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What's the story?
WWE organised a live event at the Floyd L Maines Veterans Memorial Arena in Birmingham NY on Sunday that included the in-ring return of Randy Orton. The Apex Predator took on Aleister Black in a losing effort at the show that was headlined by a WWE title match between Dolph Ziggler and Kofi Kingston.
Orton even competed at the house show in Glenn Falls the following day on Monday and lost another match to Aleister Black.
In case you didn't know...
In addition to Orton's return, the house show also featured some of the biggest Superstars of SmackDown Live in action. In the opener, Big and Xavier Woods defeated The B-Team in a fun-filled contest. Elsewhere on the card, Finn Balor successfully defended his Intercontinental title against Andrade.
Chad Gable took on his former tag team partner Shelton Benjamin and picked up a win while Ali got the better of Buddy Murphy. Bayley defended the SmackDown Women's title against Charlotte Flair and Nikki Cross in a Triple Threat match.
The heart of the matter
As we had reported earlier via Fightful, Orton was rumoured to be suffering from a neck injury; however, it was also said that the 13-time WWE Champion had taken some time off, which is part of his relaxed contract with the company.
Randy Orton's last match took place on June 10th at the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada, USA. He defeated Aleister Black on that show, after which he went on a short hiatus.
Orton's last match on WWE programming happened at WWE Super ShowDown when he took on Triple H in a methodical affair that was adjudged the match of the night in the aftermath of the show.
What's next?
The Viper should be back on TV any day now and it would be interesting to see how the WWE uses him going forward. Who would you like to see Randy Orton face upon his return?
