History YMMV / RandyOrton

** His giving the RKO to The Fabulous Moolah in 2003 was seen as a KickTheDog moment at the time (given she had just turned ''80''). Once Moolah's dirty laundry became public in TheNewTens (financially abusing her trainees, sabotaging careers of people she didn't like, pimping out trainees and forcing them to become dependent on her) it now looks like LaserGuidedKarma.

** His giving the RKO to The Fabulous Moolah was seen as a KickTheDog moment at the time (given she had just turned ''80''). Once Moolah's dirty laundry became public in TheNewTens (financially abusing her trainees, sabotaging careers of people she didn't like, pimping out trainees and forcing them to become dependent on her) it now looks like LaserGuidedKarma.

* BrilliantButLazy: According to Wrestling/JimCornette, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QrB4yLzG2E others]] in a podcast, Randy is a gifted performer who doesn't know how good he works and [[HardWorkHardlyWorks doesn't even try]] because he's such a natural.

* 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.]]
** His pre-2016 characterization as something of an entitled brat that Triple H constantly had to placate is viewed as only a slight exaggeration of what some circles believe is his RealLife personality backstage. Although it may be intentional on Orton's part, as he readily admits to having been that way, at least earlier in his career.
** Some people can't help but notice parallels between his {{Kayfabe}} expulsion from Evolution, where Triple H grew jealous of how fast his protege was climbing the ladder, stripped him of his championship and tried to end his career; and with how Randy's IRL push subsequently seriously faltered when he had seemed poised to become the company's next top guy.

* StrictlyFormula:
** Orton's been criticized for doing the "same old shit" in the ring. 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 prior to the finish.
** Orton once 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" retweet]]. This opened up a can of worms of epic proportions within the Indy Scene versus one of WWE's golden boys.

* ArcFatigue: The Orton/Cena feud. While the matches are generally good, Cena and Orton don't have much chemistry on the stick. Their staredowns never matched Rock/Austin staredowns. (The absolute '''s i l e n c e''' during Cena and Orton's staredown in the 2011 Rumble is incredible.) It doesn't help that, unlike with Rock/Austin, the dynamic hasn't changed one bit over the years.

* 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. 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]].
** 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''. ''No possible outcome, Randy's actual win included'', could dispel the insane amounts of {{Narm}}iness that the match created, counting this as BadassDecay for not only Randy and Bray, but for the ''WWE Championship itself''. Then came the now infamous '''''[[{{Narm}} House 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 ''Wrestling/JinderMahal''. Yes you read that right, the ''same'' Jinder from Job Squad 4.0 3MB.

* 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.

* 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 done 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.

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: His Punt Kick has become this. It was under legitimate ban status for a while and had completely disappeared from his moveset but in recent years, he's at least teased using it. He's never been allowed to connect with it, though - any time he tries it ''will'' get stopped somehow, and ''if'' he manages to actually see the move to completion, it always gets dodged or countered.

** He'll go to the papers if he has to. (From [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6R9EFc2mvo&t=1m40s this movie trailer]].)

* 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.''

** Kinda sorta example. While his winning the WHC from Wrestling/{{Christian}} sent him right to the bottom of the heap to a majority of the Smark audiences, others have claimed that the matches he's had since have been Randy at his most entertaining in years.
** A bizarre thing happened after Randy cashed in on Wrestling/DanielBryan (with Wrestling/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.
** 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.

** Joining Wrestling/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.
*** …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.

** The whole House of Horrors match, which was just a glorified Boiler Room Brawl in a house. Especially when Bray Wyatt had it go from blue lighting to red lighting when it was over instead of, I don't know, burning it to the ground? Appropriately named too.

** 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" retweet]]. This opened up a can of worms of epic proportions within the Indy Scene versus one of WWE's golden boys.

** The man has hypermobile shoulders, his pre-finishing ritual consists of punching the ground, and his finishing move consists of landing on his shoulders... [[SarcasmMode good job there, Randy]].
** If we're going that route, pull the perspective back and mention his entire career choice. Professional wrestlers lie somewhere between Hollywood Stuntmen and Crash Test Dummies on the injury scale. For anyone with a predisposition to injury, it's not the best idea.

** Regardless of people's very divisive opinions of Wrestling/KellyKelly, calling her out as basically a slut on a radio show ("There are a lot of guys in the back who have done some "method acting" with Kelly") was in pretty poor taste any way you slice it. Credit to Kelly who offered a terse Twitter response ("The best way to fight stupidity is to ignore it") and Orton who apologized the next day.

* [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Crowning Music of Awesome]]:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyYGHVrwA9U Hey! Nothing you can say!]] Shame that Orton himself supposedly hated this theme.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQWwO0vGu44 "Voices"]] is ''fantastic'', and it fits Randy Orton's mentally unhinged character very, ''very'' well.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVRUf4QTIRY Seen here.]]

* ArcFatigue: The Orton/Cena feud. While the matches are generally good, Cena and Orton don't have much chemistry on the stick. Their staredowns never matched Rock/Austin staredowns. (The absolute [[AC:s i l e n c e]] during Cena and Orton's staredown in the 2011 Rumble is incredible.) It doesn't help that, unlike with Rock/Austin, the dynamic hasn't changed one bit over the years.

* NightmareRetardant:
** Mostly his Twitter. He's supposed to be TheStoic and all that gets blown to pieces when you hear him do some of the typical "lmao"-type tweeting. [[http://twitter.com/RandyOrton/status/25648168557 When he actually used the word "Yippee,"]] it made it a little harder to take his "Viper" character seriously.
** His entrance at [=WrestleMania=] 33 looked very much like sperm was being sprayed over the audience. He later regretted it as well.
** The appropriately named House of Horrors gimmick match Randy had with Bray Wyatt is bordering on SoBadItsGood territory a la [[Wrestling/MattHardy The Final Deletion]], but most people expecting a serious segment view it as horrible instead.

** This sentence will stick with him for the rest of his career, [[OldShame one he's]] [[OldShame''very'']] [[OldShame ashamed of]]: "Let me tell you something, bro, Wrestling/{{Eddie|Guerrero}} ain't in Heaven, Eddie's down there…in Hell!"

** This sentence will stick with him for the rest of his career: "Let me tell you something, bro, Wrestling/{{Eddie|Guerrero}} ain't in Heaven, Eddie's down there…in Hell!"

* SoOkayItsAverage: This is the most common form of criticism towards Randy at the latter stage of his career. His matches are competently laid out, every well-executed move flowing smoothly into the next, with appropriate peaks and troughs at the appropriate time to communicate the intended story to the audience. However, while he never puts a foot wrong, he also never does anything fresh, new or interesting. He seems content to coast towards his guaranteed respectful send-off and Hall of Fame induction operating at a constant 6/10.

* SoOkayItsAverage: This is the most common form of criticism towards Randy at the latter stage of his career. His matches are competently laid out, every well-executed move flowing smoothly into the next, with appropriate peaks and troughs at the appropriate time to communicate the intended story to the audience. However, while he never puts a foot wrong, he also never does anything fresh, new or interesting. He seems content to coast towards his inevitable respectful send-off and Hall of Fame induction operating at a constant 6/10.

* SoOkayItsAverage: This is the most common form of criticism towards Randy at the latter stage of his career. His matches are competently laid out, his psychology is spot-on and every move is smooth and well-executed. However, while he never puts a foot wrong, he also never does anything fresh, new or spectacular. He seems content to coast towards his inevitable Hall of Fame induction operating at a constant 6/10.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM76LtznNrc Voices]], his second theme. There's a good reason he's never had a another one since, and it's that this song is downright ''iconic''.

* InternetBackdraft:
** Was the subject of a particularly intense one following his defeating EnsembleDarkhorse Wrestling/{{Christian}} for the World Heavyweight Championship ''two days'' after Christian ''finally'' became world champion in WWE. He has never been a particular darling with the smark audience, however.
*** This is however a case of MisBlamed since according to the [[https://youtu.be/jFC5CDgSYbY?t=33m53s E&C Podcast]], Randy was actually pulling for Christian to keep the championship, but Wrestling/VinceMcMahon himself vetoed the request.
** Happened again in Summerslam '13 when he cashed in on Wrestling/DanielBryan, who had just beaten Cena clean for the title, with assistance from HHH.
** For once, this happened on the ''behalf'' of him in 2016. The ending of ''Wrestling/SummerSlam 2016'' had Orton lying in a pool of his own blood after Wrestling/BrockLesnar bashed his skull in with MMA elbows, losing via TKO. The fans ''flipped'', for numerous reasons:
## This was seen as an unnecessary and confusing ending made to make the already ridiculously strong-looking Lesnar look even stronger. Many felt that Orton deserved better.
## 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]]
* InvincibleHero:
** 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.
** Much like Wrestling/JohnCena in 2014, Orton lost just about any veneer of invincibility he once had via a squash from Brock Lesnar. ''Unlike'' Cena, the fans did not enjoy it at all. See InternetBackdraft for more details on that.
* MagnificentBastard: How he ended up the face in the Legacy break-up.

** 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" retweet]]. This opened up a [[InternetBackdraft can of worms]] of epic proportions within the Indy Scene versus one of WWE's golden boys.

** Some people can't help but notice parallels between his expulsion from Evolution, where Triple H grew jealous of how fast his protege was climbing the ladder, stripped him of his championship and tried to end his career; and with how Randy's push subsequently seriously faltered in RealLife.

* 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, now his girlfriend on-screen, to participate in a live striptease segment on Raw, and later RKO'd her in his quest to beat the Undertaker at ''[=WrestleMania=] 21''.

** Another thing that cuts into his badass psycho loner cred is his wife and daughter. He's a consummate family man, and they look well adjusted, normal and happy. That wouldn't be a problem if they didn't show up to and were pointed out on Raw.
*** You know, EvenEvilHasLovedOnes...

** [[http://sportsillustrated.com.ph/US/extra-mustard/2017/04/12/randy-orton-wrestlemania-33-entrance-sperm It might be impossible to ever fear the Viper again.]]

** The man has hypermobile shoulders, his pre-finishing ritual consists of punching the ground, and his finishing move consists of landing on his shoulders...good job there Randy.

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

** The appropriately named House of Horrors gimmick match Randy had with Bray Wyatt is bordering on SoBadItsGood territory a la [[Wrestling/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''. ''No possible outcome, Randy's actual win included'', could dispel the insane amounts of {{Narm}}iness that the match created, counting this 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 ''Wrestling/JinderMahal''. Yes you read that right, the ''same'' Jinder from Job Squad 4.0 3MB.

*** This is however a case of MisBlamed since according to the [[https://youtu.be/jFC5CDgSYbY?t=33m53s E&C Podcast]], Randy was actually pulling for Christian to win their feud, but Wrestling/VinceMcMahon himself vetoed the request.

* WeWantOurJerkBack: Very similarly to Wrestling/JohnCena, most people in the IWC (oh, and Randy Orton himself) 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.

** A few fans believe that Cena's true {{Foil}} was Wrestling/CMPunk or, to a lesser extent, Wrestling/{{Edge}}. His rivalry with Wrestling/{{Christian}} is regarded as the closest he ever came to a similar dynamic, but it never came to full fruition thanks to Christian being at the tail end of his career by that point.