Randy Orton Is Grateful For RKO Outta Nowhere Meme ‘Right Place, Right Time’

Randy Orton’s RKO has become a meme in popular culture, and he recently reflected on its success. The trend first became popular on social media in the early 2010s, with Orton edited into videos of people falling and the like. Orton spoke about the matter in his recent interview with Billboard and talked about what it meant to become such a big part of meme culture from that era.

“Yeah, I just look at it like I’m lucky,” Orton said. “Right place, right time. I had a great fans. I met Logan Paul for the first time, and it’s funny because he was a wrestling fan, but I don’t think he was following it quite as much — but he was aware of what the “RKO” was. That’s what he told me when I first met him, and I thought that was pretty funny. But to your point, it’s kind of like transcended wrestling and me and became a thing of its own.”

He continued, “I think that was the [era of the] Vine app, and the kids started editing videos of me RKO’ing everybody. Whether it was maybe a toddler that fell over or someone at the alter getting married, anyone taking a bump out there, they’d put a little Randy Orton RKO out of nowhere, and it became a thing. I benefitted from it only because it made people more aware of who I was as a WWE wrestler. Whoever started that trend, man, I would love to buy them a steak dinner. [Laughs.]”

Orton will battle John Cena for the latter’s Undisputed WWE Championship at WWE Backlash on Saturday.