12 Match Star Ratings For WWE SummerSlam 2019
3. Kofi Kingston Vs. Randy Orton - WWE Heavyweight Title Match
There were matches at Heroes Of Wrestling fought with more urgency and intensity than this. Randy Orton play-fought with his wife on the beach ahead of this match, and it was considerably more entertaining.
And it's a d*mn shame: Orton's character and promo work in the build was legit tremendous. It was by some distance the most well-built match on the card, and then, to quote Bruce Prichard, "the bell rang". Orton simply isn't fit for purpose as an in-ring act in 2019. His style is antagonistically slow. That was that they were going for, presumably: Randy Orton, in a (nominal) heat spot, did the New Day clap spot like his other hand was lava, grinning obnoxiously, knowing full well that the audience wanted him to speed things up.
It wasn't effective storytelling. At all: the layout was designed to frame him as the clinical veteran, but veterans are supposed to know the tricks to generate a reaction years removed from their prime. On this evidence, Orton would be better off playing a librarian in AEW.
Orton isn't terrible. He is marvellous, on a strictly technical level, and he suckered Kingston into the maw of danger in a few logical, dramatic spots, but Jesus wept: this parody of his "methodical" style was punishingly dull.
Star Rating: *3/4