Why WWE Legend Regretted Taking Randy Orton’s Punt

A WWE Hall of Famer isn’t happy that he took Randy Orton’s punt kick to the head.

Randy Orton has been using the RKO as his finishing move for the majority of his career, but he also used the running Punt kick to the head, especially during his heel run in the late 2000s and into the 2010s as well.

The idea behind the Punt is that when Orton would use it as a heel, it was done with malicious intent and as a way to hurt another wrestler. It was often used as a creative way to write somebody out of storylines as well.

At the WWE Extreme Rules 2007 PPV, Randy Orton beat WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam in a Stretcher Match to open the show. After the match, Orton hit RVD with the dreaded Punk kick to the head and a DDT on the floor.

That match was the end of RVD’s six-year run as a WWE full-timer. It was an injury angle to write him out of the company. While speaking on his One of a Kind podcast, Van Dam admitted that he wishes he hadn’t taken The Punt from Orton.

“So, we had that Stretcher match, and he did a football punt underneath my chin, and dude, this is so relevant to what some of the guys like Chael Sonnen are trying to argue. You know, I heard him saying that some of the wrestlers say, ‘just lay it in there, I’ll roll with it’ and whatever. Exactly what I told Randy, and I regretted it.”

Some wrestlers had concussions from taking Orton’s Punt, so the move was eventually banned, but they did bring it back in 2020, although Orton stopped using it again.

Randy Orton Was Told Not To Worry By RVD

As he continued, RVD mentioned what he told Orton at the time because Orton had to walk across the apron to hit the Punt in this instance.

“I told him, ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it.’ You know, because it was going to be hard for him to run on the apron and do it and whatever. And it f**king got me wham so f**king hard.

But it was crazy because we were going into a concussion angle anyway, and so it’s easy to tap into real emotions and go with it. And this was before we knew about concussions, or we never would have done it, you know.”

Regarding his current place in WWE, Randy Orton will renew his rivalry with Drew McIntyre on the September 12th edition of SmackDown as the two top stars face off in singles action.

Also Read: Randy Orton feels lucky to be in WWE because of how many mistakes he made in the past.