Orton has had good storyline potentials-- they just don't want him to have flaws so it's not interesting.
Like uh... against Christian, Christian beat Orton once because Orton got himself disqualified in a title match because Christian pissed him off. If they'd just run with it and had it as a sort of thing where Christian repeatedly abused Orton's violent/aggressive nature to make him slip up and lose, it would've been a really cool feud that would make Orton have to show an uncharacteristic amount of control to beat Christian. Doesn't even have to be "Orton gets himself DQed" every time-- could also be stuff like "Orton leaves himself open in a reckless assault and Christian capitalizes" or "Orton gets frustrated and gets Teddy Long annoyed at him so he doesn't just get tossed into a bunch of tittle matches."
Against Barrett it's the same thing. They're trying to sell it off as Barrett's getting in his head but then Orton keeps crushing so it doesn't really sell it.
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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!