Reported by Hunter Golden of WrestleView.com
On Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at 10:50 PM EST

The Long, Strange Journey of Randy Orton

If there was any one word to describe the WWE career of Randy Orton, it would probably be ‘frustrating’. Frustrating for Randy Orton, who hasn’t been able to reign in his own personal demons to maintain focus and take advantage of the many opportunities he’s been given. Frustrating for many fans, including myself, who’ve seen Randy Orton as a guy with unlimited potential, but who seems a win away from mega-stardom and one loss away from mid card hell at all times. Frustrating for WWE who’ve poured countless hours of creativity and money into a man who just can’t seem to hit his stride.

Now that seems like it’s all about to change.

But how ironic is it, or more specifically how appropriate is it, that Randy Orton’s program with John Cena has been about just that one word. Frustration.

A lot of people were upset last Sunday when Randy Orton failed to end what will be, come Unforgiven, the year long reign of WWE Champion John Cena and finally fulfill that potential that so many people have always thought he had.

It’s been a long, strange journey back to the top for Randy Orton, but by losing that match, has harnessed the key element that can take a simple program to the next level: playing off real-life without really realizing it.

In hindsight, the angle they ran that August night in 2004 in London, Ontario with Orton sitting atop Batista’s shoulders, receiving a thumbs down from Triple H and then being plunged to the canvas and perpetual purgatory by Batista of all people, is so insanely symbolic, but oh so rewarding. The fact that it’s rewarding in the most unintentional way possible makes it even better.

Rejected by the top star of the day, an unexpected star who would literally and figuratively, take Orton’s legs out from underneath him. The crash and the struggle to maintain his place in the wrestling world. In hindsight, it’s great drama.

The responsibility for the failed face turn in late 04 can’t be laid at the feet of Orton. Imagine taking your first job out of college and you do such a good job that you end up becoming CEO of your company, the top spot, in a year and a half. Once you’re awarded the position you walk into the board room and the folks that keep you where you are and make you look good, the board says “Congratulations, but now that you’re CEO, you’ve got to stop doing all the things that made you the CEO to begin with". That was Randy Orton’s dilemma. That and who, at that particular point, ever saw Batista coming?

The next year and a half would all be about near misses. Despite the WWE seemingly wanting to ‘make it up’ to Orton by placing him in major programs, Orton proved that he, himself was the one constantly getting in his own way. Orton was sidelined after Wrestlemania 21 with a shoulder injury and he came back to put on an admirable feud with the Undertaker. The momentum from that feud propelled him into a main event program for Wrestlemania 22 but was abruptly cut short when Orton was caught smoking weed during Wrestlemania weekend that effectively put the kibosh on the planned title run later in the year.

He pinged around the Raw brand for the rest of the year, jobbing to Hulk Hogan in a lackluster Summerslam program and then becoming the designated jobber in the DX-Rated RKO feud.

When Edge broke his jaw in the weeks leading up to Wrestlemania this year, it dashed creative’s hopes of a protracted Orton-Edge program through and after Wrestlemania. Randy then demolished a hotel room in Germany, was sent home, and fans were again left frustrated, as extenuating circumstances and Orton’s own immature behavior combined to again put his future in limbo, and put any major plans for him on hold.

Then Randy grew up, both as a person and as a wrestler, almost out of nowhere.

Orton’s ‘new’ character really isn’t all that new. It’s a genesis of the Legend Killer that put him on the map serving as a base while that Punk kid that Orton played and in real life was, is woven in and propelled by a new sense of focus and intent that Orton lacked as both a person and a character.

So given his journey to the top, why would we expect it to come easy for Orton? Why would we expect him to just go over Cena at Summerslam because he had a fun build and it seemed like the sensible thing to do from a booking standpoint?

From a storyline standpoint, Orton’s loss in that match couldn’t possibly have set the stage better for his eventual emergence. Orton’s desperately keeping Cena at bay with the headlock represented a guy controlling his destiny, clearly in control of whatever future he wanted, both in the match and his career. In the short term, as the match progressed, Orton gradually lost control of Cena more and more. In the big picture, as Orton’s career progressed, he kept losing control, and would briefly gain it back, never seemingly in a situation where he was totally out of control but a move or a loss from being there. And then the end came, as Orton hit what we all thought would be the punctuation, only to see him get nailed with the FU, and just like his career has been to this point, another indication that Orton’s never been able to hit that home run when it counted, when others like Batista and Cena could.

Why just have him go over for the smart-ness of it all when playing off the raw, real emotion of his career is capable of taking this program and his career as a whole to an entirely new level, thus making this program and the coming title win all the more rewarding and fulfilling for not only for the fans, but Randy Orton himself?

It truly has been a long, strange journey for Randy Orton, but a necessary one and a trip that has, in the most unintentional of ways, turned out to be the most rewarding of adventures. Wrestling is always at it’s best when it plays off of real life without really meaning to do so. If Randy Orton isn’t the best example of that yet, then I don’t know what is.

Enjoy pro wrestling.