At age 28, WWE Superstar Randy Orton is already at the top of professional wrestling, or as some prefer to call it, sports entertainment.
Born into a family of wrestlers, Orton quickly accelerated through the ranks since his debut in early 2000, participating in televised storylines that had him besting wrestling legends — Ric Flair and Mick Foley, among others.
Known as the “Legend Killer,” Orton is now a legend in his own right. On November 9, his likeness will appear in WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, the tenth game that has featured his face. Or twelfth. Hell, Randy himself can’t even keep track.
At a recent event in Tampa, Florida, we had a chance to catch up with Randy to talk about the new game, violence, and — of all things — Guitar Hero.
More after the jump.
DESTRUCTOID:
So how many wrestling games has your face appeared in at this point?
Randy Orton:
I don’t know. Maybe ten or twelve, I’m not really sure.
I’m sure the first time it happened, it was pretty exciting for you. Like Dusty Rhodes told me earlier, these games capture a bit of wrestling history; it’s something a lot of wrestlers aspire to these days. Has that feeling kind of worn off?
Yeah, a bit, not in a big way. But when you’re in your first videogame ever — the same with my [action figure] — it was, like, “Wow.” But after you’ve had forty or fifty dolls, it does kind of wear off. It’s the same with the videogames.
But still, when I look and I see the development year in and year out, and how much better it looks from year to year. I mean, this year ’09 is going to be crazy with [WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009]. November 9th, right?
Yup, that’s what they tell me.
I can’t wait until I’m going to be able to get a copy. I know my brother plays videogames a lot more than I have a chance to, and he’s always into the wrestling games. So he’s got all the ones that I’ve been in, and he and his friends will go play and beat up his big brother; you know, it’s all good fun. But the likeness and the character, the entrance, the way he walks and looks around, it’s so dead-on. It’s unbelievable.
Some videogames get a lot of flak for being overly violent as far as entertainment is concerned. I think professional wrestling, to some extent, is open to that kind of criticism as well. At the end of the day, both are forms of entertainment — do you see any parallels between how people view violence in games and violence in wrestling?
You know, our product isn’t as violent as a lot of games. And the wrestling game is definitely not as violent. I mean, have you seen Saints Row or Saints Row 2? There’s cursing and prostitution and drug use and murdering and suicide and carjacking … the list goes on. There’s none of that in the WWE game.
So I mean, I can see where certain people give a lot of flak to wrestling, in terms of what I do in the ring on Monday nights, or the wrestling game. But I think they’re looking in the wrong direction.
If you want to get on videogames, you can get on other videogames. But if you look at real life, movies and things like that — movies that depict real life and there are actually people acting out scenes that involve rape and murder and genocide and suicide, and all that other stuff, drug use and everything … to me, that’s a hundred times worse.
Am I all for violence? No. Do I think that violence sells? Well, I’ll tell you what. When I was younger, I liked Mortal Kombat because you could finish a guy and rip his head off and pull his spine out. That’s pretty violent. Yeah, violence does sell, I think. Do I think everything should be violent? No. I got in trouble recently for saying “violence sells.” I mean, I think it does. Because why else would shit be violent, you know what I mean?
But as far as the wrestling is concerned, come on. It could be a lot worse than this. I mean, my dad did this — wrestling’s been around for ages. Centuries, even. Look at the gladiators. As far as the parallel between the wrestling violence and the videogame violence, I think people look into it too much. It’s just a form of entertainment. There’s all kinds of ways that people get entertained and some of them are more PG than others. To each his own.
Are you familiar with the music games that use instrument peripherals?
Oh yeah, I like Guitar Hero. I suck at it, but I like it. I forget the levels, but I tried the middle level and it’s just too quick for me. Too many keys. I can handle the first few keys, but when you start adding the two other fingers in there, I get all screwed up. I definitely enjoy some Guitar Hero. My brother and some other guys are really good at it, they hit all those keys. I don’t know how they do it; I don’t have the finger dexterity to do it.
There are some musicians who would look at those games and say “Why not just pick up and play a real instrument instead of wasting your time with this?” I suppose you could say the same thing about a wrestling game; why not just come down to [WWE developmental facility] Florida Championship Wrestling and try to get in the ring?
Obviously, it’s a big different. You’re much bigger and more athletic than me, but maybe if I worked out I could … well. OK, probably not. If I got in there you’d probably kill me.
[laughs]
But do you think that the wrestling videogame experience can even come close to approximating what it’s like to be in the ring?
Well, you’re playing a videogame … compared to physically doing it. No, it’s nowhere at all close. It’s a form of entertainment. If I like to watch racecar driving, I buy a racing game; it’s because I like the racecar driving and I like games. So it’s the crossover, I’m a fan of that so I bought a videogame. That’s all it is here, I believe. Fans of wrestling are fans of wrestling videogames.
They buy the videogame so they have another way to get into what they like, another way to interact. So I think that’s all it is. But I definitely think there’s a big difference between playing the game and having a 30-minute match in front of 80,000 people at Wrestlemania.
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Randy Orton is currently rehabilitating an injury that’s kept him out of the WWE for months, but when asked about his return, he simply smiled and said “Sooner than you think.”
THQ’s WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 hits all platforms on Sunday, November 9.
