9 Things WWE Got Right At Battleground 2016

3. Mentioning Brock Lesnar's Failed Drug Tests

Rusev Battleground US Champion
WWE.com

In what may have been the most predictable outcome on a night that had a Rusev vs. Zack Ryder match, Randy Orton's return to WWE on the Highlight Reel ended with Chris Jericho being hit with an RKO, albeit one that wasn't exactly OUTTANOWHERE!!!

It was always going to happen, it should have happened, it did happen.

The only question going into this was whether Orton would mention the recent discretions of his SummerSlam opponent, Brock Lesnar. In what was absolutely the right move, WWE had Orton acknowledge Lesnar's failed drug tests in the shape of a comment about how Orton doesn't require any enhancement.

WWE gains nothing by having Orton, supposedly a loose cannon in story, ignore the failed tests and go ahead with this as a basic wrestling rivalry. Having Orton acknowledge it can add some spic to a match that lacking some, seemingly existing purely because Orton is a big name Lesnar hasn't faced on his return yet.

Orton doesn't have a spotless past when it comes to test violations, so it will be interesting to see whether Lesnar (or Paul Heyman, most likely) brings them up as the story progresses. For now, WWE made the right first move in this rivalry.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.