Talk about a brutal week for the wrestling business; losing a genuine icon, legend and forefather of the industry on one day, and then losing one of the most captivating and yet to be fully untapped stars of today, very much in the category of having gone way too soon, in Windham Rotunda, whom most people know primarily as Bray Wyatt.
I’m very deliberate in using his real name over Bray Wyatt, because with no disrespect to the the departed, I can’t say that I was really ever that big of a fan of Bray Wyatt. The whole supernatural character is something that I’m clearly not in the right demographic to really be a fan of. And as much as I did like the originality and intrigue he brought to the table earlier in his run as Bray Wyatt, I do think his whole character evolution went from weird to progressively weirder and more bizarre, and not in good ways either.
I loved the whole creepy southern gothic cult leader of the original Bray Wyatt persona, but then that it literally killed by Randy Orton in storyline. The eventual return of the split personality, super-positive and cheerful Bray Wyatt compared to the emergence of the demonic Fiend started off well enough in my opinion, but when he started up with brainwashing Alexa Bliss and being basically unkillable against Seth Rollins but then getting squashed by fucking Goldberg, I was kind of losing my shine to the character as a whole. Ironically, this too was killed by Randy Orton in storyline.
Which brings us to his final incarnation and last stint with the company, kind of this strange amalgamation of Bray Wyatt who is kind of good, but kind of dark, with the Field still lurking around, but then the introduction of Uncle Howdy, and I’m just kind of like wtf is all this bullshit now. At this point, I was no longer a fan of the Bray Wyatt universe, and I likened him to being like, Randy Orton, as in a guy whom with once you get tangled up with in storyline, you’re stuck with it for like 3-5 months of having to play scared patron to a haunted house, and barely a professional wrestler anymore.
It was actually during his feud with LA Knight, that I realized that I was starting to become impressed with LA Knight, seeing as how his whole tenure prior, ol’ Eli Drake wasn’t impressing me at all, but while feuding with Bray Wyatt, I found LA Knight to be a shining beacon of charisma and promo school, and even though he was getting his ass kicked and having creepy shit thrown at his character for three months, he was absolutely killing it on the mic, and even though he lost the feud, he clearly won over a lot of fans, seeing as how over he is with the WWE Universe currently.
I just felt that Bray Wyatt was a character that was clearly not geared for people my old age, and is clearly meant to capture the imaginations of those who are in “the demos” that the professional wrestling industry tries their hardest to cater to, children, and the vaunted 18-35 male range. Aside from such, I just felt that a supernatural character is among the hardest characters to write and book for, especially when you exist in a universe with MMA converts, European wrestling purists and a Samoan dynasty running roughshod through the rest of the company.
More often than not, Bray Wyatt’s storylines have very short shelf lives before the character has to be put back on the shelf for repackaging, and it was this inability by the E’s creative and writing staffs that really put the sandbags on the career he could have had, and unfortunately we’ll never know.
Obviously, none of what I’ve written so far seems particularly positive or respectful towards the departed, but despite the fact that I wasn’t really ever much of a fan of Bray Wyatt, I can say that I often admired and genuinely appreciated the way that the real man behind the persona, Windham Rotunda, conducted his business outside the ring.
Despite the fact that his on-screen persona was that of basically a manipulative demon hellspawn, off-screen, Windham seemed to be a guy that was just so genuinely great to fans. There are clips all over the internet of people who’ve met him in hotels, autograph signings, airports or wherever, and the guy is always so gracious to his fans, willing to go above and beyond and take pictures and sign autographs and just be so good to the people, that I can’t help but admire him as a person who understands using his platform for positivity.
One of my favorite interactions was actually on Twitter, where a mother of an autistic child who loved wrestling, and the Fiend Bray Wyatt specifically, went online and tagged Windham and the WWE to explain an unfortunate situation where her son was bullied, and his Bray Wyatt shirt was torn up. And despite the fact that he had basically killed Seth Rollins and won the Universal Championship inside of his creepy Fiend mask, Windham engages the mother on Twitter, asks her to DM him a size and address, and that he had his six. Again, this is a guy that is very much not just a bad guy on television, but a literal monster, but off-camera, Windham Rotunda always just seemed like such a good guy in the business.
Needless to say, I might not have been too high on his in-ring personas, but the guy was still solid in the ring when he actually wrestled, and there’s no denying that outside of the ring, Windham Rotunda conducted himself like the superstar that WWE performers are all known as, and the fact that he is gone is truly a depressing tragedy, that a good performer is gone too soon, and we’ll never see the heights that he clearly was still ascending to, even if they might’ve been some wacky stories to tell along the way.
Happy trails, Windham.
