20 Most Hated Heel Moves In Wrestling History
16. Casting The First Stone
In February 1985, during his second stint in the WWF, ‘Ace’ Bob Orton (Randy’s father) legitimately broke his left forearm during a match with Jimmy Snuka at the War To Settle The Score event at Madison Square Garden. While the injury healed, Orton would wear a cast to the ring. But long after the cast should have come off, Orton kept it on, claiming that he was under doctor’s orders.
‘Ace’, of course, was what ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper called him: Orton was working as his bodyguard and hatchet man at the time, and would regularly use the cast as a weapon on Piper’s behalf as well as his own.
Most famously, the cast cost Piper one of the biggest matches of all time. In the main event of the first ever WrestleMania, Orton swung for Hulk Hogan but missed and hit Piper’s tag partner ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Paul Orndorff instead, allowing Hogan to cover Orndorff for the win.
People remember that cast; urban legend is that Orton wore the damned thing for years, but in fact he’d take it off after twelve months or so, when a now babyface ‘Mr. Wonderful’ began wearing his own cast to level the playing field. Finally, both men were ordered to remove the casts from their arms.
Still, Bob Orton’s cast remains one of the most notorious international objects in wrestling history. He donated the cast to Jim Cornette as a thank you for helping train his son in OVW. Seems fair enough to me… for a change.