Randy Orton made his triumphant return to WWE at the 2023 Survivor Series as Cody Rhodes’ not-so-surprising WarGames teammate. In the end, Orton, Rhodes, and the rest of their team were able to defeat The Judgment Day in a brutal main event. The fun was not over for the Chicago fans in attendance; however, as moments after the men’s WarGames match concluded, Cult Of Personality blared through the venue, and CM Punk made his own return to the sports entertainment juggernaut.
On WWE’s The Bump, Orton was asked if he was nervous before stepping through the curtain to return to WWE at Survivor Series.
“Dude, it was so cool,” he began. “Yeah, I was so nervous, and funny little side story to that day. So, for a month prior, there were all these rumors online that I was coming back. But there was also rumors online that CM Punk was coming back. Instead of it being a surprise that it was me instead of Punk, they let everyone know the week prior Randy Orton is going to be the one joining Cody’s team at WarGames. Kind of let the wind out of my sails a little bit because I’ve been gone for a year and a half.
“There’s all this anticipation; people have been expecting me to return for the past six months because I’ve been out so long. I can tell that I’ve matured a lot, Kayla, because a part of me wanted to be irate, right? Like this was taken from me, this reaction from the crowd that I’ve been looking forward to for eighteen months. But after all was said and done, I came out, got a great reaction, Punk came out, got a great reaction, and I realized that after the fact that nobody stepped on anyone’s toes, it was really just a really fun night for the fans.
“They got Randy Orton back, and they were very happy about that. They weren’t even thinking about Punk. Now here comes Punk. So that reaction was just, they were two different reactions, two different people. Everybody was excited to see us both. Personally on a personal level, I was happy to have him back. He’s a hell of a worker, a hell of a guy. But it was funny because here I am after eighteen months, I’m ready to go, and then like, oh, no, no, we’re gonna announce your return, and then he comes back anyway. It was like, ‘Ah!’ But that’s that’s kind of how it goes here. Right?”
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