5 Biggest Winners & Losers From WWE SmackDown Live (Aug 2)

2. Loser: Randy Orton

The Viper brought genuine excitement to a middle-of-the-road Raw this week by showing-up unannounced and attacking Brock Lesnar. Orton did exactly what Paul Heyman said he wouldn’t: he pounced on Lesnar with an RKO, and escaped through the crowd to leave Lesnar fuming and his advocate shocked.

It was a huge win for Orton, and an incredibly well-executed spot. He, Lesnar, and Heyman timed it to perfection, and when the dust had settled, Orton gained a gigantic surge of momentum in the lead-up to the SummerSlam match. It’s widely assumed that Orton will fall to Lesnar at the PPV, and while there’s still little to suggest otherwise, acts like this keep the fans engaged, and help them rally behind a competitor with a gigantic task ahead of him.

Unfortunately, all that good work was undone on last night’s SmackDown. In an almost perfect replication of Orton’s Raw antics, Lesnar interrupted Orton’s match with Fandango, hit him with the F5, and found himself escorted from the building. Orton’s Raw “win” was dead and gone, and The Beast Incarnate was back in the driver’s seat.

This is exactly the kind of 50/50 booking that fans have been complaining about for years. Orton and Lesnar are two of WWE’s most popular wrestlers, so it’s unlikely that their 'overness' will struggle, but the cold build coupled with Lesnar’s failed USADA tests have left fans with few reasons to be interested in their feud. Last night, WWE took another one of them away.