10 Really Strange Modern Wrestling Phenomenons
I don't feel so good.
Wrestling never ceases to bewilder. To underscore that point, consider the WWE landscape at this point just two years ago.
Roman Reigns, in the midst of what now appears to be his peak, drew almost reluctant praise as a result of his undeniably excellent series of matches with AJ Styles. John Cena hadn't yet departed for Hollywood, itself a shocking and hypocritical development, and wrestled an equally great WWE false-finish festival with the same man. Rusev, in a cold continuation of his great 2014 foreign menace bit, won the United States Title where he didn't, at WrestleMania 34, as a white-hot babyface. Titus O'Neill was deemed a worthy challenger to that United States Championship, stumbling into a PPV match at Money In The Bank. His former tag partner, Darren Young, was promised even Greater things. Big Cass and Enzo Amore were popular, as opposed to the two single-most despised men in all of wrestling, Roman excepted. Primo and Epico were repackaged as timeshare salesmen - baffling roles in which it was possible to generate heat only from the Puerto Rican sun.
But some things in wrestling are even stranger than WWE's mystifying approach to fiction...
10. The Continued Casual Fan Reaction To Randy Orton
Randy Orton is committed to the banter, if not his performance level; if anything, the Viper has become almost defiantly tedious in 2018, with the glib grin etched over his face his sole remaining expression. His "Fast"lane match with Bobby Roode was almost a cliché of his antiquated, methodical style, and any notion that this resulted from the dynamic dissipated upon watching his next PPV singles effort - perhaps that isn't the correct word - opposite Jeff Hardy at Backlash. Mid-paced, middle of the road, this was the embodiment of average. It was well-worked, as most Orton matches are, but lacking in any drama or dynamism.
Once a brash upstart, a Legend Killer, an IED-afflicted psychopath, Orton's new role is that of a sturdy veteran with nothing left to prove. The man barely boasts any character. He turns up, drops somebody with an RKO to initiate a feud, and said feud plays out to no appreciable effect on the SmackDown landscape whatsoever.
And yet, Orton is not rejected by the 'WWE Universe', unlike so many of those accused of an immunity to change (Roman Reigns), wrestling boring matches (Roman Reigns) or enjoying a status as an unearned office favourite (Roman Reigns). Orton is an accepted - mildly cherished, on the basis of the pops he continues to generate - part of the furniture, and as immovable.
How can a 13-time World Champion, an incredible number, exist simply to make up the numbers?