As of 4/25/2012, Randy Orton has officially been in the WWE for 10 years. Since it's been 10 years, I thought I'd take a look at his debut.
Randy's first WWE televised match was against Hardcore Holly on 4/25/2002. You can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2YZr2kGDB4
It as a decent debut. Nothing special to be honest. Randy was still a little akward at this time. He definitely looked a little nervous out there. I think the biggest thing here is how old and how much bigger Randy has become. He really looks like a completely different person. The funny thing is, aside from some polishing and confidence, I don't think Randy has changed too too much.
In ten years of Randy Orton, I think he had two big peak periods. His first peak was on his road to winning the title first time. His personality shined and he had alot of heat. He also had a few good matches leading up to it including a nice battle royale win. He was a great fit for Evolution and they did a great job with booking him up until he won the title. We all know what happened there with Randy getting jobbed out to HHH and having to be a kissing babies and drinking milk face. It took him a while to get his momentum back, but once he did it ended similarly...
Randy's second peak in my opinion was around his Royal Rumble win in 2009. Randy and Legacy were starting to build some steam and things were looking up. Legacy for the first time started to feel like a real group, then, HHH returned. Randy got into a downright silly feud with HHH with HHH doing a home invasion on Randy. Their feud continued to be overbooked until they had an absolute stinker at Wrestlemania. The match felt like it took forever(especially in person) and it was something I was not really interested in seeing. Fortunately, it's been mostly forgotten.
Currently, Randy is probably the second or third top face in the company. He's protected for the most part, but he's obviously never going to be the man. He had his chance but it was a little too late, and I don't think anything is really going to interfere with Cena's push and heat. However, he's really well established, will probably hold the belt a few more times and is always an available main eventer, so things aren't so bad. He definitely needs something to get him going again, but aside from a Brock or a Rock match, I don't know what it could be. Unfortunately, no matter if he gets either one or not, he didn't get the first crack at them so it will mean alot less.
Overall, Randy's been a pretty good performer for WWE. I don't quite think he ever evolved to where he should have, but he's shown flashes of greatness from time to time. Like most people in the WWE, Randy needs good continuinous booking. I just hope that I'm not writing another one of these in 2022.
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