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(patiently waits for the L-C markout)
Anyways, yeah, I think the force-feeding is a mistake. The quick and easy mega-push has never really worked in the long run, especially for heels. Look at the Ultimate Warrior's run as champion. Look at Goldberg after the winning streak ended. Look at all of the up-and-comers from OVW who were shoved to the top in their first year or so, and flopped in the long run (Lesnar, Angle, etc). They were all introduced as hot new rookies who ran roughshod over the established midcarders and took out the big names more quickly than guys who had been there for years. But once their novelty wore off, the fans lost interest, whether it was because they were inexperienced or the crowd was unfamiliar with them, and in the long run they do very little (if anything at all) to affect the ratings. Just about all of those experiments have been failures, and I think that Orton will be a failure too.
And that's not a knock on Orton. The guy's got talent, a great look, and is a good worker with the potential to become a great one. The problem is in the booking and execution. The "Legend Killer" gimmick, while pretty over now, has virtually no real longevity to it; it's not like he can keep beating up old people for the rest of his career. And getting upset wins over well-established stars does very little but piss off the average crowd (read: not the Orton fan-boys). If they really wanted to put a long-term investment in the kid, they should have started him at the level as everyone else, and built him up so he could get over on his own, not just leech off of Evolution and his opponents for heat. As it is, Christian's getting louder heat than Orton is, and he's not even supposed to be near the I-C Champ's level.
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