Orton has had various good promos throughout his career.
I wonder if Orton can even pull the kind of promos he did back during 04. He seems to have become accustomed to speaking slowly and methodically. I think it would take him time to transition back into how he used to speak. You get used to certain things when doing them for so long.
Speaking of slower promos, he pulled off some good ones during his return in 2008.
Fact is, Orton is competent on the mic and has shown he can pull off good promos at times. Part of pulling off a good promo is about the material you have and the feud you're in also. If you have little to say and what you have to say is generic stuff that WWE seems to feed most of their talent, then unless you're a great mic worker like Austin, Flair etc. you're not going to fair very well. Seems unreasonable to hold Orton to such standards.
You need compelling feuds and storylines and with that, you can get good material for your talent.
The thing with Randy Orton is he brings something different to every single gimmick he is given. I personally think he's perfect right now. Although my favorite Randy Orton was when he formed Legacy, that was when he was at his best. Nonetheless, he's still a very talented young performer. It just seems like since he's started he's been a part of some kind of group and now he's alone and doing better than ever. And where's the rest of his group mates? Cody...well he's doing pretty good too, Triple H is injured, Ric Flair is messing around with TNA, Batista quit, and Teddy is a jobber.
Uh, are you saying this to try and imply the others are failing or something?
All those men, with the exception of Cody/Ted (who made their debut just two/three years ago) have already accomplished more than they needed. Ric Flair is one of the greatest wrestlers ever, and even if he should have hung them a while ago, Orton will never reach his heights. Neither will he reach the heights of Triple H. Batista would still be a bigger star than him if he returned tomorrow. All of these men are above 40 years of age too.
Also, Orton was on his own throughout 2005, was placed in Rated RKO due to his increasing irrelevance in 2006 for a few months, and was on his own again throughout 2007 and most of 2008. He spent most of his main event career alone. It's just that he lagged behind other talent like Cena, Batista, Edge, Taker, Triple H, Shawn and Rey Mysterio when they were performing at their peaks and has moved in relevance when some of them have retired or are nearing the end of their career.
A true test of talent is how you perform under other star's shadows with the opportunities given to you. Orton had plenty of them and didn't find his feet again until 2008. That's a long, long time. Even then, he still didn't move up in relevance until others hung them up or moved on. Basically, it happened via elimination. That's not an accomplishment the way you try and make it sound.
