Kurt Angle spoke about a wide range of topics on a recent episode of The Kurt Angle Show.
During it, the WWE Hall of Famer discussed Randy Orton being an effective heel:
“Randy was always good in the ring. He needed to sharpen his skills from a promo perspective, and he did. He is so cold and calculating in the ring. He takes his time. He controls the tempo of the match. He doesn’t let the fans control it. He had to do that with his promos too because sometimes when he would talk, the fans would start responding and he would speed up his conversation. Randy learned how to slow it down and be cool and calculating in his promos as he was in his matches.
Randy is a natural heel. That’s his best asset. There’s no other heel like him. There’s no other heel better than him. He’s great at it. I don’t know if he’s a real life as*hole (Kurt laughs), but you have to have a little a*shole in you to be that kind of character, to portray it, but Randy just had it all together. He knew how to take his time. He didn’t let the fans control anything. He would slow the promo down to frustrate the fans until they listened. He knew how to pull back and make sure the fans knew he was in control. That’s Randy Orton…Randy is effective as a babyface, but he still does heel tactics. He doesn’t change much of his match or his psychology. Randy is just Randy, and he is a very special talent. The great thing about him is he doesn’t have to have these long, drawn out false finishes in matches. His RKO, he protected it so well, he can hit it out of nowhere and the fans are going to buy into it that it’s the finish.”
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