10 Wrestlers Better Off For Having Worked With Mick Foley
2. Randy Orton
Randy Orton was not always the cold and calculating Viper that fans know him as today. Just two years into his WWE career, he was still seen by the masses as a pretty boy third-generation wrestler who only got where he was because of his good looks and pedigree.
No "Legend Killer" gimmick or endless RKOs to industry icons could make up for the fact that a large portion of the audience saw him as a punk kid whose position in the company was reliant on who his daddy was and which key backstage politicians had his back.
In the summer of 2003, though, he punted Mick Foley down a flight of stairs in Madison Square Garden and ignited a blood feud that would forever change those perceptions.
Disrespecting the Hardcore Legend was not out of the norm, nor was literally spitting in his face. What fans needed to see was Orton taken to a new level.
They needed to see toughness and violence on his part. They also needed to see how he handled a brutal !*$%-kicking. They would get their chance at Backlash 2004, nearly one year after the feud began.
That night, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Orton went from boy to man, enduring a beating that earned him the respect of the fans. He was savagely beaten, enduring a beating that left him bloodied and a glorified pincushion.
He won, as was intended the entire time, but he was worse for wear. He looked as though he had been through war and it was that imagery, rather than his handsomeness, that earned him the affection of an audience waiting for him to be more.
And he was, courtesy of a grizzled vet in Foley, who knew exactly how to get the absolute most out of him.