Grudge match at Hell in a Cell may have future title implications

In addition to the Intercontinental Championship match that was added earlier tonight on Friday Night Smackdown!, a match long rumored to be happening was officially signed as well. In a grudge match, Randy Orton will go one-on-one with Alberto Del Rio in what will hopefully be the blow-off for this long-running feud.

Despite several months of these two facing each other in various types of matches, as well as pre/post-match brawls in various parts of the arena. However, this will be the first time they have faced each other on pay-per-view. Alberto Del Rio has mostly dominated the feud thus far, but it’s hard to say how this match will turn out, especially with the rumored futures for both men.

On one hand, there has been plans put in place for Del Rio to become World Champion for quite a while now. However, those plans keep getting put on hold for various reasons, including injuries Del Rio sustained early in the year. On the other hand, Orton has also been rumored to be getting another World title run for a long time, and there have been a lot of talks about having him feud with Sheamus over the title. The problem with this scenario is that both men are faces (good guys) in WWE right now, and WWE generally avoids doing face vs. face feuds because they often have a hard time doing good business (same with heel vs. heel feuds).

However, that could easily be changed if Orton turned heel.

For those that don’t know, Randy Orton absolutely loves playing a heel, and he has been begging to turn heel for a long time now. Recently, there have been reports that he’s been pushing for it even more. It’s a smart move, especially when you consider that Orton has proven to be a far more effective heel than he has a face throughout his WWE career. Yes, fans enjoy cheering him, but they enjoy booing him even more.

Right now, the only issue seemingly holding Orton’s heel turn back is a lack of faces in the main event scene. Right now, you have Orton, Sheamus and Cena, and that’s it. While Ryback is right at the top at the moment, he’s still pretty unproven, and it’s going to be a while before he’s firmly entrenched in the main event scene. While Rey Mysterio is back and healthy, his track record of suspensions and injuries have pretty much stopped any further main event plans for his career. Other than that, no other faces have really been built up enough to be believable main eventers. Hopefully, that will change in the future, but it will take some time.

For now, let’s say Orton stays face. What does that mean? I think one of two things is the most likely: 1) Sheamus wins and Alberto Del Rio becomes #1 contender once more, and we’re forced into several more matches between these two (unfortunately), or 2) Regardless of who wins, Ziggler winds up cashing in his briefcase, just like he’s been promising, wins the title, and moves onto a feud with Orton. Orton has several victories over Ziggler in the last couple months, so there’s a natural feud built in there. If either of these scenarios happen, I’m hoping it’s scenario 2.