10 Things We Learned From Randy Orton On Stone Cold's Broken Skull Sessions Podcast
3. His “Oscar Moment”
Randy, by his own admission, has never been much of a promo guy...until now.
In fact, he described most of his interviews as "mediocre" before the penny dropped in 2020. On the 2 March Raw that year, Orton cut a blistering promo on Edge to Beth Phoenix, and it was so good that Beth started crying, fans gave him a standing ovation and Vince McMahon called it his "Oscar moment".
After seeing Vince stand up, take off his headset, leave Gorilla, hug him and say those words, Randy immediately thought one thing: "I can't let this man down again". He had, many times, but he also knew he'd just stumbled upon a formula he could use going forwards on the mic; it wasn't about the words, it was more about the feeling.
Some frost crept back over the interview when Austin remembered criticising Randy's verbal skills. Michael Hayes also apparently told Orton that he "wasn't great" on the mic. The Edge feud flicked a switch in Orton's brain and made him realise that he could own the room if he believed in himself and added splashes of reality to his material.