6 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Raw (July 6)

3. Orton The Opportunist

Say what you will about Randy Orton, but he still can show flashes of having “it.”

Monday night, Orton cut through the BS that has dominated Andrade & Angel Garza’s rocky relationship, warning the two that if they screwed things up Monday night, he’d be coming after them. Then, during the six-man tag match, Angel got in Andrade’s face, prompting Orton to call for a conference outside the ring, where he grabbed Garza and threatened to bury him if he didn’t get it together.

It showed how serious Orton is these days (in character) and that he won’t tolerate screw-ups in his presence.

Later, as Big Show ran wild on a hot tag, Orton tried a fly-by RKO, only for Show to push him off. Orton indicated he was “this close” to getting him, which was a perfect in-character moment, trying to strike when the moment dictated it. Minutes later, he did just that, coming in off a blind tag to hit an RKO on Erik for the win

This doesn’t change the fact that we’re looking at a Big Show/Orton feud in 2020, but at least this was a plugged in Viper Monday night.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.