History YMMV / RandyOrton

** A few fans believe that Cena's true {{Foil}} was Wrestling/CMPunk or, to a lesser extent, Wrestling/{{Edge}}. His rivalry with Wrestling/{{Christian}} never came to fruition thanks to Christian being at the tail end of his career by that point.

** Happened again in Summerslam '13 when he cashed in on DanielBryan, who had just beaten Cena clean for the title, with assistance from HHH.

** The appropriately named House of Horrors gimmick match Randy had with Bray Wyatt is bordering on SoBadItsGood territory a la [[MattHardy The Final Deletion]], but most people expecting a serious segment view it as SoBadItsHorrible instead.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' Website/WrestleCrap 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.'' Even having Randy ''win'' couldn't dispel the insane amounts of {{Narm}}iness that the match created. Worse yet, is that this counts as BadassDecay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the ''WWE championship itself''. Then came the now infamous '''''[[{{Narm}} House]] [[SoBadItsHorrible of Horrors]]''''' match... See NightmareRetardant 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.

** Which Randy Orton incarnation was/is more interesting/effective - the sadistic, vicious Viper or the cocky, suave Legend Killer?

** To put this in perspective, what you think of a guy like Wrestling/JohnCena divides rather neatly along age (or, rather, whether you got into wrestling pre- or post-2004 or so) and [[SmartMark 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 Wrestling/JohnCena. 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:

*** 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.

** Legacy as a stable are remembered for a failed attempt at turning Ted [=DiBiase=] Jr and Cody Rhodes into stars (Cody would later break out much later) and for the colossal ton of HoYay between the three. It was noted how none of them ever seemed to wear pants backstage.

* CreatorsPet: 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.
* DesignatedHero: After allying with Wrestling/TheWyattFamily through much of late 2016 and early 2017, Randy turned against Wrestling/{{Bray|Wyatt}} 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 HeelFaceTurn, 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 [[VillainousBSOD breakdown]] afterwards, complete with BrokenTears.

** Despite being more-or-less a perpetual heel, he has a ''very'' strong following, on both [[MrFanservice sides]] of the [[EvenTheGuysWantHim spectrum.]]

** 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.

* FridgeLogic: Remember when Randy Orton proclaimed to Seth Rollins, who banned RKO at Extreme Rules 2015, that before the latter and that edition of RAW goes off the air, he was gonna "RKO every son of a bitch" he sees. Well, he made good on his promise with 5 [=RKOs=]. But notice how three of his victims (in that order) were Kofi Kingston, Heath Slater and The Miz. What do they all have in common? Prior to this, all three men have did something to piss off Orton, so it seemed like he intentionally targeted them to send a visual message to Rollins, who recently pissed him off as well.

* HilariousInHindsight: In his debut, a then-heel Wrestling/StacyKeibler got him to strip and arranged to be caught in a compromising position with him. Fast forward to late 2004 when Randy got Stacy to participate in a live striptease segment on Raw, and later RKO'd her in his quest to beat the Undertaker at ''[=WrestleMania=] 21''.

## It was reckless and dangerous. Orton could've been seriously hurt by those elbows, possibly even getting a concussion. The amount of blood he lost was already on the fast track to Wrestling/EddieGuerrero-levels had it not been stemmed by the referee and medical personnel. The gash from which the blood flowed from resulted in him needing ten staples to close it. And, as it later turned out, he ''did'' get a concussion from the ending -- he was unable to wrestle for several weeks and they were forced to scrap his match against Bray Wyatt at ''Backlash'' simply because he wasn't cleared to compete yet.
## Reports came in that Orton hadn't even known about the ending until the night of the match, and agreed to it under the impression that Lesnar knew how to do this without harming him too badly. The company basically lied to him. [[note]]There is a reason why blade jobs were used for blood in wrestling rather than busting a person open the hard way -- blade jobs are far more precise and tend not to lose as much blood as long as they're done right. Doing it the hard way is far less precise, and the idea that Lesnar knew how to do it "safely" was asinine even if he was a professional MMA fighter -- there's too large a margin of error for such a thing to be feasible.[[/note]]

** Although it seems to have been toned down ''seriously'' in 2012-13, almost to the level of BadassDecay - probably due in no small part to numerous injuries and Wellness Program violations.

** On an episode of Smackdown, while Randy's [[UnstoppableRage on the warpath]] looking for Wrestling/AlbertoDelRio, 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.[[/note]] He does douse poor Ricardo in coffee and chili[[note]] which Rodriguez sold as if he were being set on fire by the way [[/note]] - which was admittedly funny, but didn't seem like a very Randy Orton thing to do.

** This sentence will stick with him for the rest of his career: "Let me tell you something, bro, [[Wrestling/EddieGuerrero Eddie]] ain't in Heaven, Eddie's down there...in Hell!"

* RealitySubtext: Probably not intentional at all, but it's... interesting that Orton seemed to slowly drift away from the most sadistic parts of his 'Viper' persona as his real-life self settled into being a husband and father. But then, in summer 2013 he and his wife divorced (she has custody of their daughter for obvious reasons)... [[MoralityChain and in fall 2013, the 'Viper' was back in full force...]]

* RedemptionPromotion: Probably goes about 4-1 wins-to-losses as a face. In his latest heel run, he's been made to seem much less threatening - and as much as his win-loss record bears that out, there's also the fact that he tends to [[UnderestimatingBadassery overlook]] opponents in mid-card TV matches, which has come back to bite him in the ass a couple of times, as he's lost to guys like Cesaro and ''Kofi Kingston.''

** 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 Wrestling/BrockLesnar's recent steroids scandal. People were sold on the new Randy almost immediately.

*** ...so of course [[AllForNothing WWE burned the entire thing down]], ''literally,'' by having 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.

* WeWantOurJerkBack: Very similarly to Wrestling/JohnCena, most people in the IWC believe heel Randy Orton is more interesting than face Randy Orton - and more specifically, that Randy was at his best at the peak of his AxCrazy, head-punting Viper persona. This has even been addressed in-universe. After Randy lost the WWE Title to Wrestling/DanielBryan (which was later overturned by Wrestling/TripleH, of course), Stephanie gave him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and specifically invoked this trope. (Keep in mind that said persona beat the crap out of [[Wrestling/TripleH her]] [[Wrestling/ShaneMcmahon entire]] [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon family]] at one point.) This [[GoneHorriblyRight worked a bit too well]], as it resulted in ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' constantly having to try to rein Orton in from that point on.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap 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.'' Even having Randy ''win'' couldn't dispel the insane amounts of {{Narm}}iness that the match created. Worse yet, is that this counts as BadassDecay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the ''WWE championship itself''. Then came the now infamous '''''[[{{Narm}} House]] [[SoBadItsHorrible of Horrors]]''''' match... See NightmareRetardant 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.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap 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.'' Even having Randy ''win'' couldn't dispel the insane amounts of [[{{Narm}} Narmyness]] that the match created. Worse yet, is that this counts as BadassDecay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the ''WWE championship itself''. Then came the now infamous, '''''[[{{Narm}} House]] [[SoBadItsHorrible of Horrors]]''''' match... See NightmareRetardant 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.

*** 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.

* [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Crowning Music Of Awesome]]:

* DesignatedHero: After allying with Wrestling/TheWyattFamily through much of late 2016 and early 2017, Randy turned against [[Wrestling/BrayWyatt 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 HeelFaceTurn, 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 [[VillainousBSOD breakdown]] afterwards, complete with BrokenTears.

* JerkSue: His face run from 2009 to 2011.

* {{Misblamed}}:

** Doubles as a CrowningMomentOfAwesome, because it's very rare that someone ''breaks Bray Wyatt''.

--> "''You will be [[{{Department Of Redundancy Department}} sleeping, an unconscious sleep.]]''"

** Joining TheWyattFamily 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 MistreatmentInducedBetrayal as quickly as fans expected, and because it has helped to massively overturn the BadassDecay of both Orton and the Family as a whole.

* SpecialEffectsFailure:

* WeWantOurJerkBack: Very similarly to Wrestling/JohnCena, most people in the IWC believe heel Randy Orton is more interesting than face Randy Orton - and more specifically, that Randy was at his best at the peak of his AxCrazy, head-punting Viper persona. This has even been addressed in-universe. After Randy lost the WWE Title to Wrestling/DanielBryan (which was later overturned by Wrestling/TripleH, of course), Stephanie gave him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and specifically invoked this trope. (Keep in mind that said persona beat the crap out of [[Wrestling/TripleH her]] [[Wrestling/ShaneMcmahon entire]] [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon family]] at one point.) This [[GoneHorriblyRight worked a bit too well,]] as it resulted in ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' constantly having to try to rein Orton in from that point on.

** '''''[[SoBadItsHorrible The House of Horrors Match]]'''''...
''All of it''.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap 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.'' Even having Randy ''win'' couldn't dispel the insane amounts of [[{{Narm}} Narmyness]] that the match created. Worse yet, is that this counts as BadassDecay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the ''WWE championship itself''. Then came the now infamous, '''''[[{{Narm}} House]] [[SoBadItsHorrible of Horrors]]''''' match... 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.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap 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.'' Even having Randy ''win'' couldn't dispel the insane amounts of [[{{Narm}} Narmyness]] from the match. Worse yet, is that this counts as BadassDecay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the ''WWE championship itself''. Then came the now infamous, '''''[[{{Narm}} House]] [[SoBadItsHorrible of Horrors]]''''' match... 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, the ''same'' Jinder from Job squad 4.0 3MB.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap worthy 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.'' Than came the now infamous, '''''[[{{Narm}} House of Horrors]]''''' match... It doesn't help that he ''lost'' that match.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap worthy 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.'' Than came the now infamous, '''''[[{{Narm}} House of Horrors''''' match... It doesn't help that he ''lost'' that match.

** Sadly, he's fallen back into this in 2017. Beginning with his ''atrocious'' WrestleCrap worthy match with Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 33. Which featured Bray displaying his new "powers" by causing maggots and centipedes to appear in the ring through the incredible mystic arts of PowerPoint projections. This farce of a match benefited ''neither man.'' Than came the now infamous, ''House of Horrors'' match...

* ArcFatigue: The never ending Cena/Orton feud. While the matches are generally good, there is a significant sentiment held by the fanbase that Cena and Orton don't really have chemistry as rivals outside of a match. With Cena, many feel that his true ArchEnemy and {{Foil}} was Wrestling/CMPunk and/or, to a lesser extent, Wrestling/{{Edge}}. With Orton, the belief is that the closest he ever had to a real arch-rival is Wrestling/{{Christian}} -- a rivalry that never came to full fruition after the well-recieved initial feud in 2011 thanks to Christian being at the tail end of his career by that point. It also doesn't help that, unlike with Rock/Austin, the dynamic of heroic Cena vs dastardly Orton has never changed over the years.

* FanNickname: He has been called [[TheBore "Blandy Boreton"]] on occasion by the IWC.

** ...dive.

** Orton recently retweeted a tweet from Rip Rogers in regards to the formulaic setup of a typical Indy Wrestling match with this [[https://twitter.com/randyorton/status/863400662666760192 "...Dive" tweet]]. This opened up an InternetBackdraft of epic proportions within the Indy Scene versus one of WWE's golden boys.

** 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 [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity acknowledges the meme]] and [[{{Twitter}} re-tweets]] his favorites. Officially became an AscendedMeme with the RKO T-shirt and the way he delivered an RKO to Wrestling/BrockLesnar on ''Raw'' on 8/1/16.

** [[http://yfrog.com/z/ke3gazoj It might be impossible to ever fear the Viper again.]]

** Orton's been criticized for doing the "same old shit" whenever he's working a match. Every match of his involves a series of short arm clotheslines, a scoop power slam, an inverted headlock back breaker or sometimes an Angle Slam, a rope hung DDT, and lastly the RKO, punt, or combination of the two (recently it's just the RKO). Let's not forget the millions of headlock rest holds he does every match.

** Orton's been criticized for doing the "same old shit" by doing a series of short arm clotheslines, a scoop powerslam, an inverted headlock back breaker or sometimes an Angle Slam, a rope hung DDT and lastly the RKO, punt or combination of the two.

** Is Orton a legitimate talent worthy of his accolades, or another company-manufactured CreatorsPet who gets by on his connection with TripleH and his decent pedigree? (Insert obligatory joke here.)

** A bizarre thing happened after Randy cashed in on DanielBryan (with TripleH'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 have become and remained the object of a lot of fans' vitriol for this action. But seemingly, after Batista's win at the Royal Rumble (and keep in mind, Batista was meant to be a ''face'' to square off against the heel Orton), 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.

* WeWantOurJerkBack: Very similarly to Wrestling/JohnCena, most people in the IWC believe heel Randy Orton is more interesting than face Randy Orton - and more specifically, that Randy was at his best at the peak of his AxCrazy, head-punting Viper persona. This has even been addressed in-universe. After Randy lost the WWE Title to DanielBryan (which was later overturned by TripleH, of course), Stephanie gave him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and specifically invoked this trope. (Keep in mind that said persona beat the crap out of [[TripleH her]] [[Wrestling/ShaneMcmahon entire]] [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon family]] at one point.) This [[GoneHorriblyRight worked a bit too well,]] as it resulted in ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' constantly having to try to rein Orton in from that point on.

** On an episode of Smackdown, while Randy's [[UnstoppableRage on the warpath]] looking for Wrestling/AlbertoDelRio, 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.[[/note]] He does douse poor Ricardo in coffee and chili - which was admittedly funny, but didn't seem like a very Randy Orton thing to do.

* BadassDecay: 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 [[ArchEnemy arch-rivals]] Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} and Wrestling/TheBigShow to team up with him against Wrestling/TheShield. The bizarreness of this is actually lampshaded at one point by Wrestling/TheMiz, who essentially says that when Wrestling/RandyOrton of all people is the voice of reason in a situation, that situation's extremely screwed up.
** Might be on the rebound now that he has turned heel by conspiring with TripleH to screw DanielBryan out of his title win at Summerslam '13 with the MITB briefcase.
** Definitely on the rebound. He's committed numerous crazed assaults on other WWE Superstars thus far in this role. The only thing that's missing is his Patented Punt.
** As of 2016, this has been safely averted. His crowning achievement was sneaking into ''Raw'' after the brand split and [=RKOing=] ''Wrestling/BrockLesnar'', of all people, [[MemeticMutation outta nowhere]].

* HoYay: With Wrestling/TripleH and Wrestling/{{Batista}} in Evolution, a boatload of it with Wrestling/{{Edge}} in Rated-RKO, and with Wrestling/JohnCena pretty much any time they're within ten feet of each other.

*** This may have been topped by Randy injuring his shoulder [[EpicFail while taking out the garbage]].

* SpecialEffectsFailure: A minor example on the 7/28/2014 RAW, when he tried to RKO Wrestling/RomanReigns through the SpanishAnnouncersTable and it just didn't break. [[UnnecessaryRoughness Randy, being Randy, simply RKO'd him again.]]