Maybe I wrestle until I'm 50: Randy Orton on WWE retirement plans

“The Viper” isn’t retiring any soon

Randy Orton made his most needed return in November after missing a year and a half due to a serious back injury, but The Viper has no intentions of retiring from the wrestling business anytime soon. During his latest appearance this week on Adam’s Apple, the 44-year-old Orton revealed that he intends to continue wrestling full-time until he is at least 50, and perhaps even longer.

Orton said, “I don’t wanna do the old Undertaker or Shawn Michaels schedule which they needed to do, understandably, but wrestle at WrestleMania, take the summer off, maybe you’ll see ’em at SummerSlam, yada, yada, yada. I wanna be on the road every week. I wanna make all the TVs and be on all the PLEs and at 44, just turned 44, I would love to be able to go into my 50s.

He also spoke about how he wants to be known as the greatest workhorse the company ever had. He added, “Maybe I wrestle until I’m 50 and call it and that’s 30 years. Thirty years with the same company, on top. I wrestled more pay-per-views, PLEs, whatever you wanna call it than anyone else in the history of the WWE.”

If it wasn’t for Randy Orton getting his surgery he would have quit pro-wrestling

After Orton and Matt Riddle lost the Raw Tag Team Championships to The Usos in May 2022, Orton departed from WWE programming to have spinal fusion surgery on his spine. The Apex Predator did not return until November 2023, when he teamed up with Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, and Jey Uso in a WarGames match against The Judgment Day and Drew McIntyre.

In the Adam’s Apple interview, Orton stated that the operation altered his perspective on his wrestling future, saying: “Well if you would’ve asked me two years ago [how much longer I have left in wrestling], I would have thought it would’ve been close to the end. But I had a spinal fusion a year-and-a-half ago and that changed the game. I’d been in pain through my entire 30s. I was hurting. I was begging for time off when I was 35.”

Orton also stated that the current WWE schedule is less grueling than it was in the past and that he has sought and been granted a week off by WWE head of creative Triple H on two occasions since his return to heal.

With Orton stating that Triple H has no problem providing him time to recover when he requests it, his career might be prolonged much beyond what most imagined when he was sidelined due to his back injury.

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