Elimination Chamber 2017. The main event, the titular Elimination Chamber, saw the final three participants engaged in an epic struggle for the WWE’s most prestigious prize. When the rubble cleared, it was Bray Wyatt who cleanly pinned both AJ Styles and John Cena. He madly strolled, guided by his “fireflies”. into WrestleMania 33 holding the WWE Championship.
One year later, he is a man with eleven – eleven – televised wins, beach balls being more over than him during his matches, and the only accolades he has to speak of are a trio of Wrestler Observer Newsletter awards for Worst Gimmick, Feud, and Match of the Year.
“The Eater of Worlds” has been relegated to an unfortunate eater of pins.
Even before winning the title at Elimination Chamber, the year started off great for Bray. His stable was just coming off the heels of a SmackDown WWE Tag Team Championship run, his very first title of any kind in the company. He lasted until the final three of the Royal Rumble before winning the title two weeks later.
But then, like Shane McMahon atop a Hell in a Cell vying for his daddy’s attention, Wyatt’s career has taken an insanely unnecessary dive.
It started with an absolutely dreadful title bout with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 33, with some weird ass projections on the canvas being the only real talking point of the match (beyond how much of a stinker it was). This led to the objectively awful ‘House of Horrors’ rematch, perhaps the WWE’s dig at the original ‘Final Deletion’, that just made Wyatt look like an idiot.
From there, he was thrown into a go-nowhere feud with Seth Rollins which put him in the direct path of Roman Reigns on numerous occasions, something that bodes well for no one’s career. Unsurprisingly, he came out of the losing side of this. Right after that, he was thrown in a godawful feud with Finn Bálor that had him lose every PPV match and prompted the appearance of “Sister Abigail”. The less said about that, the better.
When Wyatt was removed from the TLC 2017 event due to illness, while all fans wished him better health, many were elated that we would not get another match involving Bray that no one was invested in.
Things looked like they’d change when Bray engaged in a feud with Matt Hardy starting in November. Bray Wyatt, “The Man of 1000 Truths”, was about to go face-to-face with the “Woken One”, Matt Hardy, a clash wrestling fans had been clamouring for since the introduction of Hardy’s wacky character back in TNA. Finally, finally someone to save the man who claimed to be our saviour.
Oh, how wrong we were.
The WWE didn’t seem to know what to do with either man and the strange, directionless feud culminated in the Ultimate Deletion a few days ago. While the segment is incredibly subjective (I for one thought it was “wonderful”), what cannot be denied is that due to the match finish, Bray will completely miss this year’s Showcase of the Immortals.
How the hell did all of this come about? How does a man who once won the Best Gimmick Wrestling Observer Newsletter Award with a character that was absolutely awesome and layered and deep; a man who was consistently beating members of The Shield cleanly, and of course topped Styles and Cena for gold; how does he go from that to being made into such a joke, who is forced into having his voice sound like an alien while being dressed up as an undead nun?
It has come out recently that Windham Rotunda, the man behind the Wyatt veil, engaged in adulterous actions that resulted in his then-wife filing for divorce. But this is highly unlikely to be the cause (or effect, even) of such a drawn-out and dramatic fall from grace on-screen.
Another case is something much simpler and far less personal – the WWE have never known what to do with Bray Wyatt since the first day he set foot on the main roster. He is such a distinct and mysterious character, unlike anything in the modern day, that the man at the top has had no clue how to write or book for him and he is treated as just another guy as opposed to an attraction, similar to how Kane and Undertaker used to be.
The saddest case could simply be that the Bray Wyatt character was always too good or too different for the modern day WWE and was always destined to fail. It seems appropriate given his constant blabbering that he is something akin to a god. I suppose all gods must fall.
There is no reason why an act so good for so long has been buried so far beneath itself. Perhaps, for those bearing hope, Bray can be like all great gods across world mythology and be born again. Perhaps something or someone can still save “The New Face of Fear” from his merciful burial at sea.
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