WWE SummerSlam 2018: 3 Possible Opponents for Randy Orton
By Liam Hoofe
Photo by WWE’s Twitter
2. Jeff Hardy
The seeds were planted for this one when Orton made his surprise return to the company at Extreme Rules.
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Orton’s post-match attack on Hardy may have been fairly tame, but it made his intentions clear — he is gunning for the US title and is willing to go through anybody who gets in his way. And his actions on SmackDown Live this week proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The two men met at Backlash this year, but their match had little build and was not really built on any sort of heel/face dynamic. With Orton attacking Hardy at Extreme Rules, the two men could finally have a storyline to build on heading into SummerSlam.
As I’ve previously mentioned, the company needs to invest in SmackDown’s mid-card scene once again and a nice way of doing that would be to have some mid-card feuds taking place that aren’t completely based around the US title.
At WWE SummerSlam 2018, Hardy will no doubt want revenge on Orton for what happened. And while the WWE is likely to rush the match and give it us on an episode of SmackDown in the coming weeks, this could be the perfect match to open the show in Brooklyn next month. The WWE could even throw in a number 1 contendership stipulation, just to add a little more prestige to the US title belt.