WWE Raw: Bray Wyatt’s Character Change Is A Stroke Of Genius
The latest episode of WWE Raw saw Bray Wyatt debut the strangest of gimmicks. Yes, even stranger than running a cult herd of sheep mask wearing followers.
Bray Wyatt has been pretty M.I.A. for the past few months; ever since losing the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships, actually. The former WWE Champion has competed on house shows in the time since, but he’s been absent from television for the past nine months.
These past few weeks, his onscreen return was teased with some eerie promos featuring toys straight out of “The Conjuring”. The tone was evidently dark – right up ‘The Eater of Worlds’ alley – but what we got in Wyatt’s official onscreen return was something completely different.
What we got instead was … well, see for yourself.
Your eyes don’t deceive you. Bray Wyatt has transformed himself into a hybrid between Mr. Rogers, Pee Wee Herman and Reverend Harry Powell (per the Hurt/Heal gloves). He’s a far jollier, uplifting and overall family friendly man who pales in comparison of the character we’ve watched on our screens for over six years.
This is the latest thing any of us would have expected in lieu of Wyatt’s return and yet, it could not be more perfect.
It would be premature to fall in love with this gimmick when it’s hardly a week into existence as of this writing, but it’s also hard not to think of this character shift as a stroke of genius.
First off, let’s talk about how this was a perfect direction to take the Bray Wyatt character. It’s no secret that the guy has seen better days. His last couple years on the main roster have been less than stellar to say the least.
Frankly, I think he’s looked like a geek ever since losing the WWE Title via holographic bugs at WrestleMania, but that’s a longer discussion for another day.
To put it simply, before he left, his character stopped looked like a credible challenger – or a credible wrestler, even – years ago. A change needed to be made if we ever were to take him seriously, but this wouldn’t be as simple as giving him a new faction or another Wyatt Family member.
His persona’s too far gone to be fixed so easily. The best thing WWE could have done was rebrand his character in a way that goes completely left from what he was before, and this is as left as they could’ve gone.
Best of all, the character is somehow more terrifying that the original Bray Wyatt ever was. As ‘The Face of Fear’, he was designed to be scary. He was a cult leader straight of a horror flick. While that worked in making him unique, it never made him scary in the way he should have been.
With the implication that he’s hiding something dastardly beneath that jolly smile waiting to jump out, the new Bray Wyatt has this unsettling tinge to him which was missing from his previous iteration. It suits him well now.
Beyond just how this character shift benefits Wyatt, this is a stroke of genius because Bray has been planting the seeds for this character to debut as far back as the fall.
SEScoops unearthed a theory suggesting that the character was not only institutionalized, but he has been hinting at this since as far back as October. You can check out the original post here to get down to the nitty gritty of these tweets, but to summarize what makes this important, it goes to show that this idea has been in the works for a very long time.
The fact that WWE, Wyatt and everyone else involved in crafting this concept took months to tease this whole thing suggests that there is a clear plan for this whole thing going forward. Whether the endgame for this plan is actually good needs to be seen in the coming weeks, but this new theory at least indicates that a lot of thought has been put into this whole thing.
Not only does that make this storyline even more fascinating, but all the more exciting.
Bray Wyatt’s new character presents a new breath of fresh air for the man behind the character. He’s now afforded a slew of potential, intrigue and most importantly, direction.
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Wyatt hasn’t had any of those qualities in a long time, but as the founder of the Firefly Fun House, he has all the tools to succeed.