On the May 20th episode of Friday Night SmackDown Randy Orton and his RK-Bro tag team partner Matt Riddle lost a huge title unification match with The Usos. After the bout, Orton and Riddle felt the full force of The Bloodline as they were attacked by not only their opponents but Roman Reigns.
Shortly after the match it was revealed that Orton had been dealing with a back injury, with the belief that the beatdown was used to write him off television. At the time it was noted that the problem was a long-standing injury that had been getting progressively worse.
However, The Viper is yet to return to television and it was reported in September that those with WWE were growing increasingly concerned over the issue.
Randy Orton Plans Revealed
Speaking to GiveMeSport, popular Twitter account and wrestling insider WrestleVotes has now revealed what WWE’s original plans for Randy Orton looked like. The report claims that the star was set to turn on his partner Riddle as soon as he came back. It should be noted that these plans were put in place not only a number of months ago, but when Vince McMahon was still heading up creative.
“When Randy Orton went down, the plan was for him to come back and immediately turn on Matt Riddle.”
WrestleVotes added that WWE might not have any plans for Riddle at present as the company expected Orton to be back in action already.
“Maybe they don’t have anything drawn out for Riddle now because they assumed that Randy would be back by now?”
In Orton’s absence Matt Riddle initially continued his feud with Roman Reigns and The Bloodline before beginning a rivalry with Seth Rollins in July. The pair were originally scheduled to meet at SummerSlam but the match was postponed until Clash At The Castle.
At the British extravaganza Rollins scored the win, leading to another match at Extreme Rules which Riddle won. Since then, the Original Bro has been appearing on Raw with Elias.