What’s the story?
After another altercation within the Wyatt Family last night on SmackDown Live, Bray Wyatt announced that next week, Luke Harper and Randy Orton will face each other to put an end to the friction between the two.
In case you didn’t know...
After coming up short against Bray Wyatt in several matches last year, Randy Orton joined The Wyatt Family on the October 25th episode of SmackDown Live. Since joining Bray and Harper, The New Wyatt Family has become a force in the blue brand, even winning the Tag Team Titles at TLC in December of 2016.
However, weeks later they lost the titles to American Alpha after Harper, seemingly unintentionally, distracted Orton and knocked him off the top rope. Orton and Harper would continue to bicker and fight with each other in the following weeks.
An altercation between the two again caused them to lose their title rematch a few weeks ago and even resulted in Harper accidentally super kicking Bray in the face while trying to take out Orton.
The heart of the matter
After all the Family turmoil in the past few weeks, The Wyatts came out this week on SmackDown Live presenting a united front, with Orton getting ready to take on Dean Ambrose. Again, Luke Harper got involved in the match which distracted Orton and resulted in Ambrose rolling him up from behind for the victory.
After the match, both Orton and Harper were visibly upset with each other and eventually came to blows. Bray tried keeping the peace like he did in weeks previous, but his two disciples kept trying to go at it.
When Harper refused to listen to Bray and back down, Wyatt delivered a solid right hand to his long time partner. Harper was stunned and before he walked out of the ring, shouted, “He did this!” referring to Orton and the Family problems they have had in the past month.
Later on in the show, Bray Wyatt announced in a video done backstage that next week Orton and Harper would face each other in a singles match, while also announcing his plan for them all to enter the Rumble.
What’s next?
The Wyatts were scheduled to appear on Talking Smack later in the night, but only Bray appeared on the show claiming he dismissed Orton and Harper. While answering why he put the two in a match, Wyatt replied, “When brothers have conflict only brothers can settle it, and they must settle it in a certain brutal way,” and added, “one would fall, one would stand, but in the end, our Family becomes stronger”.
Wyatt seems to want to keep everybody on the same page, especially with the Royal Rumble coming up, but Orton and Harper don’t seem to be following orders. Their animosity towards each other has reached an all-time high, but the question still remains, if Bray Wyatt had to pick only one to keep in the family, who would he choose?
Sportskeeda’s take
While this is certain to be a great matchup between the two, next week’s one-on-one between Orton and Harper could lead to the demise of the Wyatt Family as we currently know it. From the very beginning, fans have been skeptical of Orton in the Wyatt Family.
There have been several times that Orton has looked pleased while Bray would get frustrated with Harper. If the Family does split and Orton is the cause of it, maybe a Wrestlemania match between The Viper and Eater of Worlds is on the horizon.
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