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Credit: WWE.com
While all previous editions of this column have been dedicated to fixing problems, correcting mistakes and avoiding disasters, not all advice is about pointing out the negatives. Sometimes, it’s about accentuating the positives.
This time around, it’s worth patting WWE Creative on the back for one of the best things going on all the brands today: RK-Bro.
Since the onset of their pairing, Riddle and Randy Orton have consistently had fun segments, true character growth and genuinely entertaining moments. It seems to only get better every week.
With that in mind, let’s give credit where it’s due and talk about this gem of an angle.
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Credit: WWE.com
Riddle’s clearly never suffered from a lack of personality. While he’s laid back and not the most bombastic, hyperactive person, he has his own swagger that stands out from the pack.
At times, WWE’s taken someone more relaxed like that and mistaken them as being boring. Practically every wrestler from prior eras used to shout every word of their promos just to prove they had more energy than that.
But instead of forcing him into a role he’s not comfortable with, WWE is allowing him to play more into his goofier side. Rather than cutting this off when he botched his backstage promo with Asuka and forgot his lines, everyone has turned into the skid.
It’s working. He’s flourishing with this role.
There are tons of great wrestlers on the roster that have no character other than “a great wrestler” while Riddle is both a tough former MMA fighter and a silly, kindhearted, sensitive, friendly, fun-loving airhead.
He’s good for being the butt of the joke or setting up someone else for a punchline, but he’s not being made to look like an idiot that can’t be taken seriously like what WWE does with lots of the more comedic characters.
This is a rare example of not crossing the line from funny into ridiculous, as Riddle isn’t being humiliated any step of the way. Instead, he fools around one minute and wins a Battle Royal the next!
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Credit: WWE.com
Much of comedy is about juxtaposition. Often, the best way for a joke to land is to have a “straight man” to sell it for the audience.
After 20 years of predominantly vicious, mean-spirited characters, Randy Orton has taken a backseat from pure evil and become that guy for Riddle’s jokes to bounce off.
A few months ago, he was burning The Fiend alive. Now, he’s pretending to lock Riddle’s mouth shut and throw away the key.
On paper, that sounds absolutely absurd, but it works!
It’s refreshing to see this new side of The Viper, who can still be himself when he decides to hit Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston with an RKO for the pure sake of anarchy, but manage to play around backstage with his new friend in other segments.
If not just for the sake of variety, this has breathed new life into Orton’s career in the same way Billy Gunn went from a rootin’ tootin’ pistol-shootin’ cowboy in The Smoking Gunns to Mr. Ass of D-Generation X.
It’s doubtful this will carry on for years, but we’ll look back on this time of Orton as a great example of how he had more range than simply gritting his teeth and looking menacing.
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All of these elements could have been too jarring to work. Finding the proper synergy for two opponents in a match is hard enough, but tag team partners is significantly more difficult.
The New Day works as a unit because they are legitimately friends. The Undisputed Era were all buddies, too, and were cut from the same cloth. The IIconics are a packaged deal, but Peyton Royce had no connection with Lacey Evans like she did with Billie Kay.
Strangely, Riddle and Orton have great chemistry together which allows for this all to work.
They bounce off each other’s timing well to land their jokes.
The act is believable since Riddle is more of a rookie who would be looking up to Orton, while The Apex Predator sees some of himself in The Original Bro with how they’ve rubbed some people the wrong way in the locker room.
In all likelihood, if this same storyline was Riddle and anyone else as his surrogate big brother mentor, or Orton with an annoying protege, it probably wouldn’t work well and would have been dropped in a few weeks.
The more they work together, the more legs this seems to have, meaning it could last well throughout the rest of the year, if not into 2022.
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One of the biggest problems in WWE these past few years has been a total lack of planning ahead. Very rarely does it seem angles have defined endgames to reach, as concepts get changed from week to week or dropped altogether.
That is infuriating every single time it happens, which applies to nearly everything these days based on the constant repetition of matches to signify an “epic rivalry” with no story or how Superstars like Aleister Black can be released days after he returns to action after months on hiatus.
With RK-Bro, this doesn’t seem to be heading nowhere as the Raw Tag Team Championship is the goal.
The combined efforts of Riddle and Orton—an NXT tag team and United States champion along with a future Hall of Famer who is tied with Triple H for winning more world titles than anyone in the company save for John Cena and Ric Flair—means they are a legitimate threat to AJ Styles and Omos.
This is a match that absolutely must happen at SummerSlam once the champions overcome their current No. 1 contenders, The Viking Raiders.
Having that on the horizon has given RK-Bro something to work toward. Once they get that match, their success or failure will dictate the next chapter of the story.
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Credit: WWE.com
Eventually, Riddle and Orton will reach the two final chapters of this angle: the split and the feud with each other.
At some point—be it after a failed attempt at the tag titles at SummerSlam or far down the line following a run with the belts—one of them will turn on the other. More predictably, Orton will turn on Riddle, to be specific.
That then opens up a new story to be told with the protege against the mentor as two former friends become bitter enemies. It’s simple, but effective, and has been told a million times because it works when it’s been properly set up.
Showing their camaraderie now and building that friendship means when that trigger is pulled, fans will actually want to see them fight each other, rather than feel like it wasn’t earned, like when The Hype Bros ceased to exist, if you can even remember that team.
If this trajectory of great storytelling continues, like Riddle fighting on Orton’s behalf this past week on Raw, this team will have fully transcended from a random pairing of two singles guys into a legitimate duo by the time they’ve called it quits.
Going full circle like that is hard, but RK-Bro is nearing the second half of that bend and has the ability to complete the arc.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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