WWE Raw: Randy Orton’s Absence Caused Cancellation Of 2 Major Plans

Randy Orton is one of the bonafide WWE superstars to have ever stepped his foot into the squared circle. The third-generation superstar has accomplished a lot of things during his two-decade run with the WWE and if he remains physically okay then more success is coming his way. Nothing more in particular is to be achieved by the top superstar but that doesn’t mean that the anticipation regarding his return is less.

In his WWE career, Randy Orton has done pretty much everything one could ask for. Currently, he is out of action, and it seems WWE had some huge plans for him once he comes back. But during his absence, the company was forced to go through some changes in creative plans.

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14-Time WWE World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton has been dealing with a back injury. Due to this, he hasn’t wrestled since May 2022 after getting written off WWE programming after a vicious storyline assault by Roman Reigns and his Bloodline allies.

Afterward, Randy Orton had to undergo surgery that resulted in the original plan for the SummerSlam 2022 main event getting canceled where the sidelined Superstar would have challenged for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship held by Reigns.

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Randy Orton was supposed to turn heel on Riddle

This isn’t the only plan to get canceled this year as WWE Officials didn’t think Randy Orton would be out of action for this long. They apparently had plans for him to turn on his tag team partner Matt Riddle as soon as he returned. But that plan has reportedly been scrapped since the back injury turned out to be more serious than it was initially thought.

WrestleVotes stated the following regarding this during a conversation with GiveMeSport, “When Randy Orton went down, the plan was for him to come back and immediately turn on Matt Riddle.”

As of this writing, WWE announced Randy Orton’s injury, although they did not go into detail on how long The Viper would remain on the shelf. That being said, there’s no update on when he could be returning. Royal Rumble 2023 could be the event where we could see the legend back in action but that’s a long story.