Randy Orton never won that feud with Evolution in 2004-2005

[The Blue Nova]

I like Orton I really do. but Orton just was not a likeable babyface. He spent a year attacking our beloved legends like Mick Foley and Harley Race... and spit in harley race face like 2 months prior.. It was like seeing someone spit in your grandpas face. but then we are supposed to feel bad for him because his stable mates beat him up. I always found it more like Kharma for him being a jerk. Also people could not get behind Orton as a babyface because he simply was not relatable to as a babyface. and his push to the world title seemed kind of forced... Where you compare it to Batista' winning the belt at mania 21. was more organic because people wanted to see batista beat HHH

[sdoyle7798]

Apr 24, 2022 19:14:48 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Apr 24, 2022 19:07:01 GMT -5 Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill said:

The funny thing is that I think creative realized how much they f***ed up with Orton and actually did the heel-face betrayal with Batista brilliantly.

That had its missteps - like feeling the need to have a segment of Batista eavesdropping on Flair and Triple H talking shit about him so that the audience knew he was turning before he did, and that time Batista shoved a flag up the ass of one of the La Resistance members - but yeah, on the whole that was handled muuuuuch better than Orton's turn. Though for that matter the eventual match was much better than any match Orton and Triple H ever had together.

So would you nix the whole eavesdropping segment, plotting on camera and all, or have Batista address it in the ring either that night or the next week?

I'd have nixed it all together. It didn't need that. It was obvious what HHH and Flair were trying to do without that segment. Just let Batista be smart enough to have seen through them and do everything else the same...

...minus the flag in the anus, of course.

[The Ichi]

It didn't help that he was feuding with peak douchebag HHH...and was still more unlikeable.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

The exact moment when Randy Orton: Babyface was dead in the water:

[Bob Schlapowitz]

It failed because he was pretty much the least sympathetic face in wrestling history. I mean....why exactly were we supposed to cheer for the arrogant douchebag who gets kicked out of his group? Personally, I hated the character so much that HHH became the face to me.

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

May 4, 2022 13:01:07 GMT -5 The Blue Nova said:

I like Orton I really do. but Orton just was not a likeable babyface. He spent a year attacking our beloved legends like Mick Foley and Harley Race... and spit in harley race face like 2 months prior.. It was like seeing someone spit in your grandpas face. but then we are supposed to feel bad for him because his stable mates beat him up. I always found it more like Kharma for him being a jerk. Also people could not get behind Orton as a babyface because he simply was not relatable to as a babyface. and his push to the world title seemed kind of forced... Where you compare it to Batista' winning the belt at mania 21. was more organic because people wanted to see batista beat HHH

Yeah, Orton spent year never getting what he deserved. He always had Evolution to help him out, and the first people to give him what he deserved are Evolution. It may have been a 3 on 1 beating, but those 3 were the ones Orton hid behind and bailed him out constantly. I ain't cheering for him when Evolution did what we were waiting for.

The Batista turn worked because Triple H was the bigger villain. Triple H was the who controlled Batista, he was the creator who was using his monster. The monster turning on his more evil creator is simple fiction. It's something you want to see.

[tirtefaa]

It's interesting that Orton lost any momentum he had after losing the belt to Triple H. He wouldn't recover until three years later...and at that point they overdid it and especially have him the title at some of his most lackluster points. It's kind of funny that Orton's best moments over the last 15 years were when he wasn't champion. In fact...I guess you could argue that for every one of his World title reigns.

[Lizuka #BLM]

And the thing is you can tell they learned nothing from this because they're absolutely going to eventually turn Theory face by virtue of having Vince betray him and expect that alone to be a good reason to cheer for him.

[Nosnorb]

It was a similar story with the face turn of EC3 in early 2006. Dude did nothing to get cheered and his first feud after losing the title was with Rockstar Spud, who EC3 had left beaten and bloody the previous year.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Apr 24, 2022 19:07:01 GMT -5 Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill said:

The funny thing is that I think creative realized how much they f***ed up with Orton and actually did the heel-face betrayal with Batista brilliantly.

Still the biggest they ever drew without a part timer in the main event spot

[Hypnosis]

May 14, 2022 22:36:19 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

And the thing is you can tell they learned nothing from this because they're absolutely going to eventually turn Theory face by virtue of having Vince betray him and expect that alone to be a good reason to cheer for him.

WWE in the future:"Cheer this man!"

[Squirrel Master]

I will say this, I marked hard when Orton celebrated his first world title win with all the golden confetti raining down. I thought it signaled the start of a new era.

[Instant Classic]

He came out at the first Raw saying the 24 year olds in the crowd wish they looked like him. Then he gets attacked at the end of the night by Evolution. We were supposed to feel bad for him?

[Nosnorb]

Dude should never have won the world title so soon and probably should have stayed as the protege of Trips for another year or so. Randy wasn't ready in real life to be a champion and ended up getting addicted to pills and nearly died of an overdose in 2006.

[thegame415]

The biggest problem for me was that they basically stripped him of the legend killer persona. That cocky, young, I don't care attitude is what got him over to begin with. Then he just became goofy babyface 500 with a smile on his face.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

"we want this guy to be the new face of the company, let's bitch him out and make him look like a total loser for several months"

[cornettesracket]

The match at unforgiven was bad but god was JR losing his shit funny and helped in some ways.

[ruthlessko04]

Apr 24, 2022 18:38:10 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Orton as a face was already pretty staggered by the combination of never giving you an actual reason to cheer for him, having Triple H immediately beat him, and his character completely shifting into being kind of something along the line of a bad Rock knockoff not at all playing to his strengths, though feel like the Christian / Stacy Keibler side story was kind of the point of it being unsalvageable.

Though really in general Orton just plain wasn't a main event level talent until like mid-2007 or so. He always felt completely out of place being at that level until he started punting people.

I disagree because Orton was clearly a main event level talent in 2004 thanks to his star-making match with Foley at Backlash 2004 and his win over Benoit at Summerslam 2004 by being the youngest WHC in history. Those 2 key matches cemented Orton as a main event level talent in 2004 and then his career reached newer heights once he had his classic feud with Taker which re-established him as one of WWE's top heels at the time while getting more credibility as a main event star.

Despite the face run, Orton was still a huge main eventer in 2004 and has never lost his spot in the main event scene ever since. 

[GOTHIC CHARISMA 🧊 🥶❄️FURY]

I remember watching that title win live and being about as shocked as I’ve ever been at any result before or since

[ChitownKnight]

This isn’t as good as what actually happened with Batista, but I think Orton having evolution turn on HHH would of been a good storyline