When Cody Rhodes broke – confirmed? – the news that Randy Orton was returning to the WWE Universe at Survivor Series, it marked a very exciting restart to a career more than a few fans thought was over.

That's right, after losing his tag titles alongside WWE's former King of Bros, Matt Riddle, and going on the shelf with a back injury that seemed career-threatening, the son of  “Cowboy” Bob Orton will ride again as the heater of Team Cody Rhodes in WarGames, a statement that few thought they would ever read when he initially landed on IR with a shoulder injury considering Paul “Triple H” Levesque hadn't brought the Dusty Rhodes-originated match-type to the main roster yet.

Taking some time off from his usual goings on to discuss Orton's return on his namesake podcast, Kurt Angle noted just how special it will be to see the “Apex Predator” in a WWE ring once more, as for a time, it felt impossible.

“It's about time. I'm just glad he did [return] because I was communicating with him for quite some time when he was out with the injury because Kim [Orton] and Giovanna [Angle] are best friends,” Kurt Angle said via Fightful. “He was telling me, ‘Hey, man, it's not looking good. I don't know how my back is going to heal if my back's going to heal.' so he was a little worried about it for a while and eventually it started to heal up and now I think he's okay, but it was pretty serious for some time. They didn't know [if Orton would return]. Randy, he's young, too. I mean he's in his 40s, but he's still pretty young. [Compared to] me and other guys that are wrestling like Sting in his 60s and Chris Jericho in his 50s. So yeah, he's still young. He still has a good six or seven years if he stays healthy.”

What does the future hold for Orton? Is this the start of a legitimate return to form, with an eventual run at either Seth Rollins or Roman Reigns for a World Championship? Or will Orton become what WWE wanted from Edge in 2023, a special attraction that sells tickets a few times a year but can no longer go as a full-time performer? Fans will find out soon enough.

Booker T discusses Kurt Angle's transition to WWE.

Speaking of Kurt Angle, Booker T recently spent some time on his own Hall of Fame podcast to discuss AEW's recent string of signings and how it could impact the professional wrestling landscape.

While Booker T isn't convinced that WWE is even in the wrestling business anymore, suggesting that the promotion is instead more of a reality television series with matches as opposed to the other way around, he pointed to Angle as a prime example of an all-world caliber performer who didn't truly become a Superstar until he embraced the silliness of Sports Entertainment.

“I really don't think WWE is gonna start making moves because of AEW's signings. I just don't think that's gonna happen. The reason why I don't think it's gonna happen is, that wasn't the blueprint when WCW started hiring guys. They just help WCW hire everybody out there. They didn't care. They had those core guys, and they were gonna ride on those core guys, and those guys were good enough to ride on. I think WWE right now, the talent in WWE, I think we got good enough talent to actually ride on and compete against any wrestling company in the world. I could be wrong, but I don't think WWE is selling wrestling matches. I just don't. The wrestling matches are the means to an end, the payoff. But I don't think WWE is truly selling wrestling. WWE is selling entertainment every week, and, hopefully will wise up and realize that this is the entertainment business. Of course, wrestling is on the marquee, but the real wrestlers are in the UFC. The real wrestlers are those collegiate guys, NCAA, all that kind of stuff. What we do is performing art, and I really would implore those guys to understand, to make it to that next level, you gotta be entertaining,” Booker T said via Fightful.

“I say that because when I came from WCW, I was a wrestler. I could do anything in the middle of that ring, but I wasn't an entertainment guy. But once I started learning how to do it, that's when I started going over. That's when I started really making money. Everybody that has made it to that level has been able to entertain. I look at Kurt Angle, and what I always think about I Kurt Angle with that little cowboy hat and that ukelele, and this an Olympic gold medalist who won with a broken freaking neck. So my thing is, if you don't adapt to being an entertainer in this business, you're not gonna last very long.”

Say what you will about Angle's in-ring abilities, about his Wrestling Machine persona, or his time as a technician in TNA or New Japan Pro Wrestling, when fans think about the “Olympic Hero,” they think about his time shooting milk out of his custom truck, or his time singing Jimmy Crack Corn next to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. In a promotion built around making marketable characters instead of having memorable matches, that's all that really matters.