Randy Orton/YMMV
- Audience Surrogate: This may be the reason for his popularity. Contrasting him with John Cena (who's pretty much a straight-up boyscout aside from a few moments), Orton does what he wants, when he wants, to who he wants - not only with very few consequences, but he often gets cheered for it. Who's lived long enough that hasn't wanted to go completely apeshit with impunity at least once?
- Base Breaker: While casual fans tend to love him, Smarks are ridiculously broken when it comes to their attitude about him.
- Complete Monster:
- Kissing a knocked-out Stephanie McMahon just before Wrestlemania 25. After DDT'ing her form the second rope. And doing so while her husband was handcuffed to the top rope and forced to watch without being able to do anything about it.
- It comes back to bite him when CM Punk threaten his wife, attacks him with a wrench and then blows a kiss at his wife.
- He's punted a number of legends out of commission, including Mick Foley, Dusty Rhodes, and Shawn Michaels.
- He RKO'd on-screen girlfriend Stacy Keibler to prove to The Undertaker that he was unafraid of the Deadman in the buildup to their Wrestlemania 21 match (Stacy questioned Orton's ability to beat the Deadman, which led to the RKO).
- In an Iron Man match with John Cena, Orton knocked Cena down on the ramp, before rushing over to the technical area and trying to outright kill Cena with pyrotechnics.
- At least he didn't choke him with a tie.
- Even as a "face", he just won't stop kicking people in the head.
- Composite Gimmick: Since his latest move to Smackdown, Orton seems to be attempting to keep shreds of his Viper persona while also reviving some of the animation and personality he had during his first face run on Smackdown (i.e. during his feud with Evolution).
- Crowning Music of Awesome:
- Hey! Nothing you can say! Shame that Orton himself supposedly hated this theme.
- "Voices" is fantastic, and it fits Randy Orton's mentally unhinged character very, very well.
- Seen here.
- Draco in Leather Pants:
- Despite being more-or-less a perpetual heel, he has a very strong following, on both sides of the spectrum.
- If you care for web comics Botched Spot poked fun at it.
- Evil Is Cool:
- If it's true that the winners write the history books, then it's a wonder Orton's pen hasn't run dry.
- 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.
- Game Breaker:
- R. K. O. You tell me another Finishing Move in wrestling that's one-size-fits-all, not a glorified strike attack, and so quickly and easily executable yet effective-looking that it can be used to take out, for example, FIVE GUYS WITHIN 30 SECONDS. (Before anyone mentions other people's use of the cutter, the "effective-looking" and "quickly" parts are what separates the RKO, as Orton has effectively mastered it into a physical sniper.)
- DDP will always be the master of the cutter, junior. As for other quick One Hit KO finishers that can be hit on virtually anybody: Stone Cold Stunner? Rock Bottom? Codebreaker? Chokeslam? DDT?
- Codebreaker is the only one of those others that tend to be done in one motion, though. By definition the others are harder to execute in a string against multiple others in a limited timespan, especially if they're working together. Stunner and DDT are quick enough to work also, but most quick enough DDTs are hardly KOs anymore. As for DDP, yes he will always be the original cutter king. But it can definitely be argued Orton has a quicker snap to it.
- Ho Yay: With Triple H and Batista in Evolution, a boatload of it with Edge in Rated-RKO, and with John Cena pretty much any time they're within ten feet of each other.
- Internet Backdraft: Currently the subject of a particularly intense one following his defeating Ensemble Darkhorse Christian for the World Heavyweight Championship two days after Christian finally became world champion in the WWE. He has never been a particular darling with the smark audience, however.
- Jerkass Sue: His face run since 2009
- Magnificent Bastard: How he ended up the face in the Legacy break-up. Sure, he was a Complete Monster but he's just so good at doing it compared to Ted and Cody that the crowd decided he was the face.
- Memetic Mutation:
- "RELEASE THE DOVES!" *Orton pose*
- Hoes, Pose, and RKOs.
- "STUPID! STUPID!"
- "I just kicked your brother where his appendix used to be! And that's not the only place, that I'm gonna kick him!"
- \_0__/
- He'd RKO his own grandmother to be WWE Champion.
- He'll go to the papers if he has to. (From this movie trailer.)
- His thighs are amazing.
- Misblamed:
- Has gotten a lot of heat for being the one to take Christian's first WHC title less than a week after he won it, when it was really less to do with Orton himself and more to do with the WWE's fear of the financial implications of messing with a formula.
- Hate Dumb: While a lot of backlash was probably expected, some of the reactions have actually gotten pretty scary. No, it's not okay to send Randy death threats over twitter because you're pissed at him getting the title. However, he didn't exactly do anything to help himself as he didn't respond to any of them in a professional manner: apparently "Jealousy" & "Ignorance" are the only reasons that anybody could have a problem with this situation.
- Narm: Almost every live promo he cuts has a chance to be this:
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"Tonight, I'm gonna start what I finished." (TWICE!!) |
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- Some of the things he's does in his "Viper" gimmick (such as flailing his arms about and punching the ground) can be seen as pretty silly-looking at times. In fact, during a tag match after Wrestlemania, Jerry Lawler started giggling a little when it started to look like Orton was just humping the ground, retorting with "He's so snake like!"
- And of course, there's the stupider Malaproper moments in some of his promos, too.
- 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, Even Evil Has Loved Ones...
- That random jumping split after he RKO'd Mark Henry.
- His post match assault of Christian following his DQ loss at Money in the Bank featured some truly goofy facial expressions.
- Nightmare Retardant:
- Mostly his Twitter. He's supposed to be The Stoic, a Complete Monster, and all that gets blown to pieces when you hear him do some of the typical "lmao"-type tweeting. When he actually used the word "Yippee," it made it a little harder to take his "Viper" character seriously.
- It might be impossible to ever fear the Viper again.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Kinda sorta example. While his winning the WHC from 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.
- Pretty Boy: Skirted this line in his early WWE days.
- What an Idiot!:
- 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.
- 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.
- And then in 2010, Orton re-aggravates an injury while doing his pounding the mat routine, during a match on PPV no less.
- Regardless of people's very divisive opinions of Kelly Kelly, 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.