I guess I'm speaking from a personal preference here, but I can never get tired of watching Orton perform. The guy is simply smooth and flawless, not a single wasted movement in the ring... He's easily one of the top notch performers in the business.
I can understand why others like him, but Orton has really never done anything for me. His matches are sort of formulaic and he mostly seems to wrestle within the scope of his core moves. There's not a whole lot of anything new in a Orton match... and I can't imagine hating any move more than that idiotic DDT off the second rope. It's too unrealistic and would likely hurt a lot less than a real DDT would.
That all being said, I applaud the face turning because at least his character is more interesting as a face. He has a stronger air of unpredictability and actually seems dangerous and somewhat unbalanced. As a heel for the past year, he's been very milquetoast and I really just got sick of seeing him... OK, not nearly as sick as I am of seeing Cena, because realistically, other than Dixie Carter, I can't imagine a much more annoying character than Cena. But for the first time in a long time, I have found myself getting behind Orton's character if not his wrestling.
The episode itself is hard for me to rate. I hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, so I was exhausted and passed out halfway through the show and finished it the next day. Most of the matches were a lot more decent than usual, if not actually good. But I think what I liked the most is that the show for the most part was tied together in a theme. That seems to be missing a lot in RAW. With Vince's announcement, the entire show revolved around the Survivor Series main event and that worked well for me. This is sort of a breakdown of how I saw it:
It's always good to see the Boss. Or it is when it's Vince McMahon.... I always wonder how one of the absolute worst commentators in wrestling history became such a captivating on screen character... Austin had a lot to do with it, but he's long gone and Vince is always still enjoyable. I am growing tired of the Authority storyline, so the announcement was welcome, but it was weird they way it was done. I hope to see that story flushed out before the 23rd.
Ambrose v Cesaro *** of 5. It wasn't spectacular, but I watched it all and it was better than a lot of the matches in recent weeks. Ambrose has REALLY grown on me since the Shield split up and with CM Punk gone and Daniel Bryan healing, he might be my favorite guy in WWE right now. I know Rollins is the golden boy at the moment, but he has all the charisma of Mark Henry. Ambrose has the charisma, the character the ability and the intensity. I think he would make an excellent tweener.
Jimmy v Miz ** of 5 and only due to Mizdow, who is growing on me as well.
Kidd v Sheamus *1/2 and only because I actually like Tyson Kidd, so seeing him beat Sheamus was nice for me (pissed my sister off, though, as she's in love with Sheamus)
Ziggler v Rollins *** of 5. Best match on the card and the ending with Orton RKOing Rollins was Orton's best moment since becoming the boring "Face of the Company."
Orton's rant on the Authority was great. The guy is finally showing some passion again.
Ryback v O'Neill was filler.
Show v Henry was a train wreck, but like I train wreck I did watch the entire thing...it wasn't as terrible as it could have been....believe me, those boys could have done a lot worse
Bella v Emma... WHY???? There are so many awesome women wrestlers out there: Amazing Kong, Ivelisse, Hamada, Ayako Hamada. Since has a roster of nearly 60 ladies and most of them are better than anything on the WWE roster.. hell, WWE has Charlotte in NXT who is better than anyone on their own roster, Natayla is relegated to some idiotic feud with Tyson Kidd that is a domestic feud rather than a wrestling one... WWE could easily stick an adrenaline shot in their programming by actually having a women's division and it wouldn't cost them much to do it... instead we get the god awful Bellas and Emma, who comes to the ring to a song we used in high gym when they were teaching us the popcorn dance???? Sigh
Zack Ryder v Rusev ** of 5 simply because I hate Ryder and enjoyed watching him get crushed.
Stardust v Fernando 0 of 5.... a complete waste
Rollins v Orton *** of 5 was the first really enjoyable Orton match I have seen since his matches with Daniel Bryan\
Sheamus v Rusev *** of 5 a decent brawl... having the belt on Rusev could do a lot not only for his already hot character, but for the belt too.
The strongest part of the show was how it was tied together. All in all, I give it 7 of 10.
Oh and sorry if the post is too long, but there was a lot of talk about the rating threads being rather barren, so I went in depth a bit
