4. Edge vs. Randy Orton in a Last Man Standing match.
Phillips and Saxton were on the call. Edge came out first. Orton’s music played, but he didn’t come down the entrance ramp. Instead, Orton showed up behind Edge and hit him with an RKO out of nowhere. A replay showed that Orton was dressed as a cameraman at ringside before he entered the ring. Awesome.
The referee checked on Edge and then called for the bell to start the match. Orton gave Edge another RKO. The referee counted to nine before Edge rolled to the floor and was on his feet for a moment before he fell down. Orton grabbed the camera he held prior to the match and hit Edge with it to knock him over the barricade.
Orton followed Edge and took him through the curtain, then roughed him up as they walked through a production area, and into the gym of the Performance Center. Orton placed Edge’s head inside a couple of workout straps and told him that he’ll always love him. Orton threw punches at Edge and then released him from the strap. The referee was there to count and he reached six before Edge got up again. Edge grabbed a bar above him and swung his feet into Orton to knock him down.
Edge roughed up Orton and slammed his head into a table twice before letting out a primal scream. Edge fired punches at Orton, then sat him on an office chair and threw more punches at him. Edge looked up, then jumped up and grabbed a bar and swung himself at Orton, causing both men to tumble to the ground. Edge leapt from a workout sled and dove at Orton. “Nine years, Randy,” Edge yelled. Edge tried to whip Orton into a wall, but Orton reversed him at 7:30.
Orton wheeled a weight rack at Edge, who moved out of the way. Orton stumbled through a production area where Edge caught up with him. They traded shots in a hallway that looked like it had The Fiend’s red lighting. Edge slammed Orton’s head off a garage door in the hall area. The referee counted to six, but Edge said no and picked up Orton, then slammed him into the garage again.
Edge rolled Orton onto the a platform back in the main room where the ring was located. Orton came back with punches and tossed Edge from the platform and onto the ringside barricade below. Orton sat on the platform while Edge used the barricade to pull himself to his feet at the referee’s nine count. Orton took Edge into another area behind the curtain and said, “Let’s see what’s in here.” Orton slammed Edge off the glass case that held a title belt.
Orton and Edge entered the office area that contained a giant conference table. Edge slammed Orton’s head off a framed poster on the wall. Orton was slow to get up, so Edge picked him up again and threw him onto the conference table. Edge grabbed some steel fencing on the ceiling above the table and then hung from it before letting go and dropping an elbow on Orton.
The fight moved into a hallway area where Orton slammed Edge’s head off of framed pay-per-view posters. The cameraman took a tumble and then Edge and Orton disappeared around the corner. The camera caught up with them in a storage area. Orton threw some chairs away so that Edge couldn’t use them, then slammed his head onto some ring steps that were stacked up in the storage area. Edge pulled himself up at nine again around 20:00.
The wrestlers fought onto what appeared to be an interview set where Edge threw a sandbag at Orton. Saxton was quick to point out that the sandbag was used to stabilize a tripod camera. Edge ended up putting Orton on a table and then grinned before hitting him repeatedly. Edge spotted a ladder and climbed onto a platform. Edge dropped an elbow from the platform and drove Orton through the table. Production took away any suspense, as the broadcast team recapped a replay of the spot rather than play up the referee’s count.
Orton had some blood on his back as he slammed Edge’s head onto the back of a pickup truck’s hatch. Edge pulled himself up at nine. Orton slammed his head onto the hatch a few more times, then rolled him onto the covering of the bed of the truck. Edge climbed to the top of the truck. Orton told the referee that he didn’t need to count, then DDT’d Edge onto the covering of the bed.
Edge climbed up some production crates and then on top of an NXT semi truck. Orton followed and sold a rib injury. Orton charged at Edge, who speared him. Both men got to their feet at nine. Edge charged for another spear, but Orton dropped him with an RKO. Orton got to his feet and went back down to the truck while Edge barely got to his feet at nine at 32:15.
Orton grabbed two chairs and brought them back up to the top of the semi truck. Orton placed a chair under the head of Edge and told him this is it and now he can go back to his girls. Orton picked up the second chair and the referee told him he didn’t have to do it. Orton turned and Edge applied a standing triangle hold while Phillips recalled that Edge used the same hold on MVP on Raw.
When Edge released the hold, Orton’s head was on one of the chairs. The broadcast team played up the possibility of Orton being out cold. The referee counted, but Edge stopped him. Edge got emotional as he looked at Orton. Edge slowly walked over to Orton and looked up, then slammed the chair onto his head for the Conchairto. Orton twitched while the referee counted him down. Edge showed emotion afterward…
Edge defeated Randy Orton in 36:35 in a Last Man Standing match.
The match had an epic build and it’s obvious that they wanted to have an epic battle, but this just overstayed its welcome. It didn’t help that Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano had a hotter brawl at the WWE Performance Center on NXT television recently. This wasn’t bad, it just went on too long. The broadcast team took a subdued approach with their call provided no extra energy. I wanted to love this match because the build was excellent, but it just didn’t live up to that build. Still, it was great to see Edge wrestling again. Both guys deserved better than the hand dealt to them by the move to the WWE Performance Center.
After some advertising, Mojo Rawley was chased by a bunch of random wrestlers who caught up with him at ringside. Rob Gronkowski appeared on the PC perch, hung from the outside of it, and did a trust fall dive onto the pile. Gronk pinned Rawley to win the WWE 24/7 Championship…
