Randy Orton believes the reduction in WWE’s live event schedule has created a significant gap in how wrestlers are able to build chemistry with each other, and he has the numbers to back up his concern.
Speaking with The Schmo ahead of WrestleMania 42, Orton was asked about his approach to building chemistry with opponents and delivered a detailed answer that painted a stark picture of how different the current WWE road schedule is compared to what performers experienced in previous generations.
“I think when we used to do more shows, and there were live events, if I was going to wrestle a guy, you know, pick let’s say me and Drew McIntyre had never wrestled before, we would do a two-week European tour together, and we would wrestle each other every single night. We’d be doing two, three, sometimes four live events stateside, and we’d wrestle each other every single night. And by the time that we got into the ring on TV, pay-per-view, Raw, SmackDown, whatever, and had that first televised match, we would already had a chemistry built. You don’t want to do anything for the first time live, but now we’ve kind of gotten into a situation where we do a lot of times,” Orton said.
He went further, comparing what the current top performers are doing in terms of match volume to what his generation was expected to handle on a yearly basis.
“I’ve wrestled many guys since our schedule has kind of slowed down, for the first time on live TV, and that’s crazy to think. I think I heard last year, LA Knight wrestled like 77 matches, and that was like the most matches anybody had wrestled. And that’s wild because we were wrestling 180, 200, 220 matches a year for years and years. I had 15 years or so where I was averaging 185 matches a year. So that’s hard on the body. That’s tough. The travel’s gruesome. It’s hard on family life. But your body builds up a resiliency where you’re taking those bumps, that repetition, you’re able to build that chemistry with all that time in the ring off TV in front of a live audience, and you learn what works. And that’s the chemistry right there,” Orton said.
Orton lost to Cody Rhodes in the night one main event of WrestleMania 42 in his most recent televised appearance.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit The Schmo with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
