So is Orton a real face?

[THE Renegade Diesel]

I'm not getting this.

I love Orton's wrestling skill, and everything. He's one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, but I'm just not getting why the crowd is giving him a face reaction. When you think about it, he hasn't had a drastic personality change, or he wasn't suddenly being nice to the Legacy. He was using their behinds all the way until they dissolved completly. I know that guys can just get crowd reactions out of respect, but Randy is still portraying the same heel character. He doesn't play to the crowd at all or do anything that merits a sympathetic reaction. Why don't they at least change his character a bit? I was going to give them time to add spice to his persona, but nope, nothing. It's basically becoming what they did with SCSA, except he doesn't have mic skills nearly as good as Austin, so what am I missing?

What can they do to change this shit?

 

[Sharpshooter 221]

he acts like a heel because they book him as a heel, but the WWE universe laps that shit up, lets face it everyone loves a bad guy.

 

[OrtonMark54]

He's not a face, he's an Austinesque anti hero.

And changing his character right not would be the worse thing the WWE could do. Orton just isn't believable has the prototypical babyface.

The reaction and its causes are just fine. People like him because he is a badass who is currently going after heels. It's what they should have done with him years ago.

 

[THE Renegade Diesel]

I don't know, seem's like one of those last minute change of plans that Russo does.

 

[OrtonMark54]

I don't know, seem's like one of those last minute change of plans that Russo does.

Nah, I don't think it was last minute at all. I bet the WWE has thought about doing this for a while now. For years, Orton has been getting a mixed reaction. As a full blown heel, he wasn't getting the heat he should have been because there was a certain portion of the crowd that cheered him and another portion that was looking for a reason to cheer him.

I think the WWE finally decided to just pull the trigger on it.

 

[Sharpshooter 221]

agreed, orton is gonna take a face turn soon he will be the wierd kind of face but a face none the less

 

[CMS]

Besides, I disagree with the fact that his character hasn't been tweaked. Randy Orton just continues to show how much effort and preparation he puts into his character and basically keeping the same character and same in ring work, has just changed minor things. But there have been change

 

[OrtonMark54]

Besides, I disagree with the fact that his character hasn't been tweaked. Randy Orton just continues to show how much effort and preparation he puts into his character and basically keeping the same character and same in ring work, has just changed minor things. But there have been change

Actually, I think his in ring style has changed drastically. He works much more fast than he did as a heel.

And he is starting to develop the 5 moves of doom. Big clothesline, powerslam, headlock backbreaker, RKO . Sure he's done them all before, but now there's a sequence to them. In addition, he hasn't been using the chinlock as much, if at all.

 

[THE Renegade Diesel]

Yeah, the chinlock usage makes sense, because a heel is much more calculated, and wears down an opponent like a pussy. Also, I cant picture a heel punting someone, and giving them a concussion.

 

[Sharpshooter 221]

true that, the chinlock is one thing i havent seen in a while.

 

[hndsmepete]

I'm not getting this.

I love Orton's wrestling skill, and everything. He's one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, but I'm just not getting why the crowd is giving him a face reaction. When you think about it, he hasn't had a drastic personality change, or he wasn't suddenly being nice to the Legacy. He was using their behinds all the way until they dissolved completly. I know that guys can just get crowd reactions out of respect, but Randy is still portraying the same heel character. He doesn't play to the crowd at all or do anything that merits a sympathetic reaction. Why don't they at least change his character a bit? I was going to give them time to add spice to his persona, but nope, nothing. It's basically becoming what they did with SCSA, except he doesn't have mic skills nearly as good as Austin, so what am I missing?

What can they do to change this shit?

Orton is a tweener. Austin was exactly the same way after the submission match with Bret Hart. It isn't fair to compare him to SCSA, 2 different eras with 2 different styles of promos. Orton's promos are all scripted, Austin was given a list of bullet points to remember to talk about and had to improvise the rest. I guarantee that if Orton had been allowed to do unscripted promos earlier in his career he would be great at doing promos today. I think that the shift to completely scripted promos has been harmful to wrestlers because it entirely removes the thing that made the legendary talkers great, improvisation & creativity. WWE should start to run acting workshops to teach wrestlers how to do better promos because all they're currently doing is reading from a script like any tv actor does.

 

[THE Renegade Diesel]

^ I didn't know ALL promo's were scripted?

 

[hndsmepete]

^ I didn't know ALL promo's were scripted?

Unfortunately they all are. I've heard that some guys are given leeway to improv like Triple H, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels & Undertaker, but for the majority the writing team does all promo. I know about Jericho's involvement in his character from interviews he gave on XM Satellite radio's Opie & Anthony show mentioning it & mentioning the few others that do too. There were one or two WWE scripts on the net a year or more ago that showed scripted promos. Also I've read a lot of SCSA interviews over the years & he would always say things to the effect that the over scripting is killing WWE creatively. The best thing about Austin was that he would call WWE on their faults to their faces. Paul Heyman put up a good article talking about how SCSA left WWE because the writing was shit & they wanted him to drop the belt to Brock without any kind of feud on a Raw instead of a PPV. The article was good because it had somethings in it that SCSA didn't have in his book, such as Brock agreeing with Austin's decision to walk out after learning about the business more. Heyman also mentioned how pissed Vince was because there was no confrontation between them.

 

[CMS]

Actually, I think his in ring style has changed drastically. He works much more fast than he did as a heel.

And he is starting to develop the 5 moves of doom. Big clothesline, powerslam, headlock backbreaker, RKO . Sure he's done them all before, but now there's a sequence to them. In addition, he hasn't been using the chinlock as much, if at all.

That's practically what I said. Except I don't the change in the in ring work as dractic as you seem to see it. But there has been change. Orton doing a dropkick was becoming more and more sporadic for instance.

Besides....we got the pose back

 

[Mr. McMAnderson]

He's not a real face. Not by old school standards anyway. Orton has always had a fan base. Kids and women like him because of the good job Legacy did in playing sneaky heels.