Randy Orton goes in-depth on his match against Joe Hendry at WWE WrestleMania 41.
SmackDown Superstar Randy Orton recently sat down with Carl Lamarre of Billboard. When asked about his WrestleMania 41 match against Joe Hendry coming together following Kevin Owens’ injury, Orton said he was the one pushing for the match with the TNA Champion and had to convince a few people in WWE about it who were initially unsure.
“There was a lot up in the air just a couple of things prior to Mania,” Randy Orton said. “Owens had the neck thing, and it was starting to bug him. So once they took a closer look at that, the doctors said he was a no-go. This one was important to me because it was my 20th, and I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning.
“Getting these Manias in, and leaving as much of a legacy behind [as possible], is important. It kind of came down to, ‘OK. We need to get Orton an opponent. Who’s it gonna be?’ And there was a very short list of guys on our own roster, but we had some new guys coming in — and it was one of those things where I needed to win.
“But considering we knew where I was going to be going, thinking about Backlash, we needed me to look good coming out of Mania. It couldn’t be one of our new guys, because when we debut a new talent into the show, [we couldn’t] have him start with a loss.
“So we put our heads together, and it was actually my idea [for it to be] Joe Hendry. I kept pushing for it, and a couple people were unsure, but I was able to talk everybody into it. I’m really glad that they went with him. It was perfect, It was different from anything else on the card. It was a legitimate surprise, and we were able to keep it a surprise for the most part.
“We got that really cool, ‘Holy sh*t’ moment when his music hit, and it was great. He was great. It was actually a stress-free fun Mania for me, because I didn’t have this crazy 30 minutes balls-to-the-walls match with all this high-risk sh*t. I had this cool little segment with Joe, and we didn’t have to do much to have fun out there. So I was able to enjoy the week and just soak it all up.”
What do you make of Randy Orton’s comments? Did you enjoy his match with Joe Hendry at WrestleMania 41? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
