This feud building up to the main event was so money. The slow burn lasted for several weeks until Batista finally, officially, chose to face Triple H and powerbombed him through a table. Whereas Orton was yanked from bad guy to good and then beaten by Triple H right off the bat, Batista was presented as a dominate beast that Triple H was afraid to face. "The Animal" was then given the spotlight on Raw and his babyface turn was handled with much better aplomb than Orton's was. Instead of 1994 with Bret and Lex both "winning," Vince McMahon declared both of them "losers" of the match and ordered a restart.Īfter he no sold a quad injury that would have brought mortal men to fits of weeping.Īfter a short skirmish, Batista won the match and headed to WrestleMania 21 as number one contender. It sure looked like they were both supposed to go over. Having watched it multiple times, I don't see how it was a botch. I've heard both sides to what happened, with some saying it was a planned double-elimination and others saying it was a botch. Batista had done a few multi-man matches at the top of a pay-per-view (PPV) card Cena had that one-off main event against Brock Lesnar, but mostly these were guys seen as "the future" not "the present."Īlso, the match was memorable in that both men "won" the match. In fact, neither man was a "main eventer" at all.
For one thing, the final two combatants were fresh faces to the main event scene. The finish to the Rumble match is memorable for numerous reasons. Randy Orton was clearly not going to be it, either.Īnd, again, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to put money on Batista winning the 2005 Royal Rumble and becoming the man. Triple H doing a riff on Ric Flair was not it. WWE was in need of a face, a standard bearer, an on-TV spokesman for the product. Not to mention, and even the most die hard Triple H marks will agree, Ric Flair is not a personality that is easily duplicated. The problem with that is this was 2005 crowds were not as patient, nor as limited by entertainment options as they were in 1985. They wanted Triple H to be this generation's Ric Flair, with a stranglehold on Big Gold and only yielding it for a short bursts to babyface challengers. RAW's ratings were not good during most of Triple H's so-called "Reign of Terror". Whatever the plan was, it obviously was going to involve Triple H as the champion defending the world heavyweight championship he'd had a hold of for 600 of the last 900 days. I don't know what the plan was for WrestleMania 21, but it's possible that a Triple H/Orton rematch was in the cards before Orton "flopped" and set his sights on Undertaker. Though they tried to keep his babyface push going, they never treated him like a serious contender for the top belt and his heat faded fast. Certainly the young blue chipper struggled in his short stint as a good guy, but he could have potentially grown into it. It's funny how it's become conventional wisdom to accept the idea that Orton flopped as a babyface champion, as though dropping the title in his first PPV defense had nothing to do with it. Triple H and Evolution turned on Orton, and became his first big obstacle in what you would think would be a long and fruitful.aaaand he lost the title.
Of course you probably know what happened next. He won the belt at SummerSlam as a heel (though there were hints of a turn coming that night) but turned babyface the next night on Raw. So did Orton, but whereas Cena's rise felt more organic (likely on account of it happening on the far superior B-show), Orton's jump to the main event felt forced. He had all the trimmings of a franchise player, which WWE needed in the wake of Lesnar's departure. He had the look, the charisma, was hot with the crowds. Who would have thought they would be headlining WrestleMania 21 for the two world titles just seven months later?Ĭena's rise to the top, looking back, seemed obvious. On that same night, SummerSlam 2004, John Cena and Batista competed in matches for the United States and Intercontinental championship titles. It was also a torch passed to him by Chris Benoit. It was a torch bestowed upon him so that they wouldn't have to acknowledge Brock Lesnar as the youngest world champion in history.
Randy Orton had just become the youngest world champion in WWE history. MAKING A STAR BECAUSE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO (THE ONE WHERE BATISTA DIDN'T SUCK AS BAD AS HE'S GOING TO AT WRESTLEMANIA 30)