Randy Orton Wrestlemania 41 Opponent Prediction: Open Challenge

Randy Orton WrestleMania 41 Opponent Prediction

As WrestleMania 41 Night 2 unfolds at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, one of the most anticipated moments of the night is Randy Orton’s open challenge. Originally slated to face Kevin Owens, Orton’s match was canceled due to Owens’ neck injury, prompting “The Viper” to issue an open challenge for his 20th WrestleMania appearance.

Potential Opponents for Randy Orton’s Open Challenge

Solo Sikoa

A member of The Bloodline, Solo Sikoa has a history with Orton, including a tag-team loss alongside Tama Tonga to Orton and LA Knight. This would be a pretty underwhelming choice, so I don’t see it being Solo appearing to face Orton tonight.

Rusev (Miro)

Speculation about Rusev’s return to WWE has intensified after he was recently spotted at WWE headquarters. A surprise return to answer Orton’s challenge would undoubtedly be a major moment and get a big pop from the crowd, so him showing up is quite likely.

Kevin Owens

While Owens’ injury led to the cancellation of their scheduled match, some are speculating that his injury might be a storyline. That doesn’t appear to be the case and it is very unlikely that KO appears to answer the open challenge tonight.

Aleister Black

Having recently departed from AEW, Aleister Black is rumored to be returning to WWE. Black answering Orton’s open challenge would be a great move but he is likely going to be coming back at SmackDown next week.

Nick Aldis

Nick Aldis has been on the receiving end of an RKO or two recently, and with Orton mentioning Mickie James on SmackDown there is a very good chance that their interactions were leading to a match. Getting a ‘Mania showdown would be a big moment for the former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion and I can see it happening.

Prediction: Nick Aldis appears to challenge Randy Orton

Jake Skudder
Jake Skudder

Jake is an SEO-minded Football, Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief, Sports SEO Coordinator for NationalWorld and SEO Writer for F4Wonline.com. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012 under the name Jake Jeremy. His work has also been featured on Wrestling Headlines, Wrestlingnewsco, HotNewHipHop, The Hard Times and Sportskeeda.

Previously, he worked as the Editor in Chief of 24Wrestling, building the site profile with a view to selling the domain, which was accomplished in 2019. Jake was previously the Editor in Chief for FightFans, a combat sports and pro wrestling site that was launched in January 2021 and broke into millions of pageviews within the first two years. He previously worked for Snack Media and their GiveMeSport site, creating Evergreen and Trending content that would deliver pageviews via Google as the UFC and MMA SEO Lead. Jake managed to take an area of GiveMeSport that had zero traction on Organic and push it to audiences across the globe. Jake also has a record of long-term video and written interview content with the likes of the Professional Fighters League, ONE and Cage Warriors, working directly with the brands to promote bouts, fighters and special events.

He previously worked for the (then) biggest independent wrestling company in the UK, PROGRESS Wrestling, as PR Head and Head of Media across the social channels of the company.