Bray Wyatt is the Face of the New Era in WWE

Approaching a year, WWE has finally shown us all what exactly the ‘New Era’ symbolizes with Bray Wyatt winning the WWE Championship.

Bray Wyatt is standing tall right now in WWE. He won the Elimination Chamber match for the WWE Championship and successfully defended it on SmackDown. It has made him into one of the top stars, a process that began months ago.

In July of 2016, WWE presented the ‘New Era’ officially by splitting its Raw and SmackDown brands. Stephanie McMahon represented the Raw brand, while her brother Shane McMahon lead the charge of SmackDown. They brought back legends to each brand with Mick Foley becoming Raw General Manager while Daniel Bryan leads the way with SmackDown.

Excitement brewed as the start of the ‘New Era’ had begun. Women started to get more television time, cruiserweights were introduced, and championship titles were now on each show. Unfortunately for us, it took nearly a year for us to recognize exactly what WWE had in mind when the ‘New Era’ was first introduced.

Rob Wolkenbrod of Daily DDT predicted that the Elimination Chamber finale should be all about Bray Wyatt unless plans were to change — which fortunately they did not. Now there is a clear-cut understanding of why the WWE decided to split brands in the first place.

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Despite Bray Wyatt being in high-caliber matchups, most notably: WrestleMania matches against John Cena and the Undertaker, over time he began to get lost in the mix of other up and coming stars, and soon was fizzled out altogether by splitting up the Wyatt Family, and having less-than-stellar feuds with Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose.

Fast forward to February 12, 2017, at the Elimination Chamber when Wyatt won the WWE SmackDown World Championship. Suddenly, the WWE Draft that took place seven months prior started to all make sense. It appears as though Bray Wyatt moving to SmackDown was the ultimate plan for him to take control as the face of the ‘New Era’ brand, and Kevin Owens being right behind him.

More from SmackDown

• Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline
• Potential Challengers for Roman Reigns before WrestleMania
• WWE SmackDown Predictions: AJ Styles Will Help Randy Orton
• WWE SmackDown Predictions: Street Profits Will Dethrone Judgment Day
• SmackDown reminded us of how pointless the brand split is

You now have Wyatt with purpose and meaning. You now have Bray Wyatt, who will not only go into WrestleMania as WWE Smackdown Champion, but you will also see him leave with the title as well, and months afterward too. With this title reign, you will not see a ‘hot potato’ trade-off with this title because the WWE has high hopes for the third generation superstar.

Who Wyatt’s opponent will be at WrestleMania is anyone’s guess. As of this past Tuesday’s SmackDown Live show, Randy Orton stated that he will not face the Eater of Worlds at WrestleMania. Wyatt defeated John Cena clean on SmackDown just like he did at the Elimination Chamber, and after the match, Orton came out and bowed to the Wyatt Family leader and told him that he will not be facing him at the Show of Shows.

On the recent Talking Smack episode, Daniel Bryan announced a Battle Royal next week on SmackDown Live, and the winner of that will go on to face Wyatt at WrestleMania since Orton ‘forfeited’ his right to headline at ‘Mania despite winning the Royal Rumble in January of this year.

All signs point to Luke Harper winning the Battle Royal and somehow Randy Orton receiving his title shot once again making it a Triple Threat match at WrestleMania between the Wyatt Family.

Next: Potential 'Replacements' for Orton at WrestleMania

The ‘New Era’ finally has a face behind it, and with Bray Wyatt taking charge, it appears that WWE finally got it right this time.