Post by Next Manufactured’s Sweater on May 14, 2009 20:15:27 GMT -5
www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/article2430232.ece
At Backlash you became heavyweight champion for the fourth time and officially the No1 guy in the WWE. How is this run going to be different from your three previous reigns?
The older and more mature I’ve become in the business, the more responsibility I’m able to carry in being champion and representing the company.
This is going to be where I make my name and I cement myself in history. I’ve already done that in a lot of ways – becoming the youngest champ of all time, being in an Evolution, being a third-generation competitor, headlining WrestleMania. But I think this title run is going to be what makes Randy Orton.
You got a lot of cheers when you won the belt – is that strange for someone who prides himself on being a heel?
Yes because I’m the bad guy, the heel, I look down on having fans. I try to get people to hate me. But no matter how loud or how soft it is, I will always hear a group of guys chanting ‘RKO’.
It’s not what I’m going for but it doesn’t necessarily bother me. Deep down it boosts my confidence. It lets me know that no matter how much these people hate me, and no matter how much I’m trying to get them to hate me, maybe I’m just good enough to where they can see through that. They can see the talent and what I’m able to do in the ring and the way I do it.
Also a lot of fans are naturally going to cheer someone who kicks Vince McMahon and Triple H in the head!
Yes, there is that minority of people out there who have seen enough of Triple H. I’ve had fans come up to me and beg: “Please kick Triple H in the head.”
He’s a huge babyface, probably the ultimate babyface. But no matter what the character is, there’s always going to be that smart group of people who want to see the guy on top shot down. Just like right now there’s probably guys telling Batista to beat the hell out of me this Sunday at Judgement Day.
When it came to punting your boss Vince McMahon in the head on Raw, did you have to pull your punches a little bit?
Did you see that kick to Vince? It didn’t look like anything was pulled did it? They replayed that thing from every angle and he definitely ate a big piece of my boot. When I’m kicking Vince in the head, if it doesn’t look good on live TV, people are going to think: “Oh, he didn’t want to kick him too hard because, deep down inside, Orton knows that is his boss so he took it easy on him.”
So I did the opposite. I kicked him harder.
What was going through your mind at that point?
I want everything I do in the ring to be as crisp and as perfect as humanely possible. I calculate my movements to where it’s going to be the best for that moment. So when I kicked Vince in the head, the only thing going through my mind was: “I’m going to kick this b*****d in the skull as hard as I can. Here we go. I’ve been waiting for this one!”
You are definitely a perfectionist, as is Triple H who is a mentor of yours. So were you both disappointed when your main event at WrestleMania didn’t live up to the expectations of some fans?
This was a storyline where Triple H needed retribution. He needed to beat the living p*** out of me because of what I did. I handcuffed him and made him watch while I beat up his wife and then kissed her while she was unconscious. Then to top it off after I do that, I knock him out with a sledgehammer to the head. I kick his father-in-law in the skull and put him in the hospital, and do the same to his brother-in-law.
I think when all that happens and then you have this match where he can’t be disqualified or he loses the title, you kind of screw yourself. We were not able to do everything that the other guys were able to do.
Matt and Jeff Hardy had a hardcore no-holds-barred match. They were able to use all the bells and whistles to beat the hell out of each other. Everyone was expecting Triple H and I to do the same, but we had rules that put a fence around everything we were able to do. We weren’t able to go to the extreme. If anything hurt us, it was that.
Did you try to talk Vince out of those rules or change the match in any way?
No, because I was happy with the match. I really was. The crowd in the arena had seen three and half hours of wrestling and, not only that, they had seen some very good wrestling. Shawn Michaels and Undertaker put on a hell of a performance, the Money In The Bank match was crazy and a lot of guys did some death-defying manoeuvres.
When you do that and then you have this match with two guys who can’t be outside of the ring for more than 10 seconds, you kinda screw yourself. You’ve backed yourself into a corner where it’s going to be hard to outperform the matches that went before you. I think our storyline and what our match was all about deserved to be the main-event match on WrestleMania. But I think that the restraints and stipulations around the match made it harder on us than it should have been.
Another thing that your fans were disappointed by was when, the night after your amazing Royal Rumble victory, part-timer Shane McMahon beat the hell out of you. Did you share that frustration?
Shane McMahon is a tough son of a bitch and he can hang with anybody. He can hold his own and I don’t think there was anything wrong with that night you’re talking about. I just think the hardcore fans didn’t like it. They disapproved, because in their minds he shouldn’t be able to hang with a top guy. They think that Shane McMahon shouldn’t be able to go toe to toe with Randy Orton.
The fact that Shane is not a wrestler on the active roster - he only comes back every couple of years and doesn’t dress or carry himself like a professional wrestler - definitely hurts his character and believability. But he is that good he can have a desk job, wear a suit and fly all over the world to represent the WWE – then every once in a while just drop in and fight a guy and do well.
But if that’s what the hardcore fans believe then fine, because - you know what – they’ll be tuning in the next week to see what happens. So it doesn’t matter to me.
There seems to be a real drive in the WWE since WrestleMania to create new stars. How important do you feel that is?
Anywhere you go in this business, there is always that need to recruit and create talent. WWE has a farm system down in Florida, FCW, where they have 50-60 guys at any given time. There are lots of second generations down there. Mike Rotunda’s sons are up and comers, they will be debuting soon I’m sure. Harry Smith has been up, he’s been back, he’s been up – he was a potential fourth member of Legacy for a while and I can see him being part of our group in the future.
We need these young guys and new guys to be tutored to one day be the top-level performers in our company – because people get old or get hurt.
My one criticism of WWE at the moment is it seems a little stale on top. For example, I’ve already seen you wrestle Triple H, Batista, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, John Cena and so on – so who is there for you to fight on PPV who you haven’t already?
You do have a good point there. But I think, depending on the scenario, there is always going to be potential to revisit things. What the WWE is very good at is creating these matches to be interesting every time we do them. That’s what we do business on. And we’ll blow everyone’s socks off at Judgement Day with them!
You’re never going to cater to everyone 100 per cent of the time but we do enough where we have a great fan base all over the world that is going to stay tuned. But this is another reason to bring up new guys and get them to have main-event matches with top talent.
It’s the whole point of having Ted and Cody in Legacy – I’m making future opponents for myself, John Cena, Shelton Benjamin and Carlito, as we’ll all still be here in 10 years' time.
For a while, Manu was going to be one of those guys. He was in Legacy, then he wasn’t and now he’s gone from the WWE. What happened there?
Manu had some respect issues.
There are a lot of different reasons he wasn’t good for Legacy, but the reason he’s not with the company anymore had a lot to do with his backstage attitude. His father was the great Afa, of the Wild Samoans, and Manu had been in the ring since his early teens. Now, in his early 20s, technically he’s been in the ring for more than a decade - but not really. Really he’d only been in the business a month by the time I knew him.
He carried himself like he had been in the business for 15 years. He thought he knew everything. He thought he deserved a first-class seat when we went overseas. He thought he didn’t have to pick up in the lockeroom after the show was over, like the new guys do. He didn’t feel like he had to pay his dues, because he’d already paid them. What he doesn’t understand is that wrestling once a week for 10 years doesn’t count.
When wrestling is all you do, when everyone in the world knows who you are and you’ve held titles and main-evented PPVs – that’s when you start to get to the point where you might deserve a little something extra.
I don’t think he applied himself in the gym or when it came to his diet. He just thought: “Hey, my dad is Afa, the Wild Samoan, so I get a job. I deserve to be here.” He just didn’t get it.
So who is going to be the fourth member of Legacy? Harry Smith? Or do you have your eye on someone else?
If someone came to me and said we need another guy in this group, I would go with Harry. Right now though, I think we’re fine. I feel like everything is running its course. It’s going smooth.
The older and more mature I’ve become in the business, the more responsibility I’m able to carry in being champion and representing the company.
This is going to be where I make my name and I cement myself in history. I’ve already done that in a lot of ways – becoming the youngest champ of all time, being in an Evolution, being a third-generation competitor, headlining WrestleMania. But I think this title run is going to be what makes Randy Orton.
You got a lot of cheers when you won the belt – is that strange for someone who prides himself on being a heel?
Yes because I’m the bad guy, the heel, I look down on having fans. I try to get people to hate me. But no matter how loud or how soft it is, I will always hear a group of guys chanting ‘RKO’.
It’s not what I’m going for but it doesn’t necessarily bother me. Deep down it boosts my confidence. It lets me know that no matter how much these people hate me, and no matter how much I’m trying to get them to hate me, maybe I’m just good enough to where they can see through that. They can see the talent and what I’m able to do in the ring and the way I do it.
Also a lot of fans are naturally going to cheer someone who kicks Vince McMahon and Triple H in the head!
Yes, there is that minority of people out there who have seen enough of Triple H. I’ve had fans come up to me and beg: “Please kick Triple H in the head.”
He’s a huge babyface, probably the ultimate babyface. But no matter what the character is, there’s always going to be that smart group of people who want to see the guy on top shot down. Just like right now there’s probably guys telling Batista to beat the hell out of me this Sunday at Judgement Day.
When it came to punting your boss Vince McMahon in the head on Raw, did you have to pull your punches a little bit?
Did you see that kick to Vince? It didn’t look like anything was pulled did it? They replayed that thing from every angle and he definitely ate a big piece of my boot. When I’m kicking Vince in the head, if it doesn’t look good on live TV, people are going to think: “Oh, he didn’t want to kick him too hard because, deep down inside, Orton knows that is his boss so he took it easy on him.”
So I did the opposite. I kicked him harder.
What was going through your mind at that point?
I want everything I do in the ring to be as crisp and as perfect as humanely possible. I calculate my movements to where it’s going to be the best for that moment. So when I kicked Vince in the head, the only thing going through my mind was: “I’m going to kick this b*****d in the skull as hard as I can. Here we go. I’ve been waiting for this one!”
You are definitely a perfectionist, as is Triple H who is a mentor of yours. So were you both disappointed when your main event at WrestleMania didn’t live up to the expectations of some fans?
This was a storyline where Triple H needed retribution. He needed to beat the living p*** out of me because of what I did. I handcuffed him and made him watch while I beat up his wife and then kissed her while she was unconscious. Then to top it off after I do that, I knock him out with a sledgehammer to the head. I kick his father-in-law in the skull and put him in the hospital, and do the same to his brother-in-law.
I think when all that happens and then you have this match where he can’t be disqualified or he loses the title, you kind of screw yourself. We were not able to do everything that the other guys were able to do.
Matt and Jeff Hardy had a hardcore no-holds-barred match. They were able to use all the bells and whistles to beat the hell out of each other. Everyone was expecting Triple H and I to do the same, but we had rules that put a fence around everything we were able to do. We weren’t able to go to the extreme. If anything hurt us, it was that.
Did you try to talk Vince out of those rules or change the match in any way?
No, because I was happy with the match. I really was. The crowd in the arena had seen three and half hours of wrestling and, not only that, they had seen some very good wrestling. Shawn Michaels and Undertaker put on a hell of a performance, the Money In The Bank match was crazy and a lot of guys did some death-defying manoeuvres.
When you do that and then you have this match with two guys who can’t be outside of the ring for more than 10 seconds, you kinda screw yourself. You’ve backed yourself into a corner where it’s going to be hard to outperform the matches that went before you. I think our storyline and what our match was all about deserved to be the main-event match on WrestleMania. But I think that the restraints and stipulations around the match made it harder on us than it should have been.
Another thing that your fans were disappointed by was when, the night after your amazing Royal Rumble victory, part-timer Shane McMahon beat the hell out of you. Did you share that frustration?
Shane McMahon is a tough son of a bitch and he can hang with anybody. He can hold his own and I don’t think there was anything wrong with that night you’re talking about. I just think the hardcore fans didn’t like it. They disapproved, because in their minds he shouldn’t be able to hang with a top guy. They think that Shane McMahon shouldn’t be able to go toe to toe with Randy Orton.
The fact that Shane is not a wrestler on the active roster - he only comes back every couple of years and doesn’t dress or carry himself like a professional wrestler - definitely hurts his character and believability. But he is that good he can have a desk job, wear a suit and fly all over the world to represent the WWE – then every once in a while just drop in and fight a guy and do well.
But if that’s what the hardcore fans believe then fine, because - you know what – they’ll be tuning in the next week to see what happens. So it doesn’t matter to me.
There seems to be a real drive in the WWE since WrestleMania to create new stars. How important do you feel that is?
Anywhere you go in this business, there is always that need to recruit and create talent. WWE has a farm system down in Florida, FCW, where they have 50-60 guys at any given time. There are lots of second generations down there. Mike Rotunda’s sons are up and comers, they will be debuting soon I’m sure. Harry Smith has been up, he’s been back, he’s been up – he was a potential fourth member of Legacy for a while and I can see him being part of our group in the future.
We need these young guys and new guys to be tutored to one day be the top-level performers in our company – because people get old or get hurt.
My one criticism of WWE at the moment is it seems a little stale on top. For example, I’ve already seen you wrestle Triple H, Batista, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, John Cena and so on – so who is there for you to fight on PPV who you haven’t already?
You do have a good point there. But I think, depending on the scenario, there is always going to be potential to revisit things. What the WWE is very good at is creating these matches to be interesting every time we do them. That’s what we do business on. And we’ll blow everyone’s socks off at Judgement Day with them!
You’re never going to cater to everyone 100 per cent of the time but we do enough where we have a great fan base all over the world that is going to stay tuned. But this is another reason to bring up new guys and get them to have main-event matches with top talent.
It’s the whole point of having Ted and Cody in Legacy – I’m making future opponents for myself, John Cena, Shelton Benjamin and Carlito, as we’ll all still be here in 10 years' time.
For a while, Manu was going to be one of those guys. He was in Legacy, then he wasn’t and now he’s gone from the WWE. What happened there?
Manu had some respect issues.
There are a lot of different reasons he wasn’t good for Legacy, but the reason he’s not with the company anymore had a lot to do with his backstage attitude. His father was the great Afa, of the Wild Samoans, and Manu had been in the ring since his early teens. Now, in his early 20s, technically he’s been in the ring for more than a decade - but not really. Really he’d only been in the business a month by the time I knew him.
He carried himself like he had been in the business for 15 years. He thought he knew everything. He thought he deserved a first-class seat when we went overseas. He thought he didn’t have to pick up in the lockeroom after the show was over, like the new guys do. He didn’t feel like he had to pay his dues, because he’d already paid them. What he doesn’t understand is that wrestling once a week for 10 years doesn’t count.
When wrestling is all you do, when everyone in the world knows who you are and you’ve held titles and main-evented PPVs – that’s when you start to get to the point where you might deserve a little something extra.
I don’t think he applied himself in the gym or when it came to his diet. He just thought: “Hey, my dad is Afa, the Wild Samoan, so I get a job. I deserve to be here.” He just didn’t get it.
So who is going to be the fourth member of Legacy? Harry Smith? Or do you have your eye on someone else?
If someone came to me and said we need another guy in this group, I would go with Harry. Right now though, I think we’re fine. I feel like everything is running its course. It’s going smooth.
