Tonight at SummerSlam, Randy Orton will try to become a 14-time World Champion when he squares off with Drew McIntyre in the WWE ThunderDome. The Legend Killer is back, and since WrestleMania, Orton has found back his old habit to destroy the Legends of the squared circle in a series of Unsanctioned matches that saw him destroy Christian and The Big Show after defeating Edge at Payback. He recently turned his back on his old friend and mentor Ric Flair in a segment that would remain in the fans’ minds for a very long time.
SteelChair Magazine has the opportunity to share with you this interview with Randy Orton, courtesy of WWE.
On Drew McIntyre and their upcoming match
“I think there are differences between old school and new school, obviously than the way I was taught by the old school guys, but psychology, however, hasn’t changed. The basic idea of how to tell a story in the ring is still the same than it was back when my dad did it, back when my grandpa did it. Good guy vs. bad guy and you play with the emotions of the crowd. The good guy comes in, the conquering hero with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship around his waist. Drew is by no means new school. He’s been doing this as long as me, so in that regard, I think that Sunday at SummerSlam, I’m going to try and tell a story. I don’t tell four-minute stories or ten-minute stories, it’s going to be a novel. I’m going to be out there for 25, 30, or 35 minutes, maybe even more. I think that’s when the magic is able to happen when you’re out there, you can settle down, and you can build and build and build to a point in the match where people are on the edge of their seats.
I think everything happens for a reason. If you look at Drew, he is the WWE champion right now, and he might not be if he wasn’t fired, if he didn’t go wrestle all around the world and work with all these guys, learn and get better and get bigger. He put on 30 pounds, and he looks great. You guys talked about how my promos have gotten better because I’ve kind of found myself on the mic, but I feel like the same thing’s really been happening with him this year, too, especially since WrestleMania. He’s been the pandemic champion, I don’t know if that’s a term that I want to coin, but he’s had a very, very hard job. He’s been in a very, very hard position the last few months, and I think it’s time to take that weight off of the shoulders this Sunday at SummerSlam. I’ll take us out of the pandemic era into the next era, which will be the Randy Orton era.”
On working with Ric Flair again
“Not too long ago, we didn’t know if we were going to still have Ric around when he was in that coma, but if anyone’s going to pull through a coma and look death in the eye and tell him to f*ck off, it’s Ric flair, and that’s exactly what he did. I never would have thought in a million years he’d be allowed back in a ring, and there was even a time, like I said, where I didn’t know how much longer he was going to be with us. In that segment that was hard to do, there were so many things that I could have said that would have been nasty and would have even made that segment better, but it was hard to look him in the eye, no matter how much we wanted it to come across that way. It was hard to be mean to that man because of how he’s treated me for the past 20 years, but business is business, and Ric knows that, and I know that, so we gave it a shot.
He was never supposed to grab the microphone from me that night. He was just supposed to say a few things under his breath that the handheld camera in the ring may or may not have picked up. You were supposed to kind of see our facial expressions and get an idea that he was bringing me back in. Eventually, we had the hug, and then I turned on him, but when he grabbed the mic, I was thinking, ‘oh come on Ric, you’re not supposed to grab the mic.’ Then he went on to cut that promo, it was very touching, and the thing is he meant everything he said, and that’s why he’s so special to this business, he’s always left his heart out there in that ring. Every emotion you get from Ric Flair out there in that ring, it’s real, those are real emotions, and that’s one of the reasons he’s the best.”
I’ve had some good years, I’ve had some injuries, and I’ve gotten in some trouble where I’ve had to take some time away from the ring. I feel like personally right now, I’m kind of at an all-time high as a human being and a father. I think that translates to work as well. At 40 years old, I think I finally figured out how to kind of balance everything, balance work and balance life, and I learned a lot from Ric, and like I said about Ric earlier, I think all those emotions you’re seeing out there, they’re very, very real and the ones that maybe aren’t too real, they were created from or inspired by a real emotion that he had anyway, and that’s kind of a page out of his book that I’ve taken. You said my promos have gotten better. Since I started working with Jeff hardy, I think in 2018, I’ve started realizing that in the ring, as far as physicality and the matches go, there’s not much more I’m not going to. All of a sudden, start doing a Spanish fly off the top rope. I’m not going to start doing moonsaults to the floor, and I don’t need to.
But how could I better myself in the WWE, and I knew what the answer was, it’s been staring me in the face for quite a long time, it was the promos. I was never a promo guy. I wasn’t absolutely rotten, but I would kind of go out there, and you could tell it was a scripted promo. I think the difference now is pretty plain and simple, and it’s that I’m not scripted. Vince has been really lenient with me, as far as feeling it out there. I had a couple of segments with Edge and Beth over the course of the month building to WrestleMania. Vince didn’t even want to know what I was going to say because he was so impressed with the prior weeks on the mic. I forget which night it was, it might have been the one with Beth, but when I came backstage, Vince looked at me, he took off the headset, and he said, ‘that’s your Oscar right there.’ To have Vince McMahon, who’s seen all of the greats a million times do better than I’ve ever done on the mic, for him to put me over in that regard, I knew I must be onto something good. I feel like my confidence is getting better in the microphone, and I’m only going to get better from here.”
The Return of The Legend Killer
“Working with Shawn the other day brought back a lot of memories. Of course, being in the ring with Ric for a few months recently brought back a lot of memories. I met The Big Show when I was 20 years old, down in OVW and then, of course, Edge and Christian. When Edge came back at Royal Rumble and when I saw him enter the Royal Rumble, he came in a few entrants before me, but when I was watching in the gorilla, I saw him hit the ring I saw the look on his face, I saw how he after nine freaking years hadn’t lost a bit, and it took me right back to 2003-2004 all the way through 2007 where I and he really had a lot of our time together in that ring.
It was like I was taken back in time because he reminded me of the Edge of old, and that pumped me up because I know he was back after not wrestling for almost 10 years and there was only one guy that he was going to work with, and it was me. I could write back at the beginning of the 2000’s and Evolution, working with Shawn, Edge, Ric, Show, Christian and it’s been a blast mainly because I love those guys, travelled the world with those guys for years, but mainly because we all know how to take each other in there, have a good time and steal the show.
The punt kick was Arn Anderson’s idea. I think it was 2007. I was working with the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, and I think he was the first guy that I kicked in the head. Back then, it was a different time, and I kicked a lot of people in the head. Your number one priority should be making sure that you physically have your opponents back, above even having the best match on the card, it should be about taking care of each other as the first priority. With that punt kick, it was hard because I got to make this thing look good, and it’s kind of hard to work, for lack of a better term, a kick to the head that devastating, and so a lot of people didn’t want to take it. Of course, I kicked Vince, and everyone remembers in 2009 when I kicked Vince and gave him a concussion. I was so excited that I had this opportunity that I lost track, I lost sight of the number one priority, take care of your opponent. Now just with me being a little older and the current situation with the pandemic where we were taping for the past few months, I was able to play with the idea of bringing the punt kick back since I knew that I was doing a Legend Killer thing.
I had to bring back the punt kick, and I’ve kind of devised a way to hit the kick, whether we’re taping or whether we’re live where it’s a hundred percent safe, and I’m not going to hurt anybody like I said because that’s the number one priority for me in that ring. I’m able to do it again because Vince trusts that I figured out how to make it safe, and that’s where we’re at. I’m glad he said yes. I’ve kicked Edge, Christian, Show, Ric Flair, and Shawn Michaels since the night after the Royal Rumble. Each time I kick someone in the head the way, we do it the way we tell a story. It’s a part of that story that people remember, just like the promo with Ric Flair, just like when I RKO Beth Phoenix. I think it’s very important, and it’s one of the reasons why people really hung on this story because that move is a legitimate threat to whoever I’m in the ring with, and that helps my stock go up.”
SummerSlam airs live from the WWE ThunderDome this Sunday, August 23 on the WWE Network at 7 PM EST (midnight BST), with a kickoff show at 5 PM EST (10 PM BST).
Special thanks to WWE UK and DS Communication – All pics and videos courtesy of WWE