Why Has Randy Orton’s 2017 Been So Bad?

Randy Orton has had a successful wrestling career by anybody’s standards. Thirteen world championships. Over fifteen years continuously employed by WWE, with far more of those years spent as a main eventer than not. The vast majority of his peers rank him as one of the best in-ring guys of his era. Everybody that comes into WWE wants to work with Randy Orton.

The universal praise that Orton receives from his fellow wrestlers and much of WWE’s audience isn’t shared by many corners of the Internet. In fact, 411mania has been very critical of the Viper over the years. I remember one of my former colleagues here calling him “Dorkboy” on a regular basis. I don’t think that insult hurt anybody’s feelings, but it summed up much of the 411 Universe’s feelings towards Randy. With this in mind, I realize that many readers will file this away as just another Orton-bashing article from a website full of them.

I don’t deny Randy Orton’s ability. Dude has had a great career. However, his 2017 has been one of the worst years I can remember from any established main event talent. Guys like John Cena, Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, whoever you want to throw out there as a flagship competitor for a wrestling company. For a guy on that level with no major injuries and on the right side of forty years old, Orton’s year has been amazingly putrid.

Everybody has their good stretches and their bad stretches. Why has Orton’s 2017 been so brutal?

The Opposition

One of the reasons AJ Styles had such a strong 2016 was the people across the ring. John Cena. Dean Ambrose. Roman Reigns. Chris Jericho. Kevin Owens. With guys like that to wrestle, AJ had plenty of opportunities to thrive. His run as WWE Champion on SmackDown mostly had matches against Cena & Ambrose, with the occasional James Ellsworth match thrown in to liven things up.

Randy Orton’s run at the top of SmackDown has mostly involved matches with Bray Wyatt & Jinder Mahal. Wyatt’s character draws a mix of praise & confusion, but most would agree that he isn’t on the level of Cena or other main eventers as far as in-ring work goes. Jinder…well, God bless the guy, but it’s been tough for anybody to get a good match out of him. Other frequent 2017 Orton opponents include Baron Corbin, Erick Rowan & Luke Harper. Guys that have their moments, but also have limitations. Harper’s the best of that group, but for whatever reason he doesn’t really translate to a wide audience.

In wrestling you’re often only as good as your opponent. Randy Orton hasn’t been given top-notch guys to work with, especially on PPV & television.

The Booking

It seems like most WWE problems go back to the booking. They’ve definitely done Randy Orton few favors in 2017.

The Royal Rumble victory felt random. Orton had settled into a role in the Wyatt Family, which people thought was a nice way to try and help Bray’s status with the crowd. The Rumble win led to the disintegration of the Family & a feud with Randy & Bray. It was the WWE Championship match, but at best it felt like the third most important match on the show behind Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg & Reigns vs. Undertaker. And to be honest, Styles vs. Shane McMahon & Cena/Nikki Bella vs. Miz/Maryse got better builds on SmackDown and were probably more important in the grand scheme of things.

The Orton/Wyatt feud itself was campy as all hell. There’s a market for the kind of stuff they were doing, and the Orton pose in front of Wyatt’s burning shed was probably the highlight of Randy’s year. It didn’t do the job as a major feud though. Randy went over at WrestleMania in a poop show of a match, and Bray got his win back at Extreme Rules in a House of Horrors match that was either “so bad it’s good” or “just plain bad” depending on who you ask. Oh, and during all of this Bray got moved to Raw and the feud didn’t do much good or bad for him. It was just more weird Bray Wyatt stuff.

Randy then moved on to a feud with Jinder Mahal, Raw jobber turned SmackDown championship contender. It made sense to establish Jinder against one of WWE’s top names for the last fifteen years. Wins over Orton mean something to the WWE Universe and can put people on top of the heap pretty quickly. Jinder’s wins over Randy have certainly helped his standing. They haven’t helped his legitimacy though, as the most valuable performers in the matches haven’t been Randy or Jinder, but the Singh Brothers. If not for those guys, the matches would have been completely unmemorable.

It should also be noted that it’s really tough to position Randy Orton as any type of American hero given how his brief military career went. John Cena is more believable as an ex-Marine and he only played one in a movie. Putting Orton against American-hating heels really isn’t the way to go.

None of Randy Orton’s 2017 opponents are better for having feuded with him. Bray Wyatt is still at the same level he was at, just on a different show. Luke Harper got absolutely nothing out of his run against Orton. Jinder Mahal is better off than he was before, but that has more to do with the improvement in his presentation than anything that happened involving Orton.

The Effort

At some point you have to stop pinning blame on the surroundings. Sure, Randy Orton has had less than stellar competition in 2017. Yes, his booking has been suspect at best. But at the end of the day, the only memorable performance the Viper has had in the past seven months has been the Luke Harper match at No Way Out. He had his working boots on that night. The rest of the time…well, if the working boots have been on, it sure hasn’t looked like it.

It’s been one of the biggest differences between the parallel careers of Orton & Cena. Orton is the more skilled performer. His moves are crisper. He’s a better ring psychologist. Where Cena stands out is in effort. There’s never a doubt that Cena isn’t giving the audience all he has on a given night. If he has a bad match, it’s not due to lack of effort.

Orton is only 37 years old, but he seems a lot older. That’s due to his entire career taking place under the WWE umbrella. I wonder if he’s been around so long that he’s too old for this stuff. We all reach a point where we stop caring about something as much as we used to. Maybe Orton’s reached that point and that’s why his 2017 has been lacking in fire & motivation.

If that’s the case, then our dear friend Rusev is in the wrong place at the wrong time yet again.

2017 still has five months left, so all hope is not lost. Orton can still make it his year, just like everybody else out there that said 2017 was going to be their year and haven’t made it so. He just needs the right mix of opponents and booking, and needs to remember what it was like to give a hoot. Then, and only then, will Randy Orton get his groove back.