Randy Orton Pays Tribute To WWE Partner Matt Riddle

Randy Orton is grateful that he was able to team with Matt Riddle while The Viper was dealing with injuries.

At WWE Survivor Series, Randy Orton made his in-ring return to the company after 18 months on the shelf dealing with a serious back injury. That back injury led to Orton undergoing surgery followed by an extensive rehab process.

Before Orton’s injury that took him out in May 2022, he was teaming with Matt Riddle as a team known as RK-Bro. While they didn’t always get along at first, Orton warmed up to his eccentric, often-excitable partner and they gelled as one of the most popular teams in their era.

During a recent episode of WWE US Champion Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast on YouTube, Randy Orton spoke about his injury rehab and how teaming with Riddle helped him get through a lot of those matches when he was in pain.

“I changed a lot of stuff in these last eighteen months. I had a lot of ailments. I couldn’t stand for a couple of minutes without pain shooting down my legs.”

“When I sat down, I had a disc that was slipping every time I would bend…it would suck. That last year I had to leave because of that I tagged with former WWE star Matt Riddle.”

“I have to give him props because that year we tagged together…I was not able to be in that ring without someone like him. He was able to take the brunt of the physicality, he’d tag me at the end, and I do my sh*t. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it that far. I had some great doctors, they fixed me up right.”

Unfortunately for Orton, he can’t team with Riddle again in WWE since the bro was fired by the company in September 2023. Orton and Riddle were two-time WWE Raw Tag Team Champions together.

Randy Orton Is Focused On Roman Reigns And The Bloodline

Since returning to WWE, Randy picked up a win in the Men’s WarGames match as well as a victory over Dominik Mysterio on Raw. On the December 1st episode of Smackdown, Randy Orton chose to sign with Smackdown instead of Raw because he wanted to get his hands on The Bloodline group by Roman Reigns.

While nothing is official yet, WWE is likely going to have Randy Orton challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title at the 2024 Royal Rumble.

As Randy Orton told Paul Heyman to tell Reigns on Smackdown: “Daddy’s back.”

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