The story behind WWE star Randy Orton's greatest RKO

By Nick Schwartz
Published

Randy Orton could capture the WWE World Championship this Sunday in the main event of WrestleMania 33, but he may never be able to top one jaw-dropping moment in Levi's Stadium two years ago in an early WrestleMania match against Seth Rollins. Orton won the match with what is undoubtedly the greatest RKO of his career, and what might just be the best single move in WrestleMania history.

Orton, bent over at the waist, reversed an attempted curbstomp and launched a leaping Rollins into the air, then caught him with an RKO as he crashed to the mat in one swift motion. It was the perfect finisher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_DI-TPLByk

Rollins revealed on Talk Is Jericho that they never managed to land the move prior to their match, but decided to go for it anyway live.

Via Talk is Jericho:








"I came up with the idea a couple weeks beforehand. Ran it by Cesaro, he said ‘I think you can do that.’ So we get to rehearsals that week and I pitch it to him, and Randy’s like ‘uhhh… are you sure about that? I don’t know.’ Our producers are [Joey] Mercury and [Jamie] Noble. Joey’s a super genius, Jamie is too, but Joey based for it a couple of times - and Joey’s a good foot shorter than Randy, so it’s a different height, but Joey and I could get the pop-up down pretty good. Randy and I kept missing it, kept missing it, and neither of us really were interested in taking the bump itself, you know, on a Thursday afternoon, because it kind of sucked. In a practice ring in front of nobody.

So we never got it one time practicing that day. We got the pop-up, but we never actually did the full thing. We come back to Mania Sunday and we’re talking and we had come up with a plan B - like he was going to get me out of a springboard or something like that, which we’ve done and everyone’s seen it. And Randy’s one of these guys who likes to play it safe sometimes. He likes to bat 1.000, he said, and I have no problem with that. I have no problem with that. I was like, ‘screw it, dude, I get it, you want to bat 1.000.

And he was like ‘yeah… you know what? I always play it safe. I always play it safe every time. And that’s great, but… let’s just try it. To hell with it…. I have plenty of WrestleMania matches, they’re fine but I want to have [this]. Let’s just try it, if we can hit it it’ll be awesome, it’ll be the greatest thing. Let’s just do it.’

So we get out there, we're doing the match, it's hot as [expletive] out there. It’s the middle of the day, right? It’s 5:00 or 6:00, early that day, and the sun’s out, the mats are hot, you’re blown up, hair’s drying out. I’m just like ‘this sucked.’ And we got to the [moment], when I ran, I put my foot, it was just one of those where I hit it and I knew it. I got up in the air, I got super flat, we made eye contact. He hits the thing and he forgets to cover me.

If you watch it back, he hits it and he stands up immediately. Starts Randy-firing up, however he does, which was a complete shoot. I think Cone was our referee, or maybe Chioda, and he was like ‘cover him, cover him!’ He was so excited that it worked.”