WWE Star Breaks Character To Praise Randy Orton
An on-screen rival of Randy Orton’s has explained why earning the respect of The Viper means a lot.
It was at WWE Survivor Series 2023 when Randy Orton returned to the ring after 18 months on the shelf due to a serious back injury. Since his return to the SmackDown brand, Orton has been one of the most popular wrestlers in the company as an ally of Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens.
The days of Owens being an ally of Rhodes and Orton changed when Owens was angry with Rhodes for teaming up with Roman Reigns. When Orton tried to calm Owens down, Owens did a cheap attack on Orton as well.
Issues between Owens and Orton got even more serious when Owens gave Orton a piledriver on the November 8th edition of WWE SmackDown. Since piledrivers are banned in WWE, Orton sold it like it was a serious injury and Orton left the arena in an ambulance that night.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Orton broke character to talk about his respect for Randy Orton.
“The nature of professional wrestling is that we end up on opposite sides of the ring and once in a while we will team. As far as Randy goes, there is no-one in WWE that I respect as much I respect Randy. That is not a knock on anyone else, that is just a credit to how much I respect Randy Orton.
On a professional level, but also a personal level, he will willingly talk about the mistakes he has made when he was younger and first starting out, because he wants to be an example of what to do and what not to do. He is very open about it and I respect him so much. I have seen how much he has changed even in the time I have known him.
All the credit for that goes to his family, he gives it to his wife and kids. He is just a real positive influence in our locker room. When he wasn’t here, you could feel it. When Randy Orton is around, people are on their toes more because they want Randy to respect them. Randy’s respect is worth a lot.”
Kevin Owens Is Grateful For Randy Orton Helping Him In WWE
As the interview continued, Kevin Owens expressed gratitude toward Randy Orton for being a big influence on his WWE career.
“To have gotten the chance to work with him as a tag team – if it was up to me none of what has happened the last few months would have happened – I would still be teaming with Randy on TV together and going after the tag team titles. That’s what I wish was happening, obviously that is not how things have turned out.
It does not change how much I respect Randy and how grateful I am for the role he has played in my career having been around him.
I think it is pretty public how he recently signed a new contract so he is going to be around for a good while.
He is someone we need for the NXT guys coming up to have an example to look to. There are plenty of us right, you want examples of who to look up to, The New Day, Randy, there are so many of our women, there’s a lot. But at the top of the list is Randy Orton.”
Next up for Kevin Owens is an Undisputed WWE Title match against Cody Rhodes at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 14th in Long Island, New York.