As PWMania.com previously reported, AEW announcer Jim Ross talked about who he feels is the best performer in wrestling at the moment during his recent Grilling JR podcast. JR said he doesn’t think anybody “is any better than Randy Orton in the wrestling business” today.
In an interview with dailystar.co.uk, Kofi Kingston commented on Orton:
“The whole premise of ‘who is the best’ [is] really subjective – it’s just what you like. As far as Randy is concerned, I think he has the ability to do so many things so well. A lot of people think that because he doesn’t do a lot of moves, he’s not good, but that’s simply not true. The industry is not about the moves; it is about being able to connect with the crowd and express what you’re thinking without saying things a lot – to make people watch you. If you watch Randy move around the ring, he moves so slowly and every step has a purpose – you can’t take your eyes off him, yet he doesn’t ‘do’ anything, right? To be able to do that is an absolute talent. He looks a certain way, he flexes in a certain way… you feel that. That’s the stuff that makes you great and not just good. What Randy does is unique in that way – he does so much without doing anything at all, so I’d have to put him in the conversation as being one of the greatest.
To be able to last so long… he’s even more compelling now in a lot of different ways. So as a performer, you can’t have the conversation [about the greatest] without having Randy be in there, from the longevity alone. That doesn’t happen by accident. Now he’s the guy who has the most experience on the roster – I can’t think of anyone currently has more experience than him, so you have to respect that. He has the respect of a lot of people in a lot of different ways. He’s changed in a lot of ways, too, and I think you see that personal growth. In my mind he is already a Hall of Famer. I would never tell any of this to him as he’d never let me live any of it down! So he’ll never hear that come out of my mouth, but I can’t sit here and lie to you and say he’s not up there because he definitely is.”
