Randy Orton Granted WWE Vacation

Randy Orton was written off television on this week's Raw episode and will not be appearing at the WWE Night of Champions PPV on September 20, according to PWInsider. During Monday's episode, Orton was attacked by the Wyatt Family trio of Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman and Luke Harper. The reason for the attack was that he was seen talking to Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose prior to his match against Sheamus, which Orton won. It appeared as though the attack happened because Orton would team up with Reigns and Ambrose against the Wyatt Family. Apparently that's not going to happen. The report notes that a source within WWE Creative said that Orton isn't figured into storyline plans for the next several weeks, which includes Night of Champions.

Orton turned face earlier this year, feuded with Seth Rollins over the WWE Title and then went back to the boring feud with Sheamus. They had three high profile matches with Orton winning clean at Battleground, Sheamus winning clean at SummerSlam and Orton winning the deciding match clean on Monday's Raw. What's likely is that he's being kept out as a way to put over the dominance of the new Wyatt Family because they also took out Jimmy Uso on Smackdown. The story is that they will take out anybody that tries to team up with Reigns and Ambrose. Orton hasn't feuded with Bray Wyatt before, so that's likely a program that will start up whenever Orton returns from his latest hiatus. Enjoy the vacation, Randy.