Randy Orton was prepared to be huge. His matches were getting good, his character was developing, and fans were about ready to turn him face. Of course, WWE couldn’t have natural character progression, so they had to do something. That something was ruin Orton and damn the Raw main event scene for the foreseeable future. In the interest of keeping Orton both healthy and a heel, they had him begin to work like Triple H. Now, that, in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Triple H has nearly unmatched psychology and can really put together a match. The problem is, however, that Triple H moves in slow motion. I’d guess this is meant to build drama and make everything mean more, but instead it bores the audience and slows matches down to the point of getting no response, especially when under cards feature Kofi Kingston, MVP, and even John Cena who all work at a totally different, faster pace. Randy has begun to work so slowly as to make Triple H look like Evan Bourne and, unsurprisingly, since then has not been nearly as over.
This lack of anything interesting occurring in matches is featured by the top two guys on Raw and so will be infecting any new top talent that will come into Raw. Ted Dibiase, Jr. is a great example of this. Yesterday on Raw, we got his teased face-turn match with Orton. Even the segments Ted controlled were painfully slow and simple. This is a guy who has worked and been competent in Japan, but he’s being shown that the way to succeed in WWE is to take things as slowly and simply as possible. MVP had an exciting match with Orton, then was promptly depushed, jobbing to Triple H in yet another slow uninspiring match. These matches are all the rage atop Raw and with Triple H’s power and influence only set to increase over the years, can only spread like a horrible, tiring plague.
