Randy Orton and Edge

Randy Orton
Randy Orton doesn’t have many interests. Other than listening to Metallica or Pantera and watching the occasional movie, wrestling is his life…or, as he would tell you, his destiny.

It’s easy to understand why. His father is WWE Hall of Famer “Cowboy” Bob Orton, his uncle Barry “Barry O” Orton, and his grandfather “The Big O,” the late Bob Orton, Sr. Most kids remember their first ball game or school play; Randy’s childhood memories include sitting in the kitchen of his family’s St. Louis home with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, and repairing a broken banister leaned on by Andre the Giant. He wasn’t even five years old when he watched his father knock out “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff in the main event at the inaugural WrestleMania, but he already knew he wanted to be a WWE Superstar.

Randy’s parents tried dissuading him; his father even warned that life in the ring meant a life on the road, away from family. Yet Randy, seeing how his friends perceived his world-traveling dad in “a different light,” recalls only thinking the prospect was “quite appealing, and something I wanted to do.”

Still, he agreed to try other avenues first. After graduating Hazelwood Central High School in 1998 (where he was an accomplished amateur wrestler), Orton enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. His plan was to serve a four-year tour of duty, then focus on a wrestling career; his reality was a dishonorable discharge one year later, due to unauthorized absences on two occasions (one for 82 days) and for disobeying a superior officer’s direct order. After spending 38 days in the brig of Camp Pendleton Base, he would resume his civilian life…and to pursuing his destiny.

Back home in St. Louis, Orton accompanied his father backstage at a local WWE live event in late 1999. He left the show with an opportunity to try out in Stamford, which soon resulted in a developmental deal to train at Ohio Valley Wrestling. Orton quickly rose through OVW’s ranks, and in April 2002, he officially made his WWE debut as a member of SmackDown. The third-generation Superstar had at last fulfilled his dream, though a long-standing rivalry with Mick Foley (and a brutal Hardcore Match at Backlash in 2004 that Orton remembers as one of his greatest contests) provided him with a new purpose:

What better way to make himself a WWE legend…than to become a legend killer?

Since then, many WWE legends have fallen to Randy Orton, the Legend Killer. And many more will follow.

It’s his destiny.

Edge
Don't pretend to think you know Edge. You didn't grow up with the Rated-R Superstar and his single-parent mother in some cramped apartment in Orangeville (a tiny Ontario town that Edge recalls offered residents two choices: "work in a factory in town, or if you're really lucky, land a job in Toronto"). You likely identified with his classmates at Princess Elizabeth Public School, carrying a hockey stick and aspiring to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Edge, meanwhile, dreamed of rocking out on a Les Paul guitar and following in the platformed footsteps of KISS. (He didn't, but it hasn't stopped him from amassing an impressive collection of signed, custom-made guitars over the years.)

If you really knew Edge, you would have noticed the "black cloud" that hung over the eight-year-old boy after a car accident claimed the life of his most-admired uncle. You would have also seen that cloud give way to the yellow and red-clad form of Hulk Hogan, whose mantra of saying prayers and taking vitamins spoke directly to Edge from the TV. Perhaps then you would have sat eleventh-row ringside with him in Toronto's SkyDome; it was there he watched Hogan face Ultimate Warrior in the "Ultimate Challenge" at WrestleMania VI, and vowed he would also headline a WrestleMania someday.

Edge's pals at Don Bosco Secondary High knew he was destined for greatness, even writing in his yearbook "Most Likely to Win the WWE World Championship." Yet they couldn't predict he'd receive free wrestling training after winning an essay contest in the Toronto Star. Only his trainers, Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchison, and those training with him in Sully's Gym, could truly appreciate juggling multiple odd-jobs while wrestling in the independent circuit. But unless they were riding shotgun, they couldn't begin to comprehend Edge's "winter death tours" across frozen north Canadian lakes, or eating only canned tuna for days at a stretch, simply to wrestle in poorly attended venues.

Much due-paying and a recommendation from fellow Canadian Bret "Hit Man" Hart ultimately helped Edge make his WWE debut in June 1998, though few believed he would last. So he made his opponents believe, even if it meant taking chairs to the head, falling off ladders, and crashing through tables. He's suffered a torn ACL, ruptured labra, a broken neck, a fractured skull, metal rods in his teeth, and countless stitches over the years, but not without giving as good as he's received. Ask any man-or woman-who has gone toe-to-toe with him; they'll tell you why he's called the Rated-R Superstar.

You think you know Edge? Think again.