Randy Orton Speaks Out On His WWE Contract and Working Fewer Dates

Randy Orton made an appearance on The Ringer Wrestling Show to discuss a wide range of topics. Here are the highlights:

His contract:

“Wrestling once a week would be ideal for me, and that’s kind of where I’m at right now schedule wise. I don’t think anyone knows this and I don’t care if they do, but I think I may be one of the only guys that has an amount of dates that I’m contractually obligated to do and that’s 80. 80 shows a year. It sounds like a lot, but after you do one TV a week, one PPV a month, you’re left with like 15 or 20 live events. Those are Saudi Arabia, the European tours, and Madison Square Garden live events, but I think that with me wrestling once a week, I’m able to keep the joints lubed and feel like I’m in shape enough to continue to do it. If I take a bad bump and I hurt my neck, I’ll take a week off. I think that’s what’s going to make me be able to wrestle until I’m 50.”

Learning to roll with the punches nowadays:

“I think rolling with the punches is something I realized more recently than not that if I just accept that I’m out of control on some of these situations, and I’m talking about the business right now, if I just take what they give me and do it to the best of my ability, like I was doing stuff with The Fiend a year ago and it was hard. Some of it was rough. They put me in the burn mask one week and then the next week I’m out of it and my skin healed. It’s tough. Then you go to who you would imagine you would go to when you have a gripe and say, ‘Hey, I can’t do this. Aren’t they going to…’ and you hear, ‘Just do it. It’s going to work.’ Ok. You roll with the punches. You do your best job. Even though I’m lighting a dead guy on fire and he’s the babyface, I had a very hard time trying to make that real, but I feel like I did a good enough job that even though it was a little cringe worthy for some people because I really, really, tried to just believe that I was going through this, I think it helped people buy into it a little bit more while we’re suspending that reality and trying to make them believe like they would when they’re watching the most recent Halloween movie or Jason movie. They want to believe when they’re in there. They want to be entertained so I think the more I can accept that, make that real, and make that something I’m feeling and not just words that some 22 year old writer wrote on paper for me, but if I believe it and make it mine, I can get them to believe. I think that’s what changed with my promos too recently.”