411’s WWE Evil Episode Five Report: Randy Orton

-It’s WrestleMania week and by my count I have 10 shows to recap or review this week because the WWE just keeps adding content to Peacock. I am hoping to have this series wrapped up by Wednesday so I can handle my normal shows plus Hall of Fame and now a new episode of WWE 24 on Friday. Let’s get to it!

-Run Time: 40:52

-As a reminder John Cena is the narrator for this series.

-Randy Orton starts us off and tells us being a bad guy comes easy for him. He has a way to get into the zone and sometimes it was bending over and pushing all the blood in his face. He gives us a demonstration while dropping half a dozen F bombs. “When you look in my eyes, you can tell that I feel it.” Yep, this should be great!

-Show opening!

-We see Randy Orton make his debut barging in while Vince is getting a massage from Stacy Keibler. We get a montage of Orton doing what he does while they splice in pictures of snakes. Michelle Beadle is rather pumped to talk about Orton as she mentions that she loves him. She tells us that every guy she has ever dated hated Randy Orton. She isn’t sure if it is just pure jealousy. Foley talks about Orton’s confidence and how he enjoys inflicting suffering and making people miserable. Shawn calls him smarmy, slimy and the kind of bad guy that is more mental than physical. Riddle thinks he might be crazy for real and we see The Fiend on fire eating the RKO.

-Back to Beadle as she says you love to hate Orton, but she loves to love him. He doesn’t look like a mere mortal and we get a run down of all The Legends he took out over the years including The Fabulous Moolah. Eh, she is tougher than most men that took that move. Peter Rosenberg puts over how fluid Orton is in the ring and they discuss the punt kick.

-The RKO: It is called the perfect finishing move. They discuss how it is a meme now and we see a few of the awesome ones including Santa eating one out of the his sleigh. Riddle mentions Hulk Hogan even ate one on the hood of a car. Cena asks how did Orton get so malicious?

-As a kid Orton says he didn’t have a lot of confidence. He was insecure and didn’t have a lot of friends. He never found that clique that others had. Bob Orton says Randy was a normal kid and got in some trouble at times, but never anything that would require him to serve jail time. Orton mentions he was bullied as a child and Ziggler says he could see that Randy took all that in and sometimes you react by becoming the bully. The bad days can make you jealous and angry.

-Randy started working out at 9-10 years of age and then joined the wrestling team. Soon after the bullying stopped as Orton hit a growth spurt and was bigger than everyone else. Dr Stacy Kaiser, therapist, talks about the stress of being bullied and how one day you let the anger go. Then you unleash the anger and get the revenge you feel you deserve.

-Bob Orton Sr and Jr footage! Nice! Jr tells us he was rugged in the ring and didn’t take crap from anyone. “I was very dis-likable,” he says with a laugh. He learned crowd psychology from his dad. Randy says he had a famous father on TV and his earliest memory watching him was just that it was what his dad for a living. Sometimes he was in Japan and it was just work that he did to put food on the table. Bob mentions he didn’t see Randy much between the times he was 4 years old to 10 years old and says he probably saw him 10-12 days a year. Damn! Randy’s mom didn’t want that life for him.

-Randy tells us he didn’t want to go to college and opted for Marine Corps. He went through USMC Boot Camp and it was hell. He says there were a lot of negative aspects that he won’t go into in public and he didn’t sign up for some of the stuff he saw, so he left. He went AWOL for 82 days before he turned himself in and he was sentenced to 45 days in Camp Pendleton Miltary Prison.

-Randy returned home with no direction, so Bob made a call to get Randy into developmental. Prichard said great and they signed Randy without ever seeing him. I don’t doubt that because he’s the 19 year old son of a respected legend.

-OVW: To say Orton was part of a stacked class is an understatement: Batista, Lesnar, Cena, Benjamin just to name a few. Prichard says Orton was a natural from day one while Orton mentions it was the hardest he ever worked.

-Randy gets the call up in short order and is a bland babyface that destroyed his shoulder a few times. He says he should have stayed home for 6-8 weeks, but WWE had him cut injury updates as part of RNN. Those were fantastic and made him the greatest douchebag ever. The way he would tell us his shoulder was 34% and up from 2% last week or had a set back due to chaffing was genius and sadly we don’t get stuff like that anymore.

-Next we get into Orton’s immaturity as Batista calls him a kid. He was floundering until HHH stepped in with Evolution. It likely saved his potential because he got to learn from Flair and HHH. Orton says he was so blessed that they saw something in him and he will never forget HHH and Flair going to bat for him. What it did was give him instant credibility and put him in Main Event angles.

-Cactus Jack Feud: WOOO! You need someone to get a perceived pretty boy over in a violent way, you call Mick Foley. He did it for Sting, Michaels and HHH, so Orton was in great hands. Orton says he went into 2004 and needed someone to take him to the next level and that was Mick. They were complete opposites and Mick knew the potential with Randy. We see Orton spitting in Mick’s face and Randy says not a lot of guys would be okay with that. Mick talks about having confidence issues, but at Backlash 2004 they delivered an all time classic. Just an amazing match that tore the house down and made Orton a made man as he hung with Mick Foley in a hardcore match. Orton: “that showed the fans this kid isn’t a kid anymore.” Orton just heaps all kinds of praise on Mick and what that match did for him. You can tell Mick is so proud of that match as he should be.

-Montage of Orton rolling through all the Legends to build his Legend Killer gimmick. Orton says when he was younger he just thought about himself and we see him celebrating his first World Title win, but obviously no sign of Benoit.

-Rosenberg mentions how people say their character on TV is them in real life turned up a few notches. Footage of Orton flipping out on a reporter on Lucha Libre WWE. Huh, I’ve never seen this. He tells the poor guy he will headbutt his teeth through his skull as I guess the guy called him fragile. Damn! Batista feels Randy was ready to be World Champion in the ring, but not outside of it. Randy admits he was an ass and let the fame get to his add while also admitting back then he didn’t realize he was being such a prick. Beadle talks about the perks of being famous, but it is also jarring because these people are working so hard and when the break comes it’s not that easy. Batista: “first you have nothing and then you have access to everything you want.” Prichard calls Randy rebellious.

-April 2, 2005: Bob Orton is inducted into The WWE Hall of Fame and Randy is given the honor to present his dad. Randy tells us he was out the night before with guys he knew he shouldn’t be with and they were out all night. He was out of it when he inducted his dad and went out there without a speech. He spoke from the heart, but didn’t do his father justice. He can still see the disappointment on his father’s face and that is the one thing he regrets in his career. Instead of learning from it, he admits he acted out even more.

-The line between Orton the WWE star and the person is gone at this point. He admits to substance abuse and he tells a story of getting home late and taking pills to go to sleep. It worked as when he woke up he was in the ER. He had an accidental overdose and was mad at himself for being so dumb to jeopardize all these opportunities. He says the world was his playground so early and he needed the reality check. He mentions he was close to being fired by the WWE. He went to rehab and cleaned himself up before making his return.

-Kim Orton, his wife, talks about how when he got his shit together he was able to turn his in ring style into something more evil. Randy again calls himself an ass and he still has that now, but he is aware and can use it for good. He brings up the Intermittent Explosive Disorder story-line where he got to just have random temper tantrums and he used experiences to time them into his character. “There is no better drug in the world than being in that ring and everything going right.” Sadly, no mention the great build to his Mania XXV run where he punted Vince, dropped Steph with a DDT before kissing her in front on a handcuffed HHH.

-The Fiend: Orton knew he had to believe that The Fiend was capable of harnessing demonic powers. He considered himself enough of a threat that he feared him. Riddle: “he smiles because he destroyed someone’s life, and that’s why he is such a good bad guy.” Orton drops The Fiend and sets him on fire to close out WWE PPV in 2020.

-Bob tells us that Randy has learned from his mistakes and now carries himself with class. Kim says Randy doesn’t walk around like he is the shit anymore and is more comfortable in his skin. He is still the bad guy, but is the bad guy that people love. Orton says he has done everything other than things not invented and when the do, he will scratch that off his list as well. Batista says that everything from day one about Orton screamed World Champion. Prichard says that Orton is appreciated by the audience more and more each day.

-Riddle: “Randy Orton is the coolest,” and has the best view as he follows Randy out on his scooter. He admits he has to work so much harder to get a reaction that Randy gets with just a look. “He’s Randy Orton, bro.”

-Randy used to roll his eyes when fans brought up his theme song and what the voices tell him. Now, he has heard the song so much that he wonders if he has been hearing voices all along. The voices that said he would never follow his father, the voices of self doubt. Now the voices tell him that he is content and happy with who he is as the man, Randy Orton. “Randy Orton, he’s happy.”

-This started out great as it was different from the rest in that the true villain here was Randy Orton the person more than the character and that’s what they focused on for the most part. Things kind of petered out as they skipped a chunk of his run to get to The Fiend feud. Orton was a perfect choice for this series and while this was still good, there was a lot more they could have touched on. It was mentioned in the comments section for me to rank these as far as my favorites so, I will go 1) Hogan 2) Orton 3) Banks 4) Miz 5) Brothers of Destruction at this point. I had the most fun watching the Hogan episode and yes, I am sure nostalgia had a lot to do with it. Taker/Kane there is just so much that I’ve had to watch on that story in the last year, but these all have been wonderful so far. Thanks for reading and next time it’s a McMahon!