Randy Orton is one of the longest-serving veterans on the WWE roster, and he’s learned a lot about the art of wrestling throughout his career. He also has some criticisms over today’s product, and he shared these grievances on the latest episode of the After the Bell podcast.
As quoted by Sportskeeda , Orton revealed that he thinks modern wrestlers are too concerned with performing flashy maneuvers, which results in them neglecting the storytelling elements. Orton claimed that these thoughts sprung to mind after he and his wife watched a recent match between two unnamed superstars.
“[When] the match was over my wife looked at me, and she has a good eye for this too. And she goes, ‘You know, they did so much cool s***, and I can’t remember one thing specifically that they did.’ And I was like, ‘Ah! That’s it!’ It’s built into those moments and doing the cool s*** when the time is right instead of just cool s***, cool s***, cool s***, cool s***, finish.”
According to Orton, people remember the “small things” after a wrestling match. He also revealed that his focus on telling stories over hitting big moves has kept his body in good condition throughout the years, and he’s never hurt any superstars in the process.
Orton also discussed his issue with superstars using the moves of their peers. He named Shawn Michaels’ superkick as an example. When Michaels was an in-ring performer, the maneuver was exclusive to him, and it stood out as a finishing move. These days, however, he sees performers do superkicks all of the time, which has lessened the move’s impact.
Orton’s opinions on modern wrestling haven’t sat too well with some superstars in the company, however. As The Inquisitr reported earlier this week, he got into a social media altercation with NXT’s Tomasso Ciampa. This stemmed from Orton criticizing NXT stars who perform dives and slap their thighs during matches.
Ciampa responded by calling Orton’s matches boring, which then caused the pair to have a war of words with each other. Some fans and pundits speculated that they were building a storyline with each other, but Vince McMahon is reportedly unhappy with both superstars.
As documented by Ringside News , Orton elaborated on the Ciampa feud during a telecommunications call. According to Orton, he’d work with Ciampa if McMahon told him to, and he believes that he could help the NXT superstar work on his storytelling abilities in order to prevent more serious injuries down the line.
