5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Raw (Nov 11)

1. Orton Plays Mindgames

So often, WWE loves to refer to any kind of head-fake as a wrestler “playing mindgames” with his/her opponent. It’s such an overused word that it has lost almost all meaning.

But what Randy Orton was doing with Ricochet Monday night was exactly that: mindgames. And it worked wonderfully. Orton has been largely stuck in neutral for what seems like forever, but portraying him as a veteran who can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants is perfectly in line with his character.

So having Orton fake an RKO to Ricochet multiple times during and after their six-man tag match (along with the fact that Randy oddly volunteered to team with Ricochet and Humbert Carrillo) made things that much more interesting. Rather than Orton just hitting an RKO outta nowhere, Randy is making Ricochet think about it and be nervous, even while they’re teaming together.

There’s no promise this will bear fruit later, but for one night, this was done pretty well.