WWE superstar Randy Orton spoke with Inside The Ropes to hype his Backlash matchup against Hall of Famer Edge, which is being dubbed as the Greatest Match Ever. He also gives his opinion on NXT wrestlers work-rate, and whether he’d like to work with Tommaso Ciampa. Highlights are below.
On possibly working with Ciampa:
I mean, as I was saying earlier, whatever Vince gives me to do, whatever my job is on that particular situation, I’m gonna do it and if it’s working with a Tommaso Ciampa then I’ll be all for it because I think he’s very talented and I think there’s a few things that I could help him with. Mainly, to help him get a little more out of his career because I know he’s been plagued with injuries but I also know that he loves and respects this business.
On the NXT roster doing too much and putting their bodies at risk:
The NXT guys worry me because I see them doing such highly physical things during their matches. It’s almost like they do so many physically impressive things, but those things are dangerous and they wear and tear on your career. I’ve been doing this 20 years and I’ll do it another decade. I just turned 40 and my plan would be to keep going until my 50th birthday, you know what I mean? And I think that I would be able to do that and to support my family for 30 years of wrestling under Vince McMahon because of the way I tell stories in the ring. The facial expressions, the little transitional things that you do on the fly or you adlib so-to-speak during a match. Those are the things people remember. I watched a match the other day and I’m not gonna name names, but a lot of the NXT guys work like this and it was just train wreck after train wreck after train wreck and it was all very impressive but when it’s all said and done and the match is over, I couldn’t remember anything that happened because it was just movement, it was just big car crashes and when you see so much of that back-to-back and you don’t see how that affected the talent, meaning they didn’t sell that move or there wasn’t enough of a delay between high spots that I was able to see facial expressions and see that, ‘Oh, this guy’s hurt. Oh, he hurt his neck on this spot and then he just tried to pick up the other guy but he couldn’t because his neck. Ah, I think he’s really hurt, oh my God.’ You don’t get to invest into these matches because they’re just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. One thing after another and although it’s highly physically impressive and it’s something I don’t think — I wouldn’t be able to that style. There are a lot of these things these guys do [that] I’m not capable of doing, but they’re gonna have very short careers and what I worry about for Ciampa in particular is that with all these big injuries he’s had and we’ve all had injuries, we all work hurt, we all wake up stiff after a good fight, but he needs to learn how to tell stories and slow it down and not think that the fans wanna see him kill himself, you know what I mean?
Having a natural chemistry with Edge:
Yeah, usually if somebody calls a match the greatest or [one] of the greatest matches of all-time, the match has already taken place. So, it definitely — the expectations are very high for Edge and I, and I wasn’t exactly happy when I heard that they were gonna be calling it before it even went down, the greatest wrestling match in history but, I feel like at this point in my career and being in there with Edge of all people who I consider to be one of the absolute best workers in the business, past, present or future. He’s amazing in the ring and with me, I feel like I have a natural ability, a natural chemistry with him.
Full interview is below. (H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)