After weeks of speculation regarding the possibility that he’d make the jump to All Elite Wrestling after almost two decades with WWE , Randy Orton signed a new multi-year contract with the latter promotion, solidifying his future with the company where he became a household name as a 13-time world champion.
As reported by WrestlingNews.co , the above developments were first reported by PWInsider and later corroborated by a WWE source who spoke to the former publication. At the time Orton signed the new WWE deal, various reports were hinting that the veteran wrestler was considering a move to AEW, especially since he shared an Instagram post a few weeks ago where he posed in an elevator with a sign with the words “Elite Level” — a possible reference to the second word in the rival promotion’s full name.
Aside from the aforementioned AEW tease, Orton had made a number of positive comments about the recently launched company, suggesting at one point that he wanted to wrestle one of its more promising young stars, Sammy Guevara. Earlier reports had also brought up the fact that the 39-year-old WWE mainstay is good friends with some of AEW’s top performers, including his former Legacy stablemate Cody Rhodes and reigning AEW World Champion Chris Jericho. It was also noted that Orton’s then-current 10-year deal with WWE was expected to expire early next year, thus potentially making him one of pro wrestling’s hottest free agents.
WWE and Randy Orton have come to terms on a multi-year contract extension ? pic.twitter.com/UYt55LhVll
— B/R Wrestling (@BRWrestling) November 6, 2019
Although the above report did not make any mention of any contract specifics, Orton took to Twitter on Tuesday night to confirm the new deal on his end, adding that he is “looking forward to pi$$ing off” WWE fans for “at least” five more years.
Additionally, WWE executive Triple H issued a brief statement on Orton’s decision to re-sign, as quoted by Wrestling Inc .
“I’m glad to put the rumors to rest. For almost two decades, Randy Orton has been a cornerstone of WWE…and Randy Orton will remain a cornerstone of WWE for a long time!”
As it’s now clear that Orton won’t be competing for a rival promotion anytime soon, WrestlingNews.co wrote that the general feeling backstage was that he was hinting at a jump to AEW on social media in order to “leverage more money” from WWE, a strategy that seems to have worked for the Monday Night Raw star. The outlet added that Orton will likely be working a similar schedule to his current one, where he only makes a limited number of appearances compared to most of his coworkers.
