WWE Must Reinvent Bray Wyatt Character Before His Return

WWE has dropped the ball with Bray Wyatt on more than one occasion but may be down to its final chance.

The former WWE Champion has not been seen on WWE programming since late February when his planned WrestleMania 39 match with Bobby Lashley was cancelled mere weeks before the event due to an undisclosed medical issue. Wyatt’s prolonged absence from WWE has casted doubt over his potential in-ring return, and Fightful Select (h/t WrestlingNews.co) reported this week that “Wyatt is still sidelined and not cleared for action. We’re told that he’s still awaiting clearance and hopeful for a return whenever that occurs.”

In addition, there are “no significant creative plans for Wyatt in recent months because of his status,” the latest twist in an eventful second WWE run for Wyatt. Following his shocking release in 2021, Wyatt returned to WWE programming in late 2022, and the Internet Wrestling Community was abuzz about his comeback and what it could mean for WWE.

But much like the end of his previous WWE run, Wyatt’s current run has been a bust, and it’s clear that there is only one solution left: If—and when—Wyatt returns, he has to do so as an entirely different character.

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There is a running joke among pro wrestling fans, and even WWE stars themselves, that anyone who works with Wyatt is methaphorically cursed by his supernatural gimmick. Even the current World Heavyweight Championship Seth Rollins told BT Sport (h/t 411Mania) last year that working with Wyatt proved to be “difficult” for him: “I mean, look, the Bray Wyatt character is just difficult. If you look at anybody that worked with the Bray Wyatt character for an extended period of time, they didn’t come out of it better than when they went in. It was very difficult to have a story with him.”

Rollins is right, isn’t he?

In 2023, Wyatt’s overly macabre character, well, just doesn’t work. Whether it’s “The Fiend” or whatever his most recent gimmick alongside Uncle Howdy was supposed to be, the bizarre antics, the campy promos and the general over-the-top nature of the recent versions of Wyatt have trapped his rivals in a booking box that is virtually impossible to escape.

Perhaps that’s why just this week WWE Hall of Famer and Wyatt’s former WrestleMania rival The Undertaker told Metro (h/t F4WOnline.com) that Wyatt should embrace his original WWE role as the leader of the Wyatt Family: “They need to back Bray’s character up to the original character, get away from – they’ve kind of got themselves booked into a situation where it’s kind of difficult for him to have matches. I think the original Wyatt Family Bray, that’s the money.”

Just like Rollins, The Undertaker uttered that word again: “Difficult.” And quite frankly, that’s exactly what booking a character like Wyatt is. Still, a full-blown reversion to Wyatt’s first swamp style gimmick isn’t what’s needed. But a happy medium mixing Wyatt’s real-life personality with subtle elements of his “Eater of Worlds” personality is the best route to take.

There is, after all, something there with Wyatt. He’s a talented talker and solid enough in-ring worker who, just last October, topped The Bloodline—the hottest act in all of pro wrestling—as the top merchandise seller in WWE. Despite all the bad booking Wyatt has endured, including lackluster marquee feuds with Rollins and Roman Reigns, he clearly has a loyal and wide-ranging fan base.

WWE, however, has failed time and time again in its quest to highlight Wyatt’s strengths and limit his weaknesses. His biggest strength, of course, is his promo ability, but for most of his main roster stint, his promos meant to instill fear in his opponents became rambling and repetitive. What’s more, Wyatt rarely backed up his intimidating trash talk with major victories.

There is too much smoke and too many mirrors needed to book a character as complex as the gimmick Wyatt had been portraying prior to his ongoing WWE hiatus. It was so far from reality in an era in pro wrestling in which the best characters—like Reigns, for example—are much more natural and less supernatural, bringing in elements from real-life that hook in fans not just for months but for years at a time.

For Wyatt, he’s spent the past several years as a performer with plenty of style but very little substance, giving fans little reason to care about his feuds, matches and storylines. But the best thing Wyatt has done since returning in 2022 was cut an emotional promo that, in a marked change from most of his promos, felt real and raw.

That is the Wyatt that WWE needs to tap into whenever he comes back—or else his latest return will fizzle out just like all the others have.