Yes, the headline of this piece is a question, so no, I don’t know of any specific injury to Bray Wyatt. Still, undisclosed injury or illness may be the only logical explanation to what has happened to the leader of the cultish Wyatt Family over the last year or more. Don’t get me wrong, he’s gotten plenty of high-profile feuds and stories within the company, battling nearly every major name in the WWE over the course of his three years or so on the main roster.
That list has included the likes of John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns and even the Undertaker, but all those feuds have had one thing in common: Bray loses in the end.
To make matters worse, in recent months Wyatt has been noticeably absent from in-ring performance as a singles competitor. In fact, since Summerslam last August, he’s appeared in just a handful of singles matches, most of which came during his feud with Reigns.
Since that ended at Hell in a Cell in October, most of his work has been alongside his brothers in tag matches or merely as a manager type beside the ring.
The story that could have been
That trend took an even more alarming turn heading into Fastlane. After the Wyatts made an impressive stand in the Royal Rumble match, defying Triple H’s orders to destroy Reigns and even targeting Brock Lesnar, the quartet entered a feud with “titans” of the WWE like Big Show, Kane and Ryback. This seemed like a placeholder story, a Fastlane match they’d win handily before ruining Lesnar’s night in the main event Triple Threat match for a title shot at Wrestlemania. After all, Lesnar is perhaps the biggest “titan” in the company, and they could even mess up Reigns’ night – which would’ve allowed Dean Ambrose to win the title shot – and get Roman involved for Wrestlemania as well.
That, in turn, would lead to a match between Lesnar and Wyatt – and perhaps Reigns – at Wrestlemania in Dallas, where Wyatt’s supernatural control of his minions could even allow him to get the win over Lesnar without making the Beast look weak.
The story that wasn’t
Except the Fastlane main event came and went, and no Wyatt interference happened. On top of that, the Wyatt Family inexplicably lost to a makeshift team of guys on the backend of their career and mid-card muscle. The next night, Bray and his boys got their win, but only after Ryback jumped off the apron and left the match to apparently pursue his individual goals.
Now Lesnar and Ambrose are set for Wrestlemania, but where does that leave Bray?
He’s battled quite enough with Kane, Ryback and similar superstars over the last few months, and the Big Show doesn’t have the same luster he once had. Who else can the Wyatts wage a war against and defeat to claim their rightful place as the most feared faction in the WWE? And really, this group doesn’t need any more team feuds; Bray needs a singles feud victory to establish himself as a threat to every superstar in the company.
And what made the WWE creative team abandon a story they went to great lengths to establish for Royal Rumble? Wyatt and his guys targeted the favorites for the Rumble leading into the event by attacking Reigns and Lesnar, and they did the same in the match itself.
The moment when Bray rejected Triple H was huge for the dynamic for the faction because it established they weren’t on “Team Heel” like the rest of the bad guys on the roster, yet nothing came of that.
WWE needs Bray
The WWE needs Bray Wyatt to be that third force like performers like the Undertaker once provided during the Attitude Era. You’d have the Authority, the good guys like Reigns and Ambrose and then you’d have the Wyatts.
That would force uncomfortable alliances and decisions when he chose to attack a champion or wreck a match. But you can’t have that if Wyatt never establishes himself as a real threat.
He and his family need to win belts, even if they do so through sinister means. In fact, that would be even better because it would create an urgency to stop them. But first, Bray needs to be a player in the major stories again as an individual supported by a family of monsters.
If he is hurt, that needs to be addressed, so he can get back in the ring. He’s experienced a couple more minor injuries due to his brutal aggressive style, so that wouldn’t be a complete shock. If he’s not hurt, the WWE needs to realize the gold mine they have and turn the monsters loose.
