3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (9 Oct - Results & Review)
Downs...
5. Why Did Randy Orton Even Show Up?
One Randy Orton appeared to be arriving at the building “earlier today” when he bumped into GM Nick Aldis and offered to go home. Yep, just like that. At first, it appeared that Aldis might ban him from the building to try and keep the peace with Cody Rhodes anyway, but they didn’t get that far. Randy just suggested it, mumbled something about Cody not having it in him to hit the punt, then left.
What a pretty unsatisfying bit of story work for that feud this week. It was phoned in to the extreme, and almost like Trips jotted down the meat of it on a napkin in catering. Some may argue that WWE finding ways to get key players onto television every week is a good thing, and it can be, but more thought should go into layering stories this important. Here, both Orton and Rhodes just repeated the same stuff they've been saying recently.
We get it: Randy doesn't think that Cody has it in him to pull the trigger and get ruthless. Being fair, why would he when the top babyface has resisted the urge to get ultra-violent time after time? That's coming, of course, but we need more of a build towards the crescendo than we got on this week's SmackDown from either side.
Regrettably, Rhodes couldn't even save things live in the arena after Randy's pre-tape trundled along beforehand. This was one of the weaker Orton promos on SmackDown lately, which is a pity because he's been smashing it on the mic.