10 Best Wrestling Storylines Right Now
5. Edge's Comeback Story
This is elite-tier WWE business: nuanced, heated, loaded with gravitas, it's a huge, WrestleMania-sized programme performed by two masters of the storytelling craft.
Edge's incredible return at the Royal Rumble saw a very brief Rated RKO reunion. It was genuinely lovely stuff; Orton seemed as thrilled as everybody to see his former friend return, and expressed this with the sort of real feeling that got him more over on social media than on television, at least prior to this development. "Holy sh*t, you're shredded!" he said, in what felt far more like a candid backstage interaction than a posed, scripted meeting, which layered the scene with real emotion. Being a snake, he obviously had a plan to eliminate Edge from the match, but Edge, a wily and intelligent babyface - the likes of which WWE has profoundly missed - was wise to the scheme. He eliminated Orton, who acknowledged Edge's strategy with a wry, understanding smile.
And then, in the best RAW segment in years, he wrote him out of commission with a Con-Chair-To - a vile attack that resonated due to both the nature of Edge's career-ending injury and the discipline not to erode the power of the spot like so many gratuitous table bumps.
The shared universe of the dynamic has expanded, with the use of Matt Hardy; Edge has sold the gravity of the attack by going MIA; Orton still hasn't revealed why he did it, threading a mystery element through the narrative: this is an excellent bit of business loaded with intrigue and real, convincing quality.