Randy Orton will never forget the moment he thought wrestling was being taken away from him.
The 14-time world champion’s back issues had become too painful and debilitating to work through any longer and he and Matt Riddle dropped the Raw tag team championship to Jimmy and Jey Uso in May 2022.
And what the doctors saw in his spine wasn’t promising for the 24-year veteran.
“I was with my wife. I was with a couple doctors. I was with a couple top of their class neurosurgeons and they had looked at the MRI (exam),” the 43-year-old Orton said in a phone interview. “And based on my symptoms and how bad my lower spine was, based on the MRIs they were like, ‘You know what, you’ve had a great career. You got to start thinking about your life past wrestling and being there for your kids. This surgery isn’t the type of surgery you come back from and remain an athlete from.’”
What he thought a few years ago was just going to need a cortisone shot to be fixed eventually became so much degeneration in his lower spine that he needed spinal fusion surgery.
“I was in tears,” Orton said, I think it’s OK for grown men to f–king cry and I was a little baby,” Orton said. “I was so sad that it was being taken away from me.”
He couldn’t hold back the emotions — not knowing the future would hold him from stepping inside the Elimination Chamber in Perth, Australia on Saturday (5 a.m., Peacock) for a record ninth time against Bobby Lashley, Kevin Owens, Logan Paul, Drew McIntyre and L.A. Knight with a shot at Seth Rollins’ World Heavyweight championship at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia in April on the line.
At the time he began thinking about close friend Triple H’s forced retirement because of a heart issue. Orton talked about his former Evolution stablemate, now WWE’s chief content officer, in tears during a meeting before WrestleMania 38 to tell everyone he would have to retire. It got Orton emotional, too. Now he fully understands why.
“To see it taken away from him and to see what he went through, but to not to really understand the gravity of it,” Orton said. “And then to be faced with that same scenario, man it was tough.”
Orton, however, was afforded a second chance as the doctors didn’t need to cut through muscle during his surgery — making it possible with plenty of hard work for him to return to the ring.
After he was healed up, he trained with Drew Gulak — because he was “gonna be safe and was gonna understand what I needed” — for six weeks at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, going back and forth from his home in Missouri. Getting comfortable in the ring again didn’t come like riding a bike.
“I did my first RKO in late August and if it wasn’t for Drew I wouldn’t have gotten that little bit of confidence back,” Orton said. “It was until like January where I really started to feel like ‘OK. I got my wheels back under me. I feel like I’m in control. This is what I’m good at dammit.’ It took a second.”
After an 18-month absence, Orton returned to be part of men’s WarGames match at Survivor Series.
“To be given that second chance was all the more important to me and motivating for me to be able to do it as long as I could and not take second for granted.”
A win inside the Elimination Chamber would give him a chance to move a step closer to Ric Flair and John Cena’s record of 16 world championship reigns.
Nevertheless, Orton has a different focus after his career was nearly over and he’s physically feeling better than he has in a long time.
His goal is to be a full-time main roster star for as long as he can — with no interest in becoming an occasional performer as other legends have done.
“In my 30s my back was killing me and I had to work around it,” Orton said. “Now I’m pain-free more so than I’ve even been. I’m not so worried about [championship] number 15. Now don’t get me wrong, I want number 15, but my number one priority is just being able to do this at this level for as long as I can and not pulling back on the reins.”
No matter what happens at Elimination Chamber, fans will be getting a deeper dive into Orton’s life and career, and he is the subject of the season premiere of A&E’s “Biography: WWE Legends” series on Sunday at 8 p.m.
Orton said he gave a more detailed look at his dishonorable discharge from the Marines after going AWOL for 82 days and later spending 45 days in the Camp Pendleton base brig military prison.
“Instead of the headline, ‘Randy Orton bad conduct discharge United States Marine Corps’, that’s a turn off,” he said. “That makes you wonder what was he up to, what was he doing. And not that I was an angel back then by any means, but I think people will relate and understand where I was coming from and why I did what I did a little more than they do now.”
The person making headlines now in WWE is Cody Rhodes, Orton’s former stablemate in The Legacy and fellow member of one of pro wrestling’s most beloved families.
Orton said he loved the viral fan support Rhodes received after it appeared The Rock would be swooping in to replace him in the WrestleMania 40 main event against Roman Reigns.
He can appreciate the star power Rock brings and the enormity of any match he’s in, but can relate to Rhodes putting in the work doing the weekly travel grind of WWE.
“Seeing those fans the ‘Cody Crybabies’ as Rock calls them, seeing the fans be so vocal for a Cody Rhodes, Cody’s heart and him finishing the story and that stories important,” Orton said. “And I think because it’s so important to Cody it’s important to those fans. And it’s pretty f–king cool to see that to a lot of these fans Cody’s story is more important than the biggest star in the world. That’s pretty cool.
“I also understand the business side of it, too. And I don’t think there’s any bigger match and any match Rock would be involved in, just when you are talking business. But if I had to choose, I’d want to see Cody beat Roman Reigns and win that title at WrestleMania 40.”
Orton could join him in the world title hunt at WrestleMania should win at Elimination Chamber. After believing he may never wrestle again, Orton plans on chasing championships for a long time coming.
“Longevity is my number one priority and having fun and enjoying every moment that I’m doing it, knowing that after the injury I sustained and the surgery that I had a year and a half ago,” Orton said. “For about six months I was under the impression that that was it. So getting that second chance at my career and in this business with how I feel, you can say I’m still in my f–king prime still.”