In a long-forgotten era of professional wrestling, a heel would build up all the heat he could for a period of time, then do business with a territory's top babyface, and leave (preserving his relevance as a top guy in that territory). Usually before leaving, the promoter from the territory where a top heel was finishing up would contact another promoter to peddle the wares of a guy who had just done tremendous business for him. Upon agreeing upon dates and a price, the heel would then move onto somewhere else, and continue the same process with another territory's top (or developing) babyface. The issue surrounding Randy Orton possibly having literally done everything multiple times over in WWE in this era (to the point of irrelevance) is that he can't say, go to Memphis and Portland for nine months, and then come back to New York. However, with WWE now having created its own "universe" with the WWE Network, that possibility exists, and Orton could feasibly go to another "territory," and come back to "New York" after a six month break. Imagine if on the night after Wrestlemania, the now title-less Randy Orton is set to have an "in-ring performance evaluation" with The Authority. Orton arrives, and is told by Hunter and Stephanie that his performance has been less-than-effective as the "face of the WWE." However, instead of firing him, they instead are going to punish him by sending him to NXT, where he's going to be wrestling with athletes "in need of development, just like him." Of course, from an in-ring standpoint, there's nothing better for future WWE money makers than to learn from the best. Insofar as storylines, the idea that Orton possibly comes back to TV with a NXT competitor as his chief opponent (say, Sami Zayn or, intriguingly someone like Adam Rose), it elevates NXT and Orton's opponent. Furthermore, Orton could be banned from using the RKO in NXT, and have to develop a new finisher that would allow him to refresh his presentation. Overall, Orton loses no worth in any of this process, and ultimately gains greater worth as a more well-rounded competitor having learned how to make stars on likely a weekly basis on the NXT program. Similar to what Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit were supposed to do in ECW, Orton could excel in that role.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
