Missed Opportunities

Was talking to a friend about how I think the Wyatt Family is fast becoming the next Straight Edge Society. A group that is a complete heat magnet that, if booked right, could be a fantastic heel element of the main event.



It got us talking about other times we felt the crowd were pulling for something and one that sprung out for me was Randy Orton in 2009 as we headed in to Wrestlemania 25. If you recall, Triple H was the WWE Champion at the time and his main challenger was going to be Randy Orton. The feud was built around Orton & Legacy taking on Triple H and the McMahons and is widely regarded as a missed opportunity anyway. Why it is is down to the build, which had Shane McMahon beating up Orton & Legacy on his own, and the Wrestlemania match itself, which was hamstrung by the stipulations involved.



The missed opportunity I'm talking about though isn't to do with the feud failing as it was. I'm more talking about the opportunity they had to turn Orton in to a tweener face character during the build. Have a look at this video:







Listen to the reactions and RKO chants when Orton tells Vince that he doesn't want to fire him. This wasn't strange for this Orton character at the time. He had slowly developed in to the Viper character, an unhinged heel who could strike at any time, and comparisons with Austin's 1996/97 character were flowing.



I think the missed opportunity here was doing a double turn in the middle of this feud and having Orton head in to Mania as the face and have Triple H and the McMahons be the heels he would have to overcome to get the title. Orton was getting the reactions and all Triple H and the McMahons would have to do would be to tap in to heel authority characters that they'd played on and off for about a decade at that point.



Had they done that I'm convinced Orton would have had a chance to supplant Cena as the number one babyface in the company through 2009 and in to 2010.