Randy Orton Elaborates on “Dive” Comments

…..Noted. A few months back, Rip Rogers caused quite the stir when he heavily criticized independent wrestling, mainly focusing on their usage of dives. These criticisms were seemingly reiterated by Randy Orton, who also posted Rogers’ “…dive” comment. Now Orton has elaborated on the statement.

Appearing on a St. Louis radio station, Orton was asked about the comments and went into some further details, saying that while dives are impressive, there’s more to a wrestling match. Orton also says that he doesn’t think the indy style is where wrestling is heading in general. Here are his comments, with transcription courtesy of Wrestling with Spandex.

“It’s a display of athleticism, no doubt, but … I’m not going to watch gymnastics. I want to go watch a story, a fight between a good guy and a bad guy. How many flips they do each, I’m not keeping a tally … But do you know who had my back on it? Guys like AJ [Styles]. Guys that do dives and know what they’re doing … Kurt Angle texted me after that. He didn’t do dives. If he did, he would put it where it should have went … he wouldn’t have done it just to do it …

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“If that’s where our business is going, to where it’s just a preconceived, choreographed match with a bunch of acrobatics — back flips, front flips, gainers off the top rope, shooting star presses, moonsaults to the floor — then I don’t want to be a part of it. But I’ll tell you what: I don’t think that’s where it’s going.”

Opinion: Orton isn’t wrong. You hear about how this is the evolution of the business but I don’t remember WWE drawing 500 fans on a good night once a week. This is a different style of wrestling but I can’t imagine it ever being the most popular kind around. So many of these people wind up in WWE where the style changes away from the indy style because, at the end of the day, WWE style is where most of the fans are.

Do you prefer WWE style or indy style? Do you agree with Orton on where the business is heading? Let us know in the comments below.