12 WWE Face & Heel Turns That IMMEDIATELY Backfired
3. Randy Orton’s Post-Evolution Struggles (2004)
Hey, nothing you can say. Nothing's going to change what you've done to me. Now it's time to shine, I'm gonna take what's mine while you're burning inside my light. Sorry, no particular reason for belting out the lyrics to Randy Orton's old 'Burn In My Light' entrance track, but it is nice to even the score now WWE crowds singalong to his 'Voices' classic en masse in 2025.
In fairness, Def Rebel hasn't given them many choices!
Young Randall certainly had every reason to say: "Now it's time to shine, I'm gonna take what's mine" after being kicked right out of Evolution following his surprise World Heavyweight Title win over Chris Benoit at SummerSlam 2004. Triple H, Ric Flair and (to a lesser extent) Batista were unhappy that he'd decided to shake hands with the Canadian. How dare he - Evolution didn't play well with others. They were brutes.
The Evolution split launched Randy into a hopeful babyface role, but he wasn't ready for it and that was glaring straight away. No, it didn't help when Hunter beat him to win the belt at Unforgiven so quickly, but maybe WWE figured Orton was better as chaser rather than as head hunted champion. Whatever way they sliced it, something else was staring them in the face.
They had to cut their losses on clean cut, Rocky Maivia-like baby Randy.
WWE turned Orton heel in time for a WrestleMania 21 match with The Undertaker. That was an inspired decision that completely re-energised the relative newbie and let him sneer at fan hatred rather than putting on puppy dog eyes to beg for their sympathy. Being babyface is more challenging than being heel, and Randy found that out the hard way early into his main event days.