. 1 Contender and that if he wants to keep his job, he has to beat Randy Orton for the belt at TLC and give it to him. They have the match, Barrett gets involved, takes out Orton and Cena bitterly climbs the ladder to win the belt. This leads to a triple threat match for the belt at Royal Rumble when Cena wins it clean. Orton wins the Elimination Chamber to get his shot at Cena and you have a massive face vs. face Wrestlemania main event.

As for now, Orton has been a directionless champion. While he is still cutting strong promos, having good matches and engaging with the crowd, his heat will burn out quickly if he doesn’t have a hot program that showcases the most compelling side of his character.