Barrett Continues Against Orton

Not surprisingly, Wade Barrett and Randy Orton will take their feud into TLC. Barrett's team went over Orton's team at Survivor Series, Barrett has continued messing around with Orton, so of course this was going to continue.

This feud is already more interesting than Orton's previous feud with Cody Rhodes, but will it end the same way? Back when the WWE started to rebuild Barrett a few weeks ago, I could picture them building up his momentum for the Royal Rumble. Remember how hard they were pushing Alberto Del Rio last year? They had him look very impressive against Rey Mysterio, talk big, pushed him hard on Raw, even though he was a Smackdown superstar and the "supershow" idea was not being pushed yet, and followed through with the Royal Rumble win. It took him a while to win a World title, but he did it. Wade Barrett already has that main-event credibility. He has beaten top guys before, including Cena. He has been in PPV main events and in title matches. However, even though he does look better than Cody Rhodes did with Orton, he could still have nowhere to really go, should the WWE have other plans for who will win the Royal Rumble and be involved in major title matters. Remember Kofi Kingston? He looked great against Orton, but where was there for him to really go after that feud? How about Christian? He regained the World's Heavyweight Championship from Randy Orton, like many people wanted, but was not consistently pushed hard right after that. He went on to a feud with Sheamus. If there is no room in the main event for Barrett after his feud with Orton, you will have a painful depush. Still, based on how they have been rebuilding him, I am expecting something good. At worst, they will continue to push him as an upper-midcarder more regularly.

I mentioned Cody Rhodes. Since it is safe to say that his feud with Orton is over, take a look back at it. What did it really accomplish? Some people can say that Orton put Rhodes over, since Rhodes did look strong at times and did pin Orton, but Cody Rhodes honestly looked more impressive back when he was a part of Legacy, especially when feuding with DX. Problem is, the WWE did not really care about following through back then for the heels. Same thing happened here. The result? Cody Rhodes was used as a filler feud for Orton. Orton continues with his good position on the card and Cody Rhodes can still feud with someone himself, Booker T. That feud has some potential, but I do not think the WWE is taking real advantage of it yet. In any case, no real gain for Cody Rhodes as his Intercontinental title reign continues.