Views From The Turnbuckle: What Happened To Bray Wyatt?

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Ever since the first vignette aired on Raw teasing his debut, Bray Wyatt has been a tantalizing prospect for WWE. Here is one of his generations most gifted orators, someone who has really engulfed themselves into a gimmick during an era where quality gimmicks are few and far between, and although he is not the greatest technical wrestler, Wyatt is a big physical athlete with convincing offense, and he has had his fair share of high quality matches since his arrival in WWE. However, WWE has struggled to capitalize on Wyatt's exceptional talents, and for at least the last year, he has swam around in no-man's land, with no real focus or long term plans.

The most notable folly in the career of Bray Wyatt was his feud last spring with John Cena. At this point in his career, Wyatt's mystique was still relatively in-tact, although his plan to brainwash Daniel Bryan had failed, him and his group were coming off a clean victory over The Shield at Elimination Chamber, and looked to be really finding their stride as a dominant force in WWE. The feud with Cena marked a great opportunity for Wyatt. Regardless of what you think about Cena, working with him in a feud means that WWE at least sees you as a viable competitor who can work with the top guy. A win over Cena, as rare as it is, can do a lot for a wrestler's career.

Wyatt came up short at Wrestlemania against Cena, a controversial move considering that Cena would have no logical reason to keep feuding with Wyatt after defeating him cleanly in the middle of the ring at the biggest event of the year. However, the real damage to Wyatt would be down at the following PPV, Extreme Rules. Wyatt's character relies heavily on the psychological influence he can have on his opponents, and the feud's intent was for him to bring out "the inner monster" in the super-babyface Cena. Wyatt would pick up the victory at Extreme Rules in a steel cage match, despite the fact that Cena beat up not only Wyatt, but his disciples Luke Harper and Erick Rowan as well, for 90% of the match. Wyatt was able to pick the victory when right before Cena was about to march out the cage door to victory, a random child appeared, singing Wyatt's tune "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" in a heavily distorted voice. This distracted Cena long enough for Wyatt to capitalize and pick up the victory.

The stupidity of a small child singing costing Cena a match aside, this was a great opportunity for Wyatt. If Wyatt had managed to turn Cena's main fanbase (children) against him, then surely this would cause Cena to crack, right? Well, Cena would show up on Raw over the next few weeks and he acted the same way that he always did, making bad 80s references and cracking jokes about Wyatt and his crew. Despite the fact that Wyatt's whole character (and the finish at Extreme Rules) was based on Wyatt being able to get inside the head of his opponents, Cena completely no-sold Wyatt's character, never reacting to his ploys with the exception of the finish at Extreme Rules. This sent a very clear message to those watching at home: Bray Wyatt was not someone special. No, he was not a psychological mastermind, but just another regular foe for John Cena to conquer. Cena would steamroll Wyatt at Payback, and would beat Wyatt again a couple more times on TV, just for good measure.

After coming out of the Cena feud as a big loser, Wyatt would move into a feud with the returning Chris Jericho. With the memory of his utter destruction at the hands of Cena still hanging over his head, the feud never really got off the ground. Even worse, Wyatt lost his first match against Jericho on PPV. It was one thing to lose to Cena, who almost never loses on PPV, but to lose to Jericho, someone who had spent the majority of his time in the company over the last couple years putting younger talent over, was an even worse sign for Wyatt. Wyatt was able to pick up a victory at Summerslam, but at that point, any momentum he could have gained from defeating Jericho was lost. Wyatt won the rubber match on Raw against Jericho in a steel cage, but not before he was destroyed by Cena AGAIN on the August 25th episode of Raw, for reasons that remain unclear.

After the feud with Jericho ended, Wyatt was taken off of TV for some time, probably in hopes of washing the stink off of him that he endured since his feud with Cena began. During his time away, it was announced that Wyatt would be letting Harper and Rowan "run free" and that they would no longer be directly connected with him. If presenting him as a complete loser wasn't enough to ruin his character, WWE decided that he needed to get rid of his cult as well. It wasn't like WWE had grand plans for Harper and Rowan, they seemingly only exist to take up spots in multi-man matches, and it was another step down for Wyatt.

Wyatt would make his return at Hell in a Cell, where he showed up (literally) out of thin air to cost Dean Ambrose his match against Seth Rollins. Why Wyatt disliked Ambrose was never explained, just that Wyatt felt some mysterious need to "fix" Ambrose. Wyatt actually came out on top in this feud, picking up a string of victories. Unfortunately, Wyatt picked up his victories in the following ways: Disqualification, and exploding TV, a giant candy cane, interference by Robocop and running Ambrose into an ambulance. I only made up one of those outcomes. Needless to say, these string of victories did little to legitimize Wyatt in the eyes of the fans.

Following all of that, Wyatt began a feud with The Undertaker. Well, using the term feud might be a bit strong, since all 'Taker never appeared on Raw or Smackdown, and we were left with Wyatt rambling on about metaphysical beings for several weeks. At Wrestlemania, 'Taker defeated Wyatt, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Wyatt, he took The Undertaker to the limit and got in a lot of offense, a big contrast to his feud with Cena the previous year. However, things still remained lukewarm for Wyatt. Currently, he is feuding with someone (we don't quite know who yet) but he has started calling himself "The New Face of Fear." Going into his Wrestlemania match, it was billed as a match that would determine who really the Face of Fear was; The Undertaker or Wyatt. Despite the fact that Wyatt LOST THE MATCH, he has decided to call himself the Face of Fear anyways. Again, it makes Wyatt look second rate.

But it hasn't all been a lack of victories that have slowed Wyatt down. Another issue for him is that his character has become very stale over the last several months. When Wyatt first debuted, there was big mysterious aura around him. Why was he so weird? Who was Sister Abagail? How did he find Harper and Rowan? What is his motivation as a wrestler/entertainer? Of course a mystery is only good if the audience eventually gets answers for their questions. WWE has provided none of that, and at this point in his career, it has become apparent that they never will. Without any hope of explanation, Wyatt's best assets, his promos, have become very cumbersome. Wyatt just rambles on and on about things that nobody understands, rendering his promos pretty useless. They might sound cool, but if you pay attention to what he is saying, and you have been listening to him say the same things for the last two years, you realize that the words are just dressing dumped on top of a boring salad. It is like your typical Michael Bay movie; sure a lot of explosions and gun fire is really cool when you are watching, but without any substance or depth to the story beyond the special effects, the movie is actually quite dull. Wyatt is the same way, and at this point his character is less like "dangerous cult leader" and more like "guy who makes no sense and always loses."

The sad thing is, Wyatt might have already peaked as a performer early in his career. The first six months of Bray Wyatt's career on the main roster were by far his most entertaining and important moments of his career. At this point, WWE has managed to really water down his character and has booked him into relative oblivion. He still has a lot of talent, and the tools are all still there, but expecting WWE to suddenly turn it all around and get his character right is a lot to ask in this day and age.

You can follow Jesse Collings on Twitter @JesseCollings