Matt Hardy thinks Randy Orton and Sami Zayn are the two men capable of becoming WWE’s next top villain, and that a turn would be an easier sell for Zayn.
Hardy was asked on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy about the complaint that came out of SummerSlam weekend, that WWE has run short of heels because so many of them get cheered.
He did not accept the framing.
“If you have people that are very over, if they’re so over that if they come back and return from injury, whether they were a heel or babyface before, and they get a huge reaction, that’s a good thing. It’s a good problem to have, to have people over that people are emotionally connected to, that people are emotionally invested in these certain characters.”
His answer was that the fix is in the writing.
“I just think the way you have to do that is start telling a story, which has to have thought put into it. You have to have a plan. You have to have an outline, and you have to do something to one of the parties to make them do something dastardly to p*** the people off against whoever the opposition is, and build a story.”
“There’s a lot of people who are very respectful of pro wrestling now, and they see someone come back who seems like a big star, even if he is slotted in a bad guy role, and they’ll cheer for him. But you have to write a story, put them in a scenario where they can succeed, especially by doing something dastardly, something heinous to whoever the opposition is, and put them in the role of a bad guy.”
Asked who he would like to see step into it, he named two.
“I still love, like, he’s just such a legend, it’s going to be hard to do it with him, but I still want to see Randy step it up and still be as much of a bad guy as he can be whenever he’s doing his thing, because I think he thrives when he’s in that. It would be interesting to see Sami Zayn in that environment too.”
“Those are the guys who have the ability to do it, and in all honesty, it would probably be easier for Sami Zayn than Randy, just because Randy is so respected because he’s been a legend for so long.”
Orton returned on night one of SummerSlam to cost Cody Rhodes the Undisputed WWE Championship against CM Punk. Asked whether he was surprised Rhodes came out of the weekend unchanged, Hardy said he was, with a caveat.
“It did. It was less than I expected from it, but I also had no idea that Randy was cleared and on the radar, and they were going to kind of go off on a tangent with another Randy and Cody deal.”
Zayn lost the Undisputed WWE Championship to Punk after a nine-day reign in July, and was in the four-way for the number one contendership on night two, which Kevin Owens won on his return.
