Randy Orton was put out of action by Seth Rollins in late 2014, making it clear that the man who had been WWE's top heel for the previous year would be turning face. He made his repeatedly-delayed comeback at Fast Lane, attacking Rollins and seemingly setting up a WrestleMania match. It was a clear, sensible storyline, and it was immediately botched. Triple H tried to get his two charges to play nicely together, and Orton complied - or so he pretended. Still, every fan saw his eventual turn on Rollins coming, so it lacked impact. When they finally did feud, the results were fine, but after Rollins won the program, Orton was shiftless again. Orton - who has repeatedly voiced his preference to play a heel role - entered into a nonsensical back-and-forth feud with Sheamus. After that, he began to feud with The Wyatt Family, but injury put him on the shelf before the blow-off. It was sad to see the talented Orton fall so far in 2015 - the man who headlined WrestleMania the previous year had become an unenthusiastic midcarder whom the creative team had no clue how to handle. As a result, Orton failed to capture anyone's imagination this year.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013