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For the past two weeks, the WWE Universe has witnessed a couple of eerie vignettes which aired during the episodes of RAW. These videos showed some strange, creepy characters who donned masks, with the message saying “We’re coming”. The internet has been abuzz since then, as everyone started getting excited about the Wyatt Family making their debut on RAW soon. There is a reason for such excitement among the Internet Wrestling Community, as the Wyatt Family has already created quite a wave during their short stay at WWE NXT. With the family now coming down to the main roster, things will get interesting to say the least.
Windham Rotunda, the son of Mike Rotunda and grandson of hall of famer and one half of the Blackjacks, Blackjack Mulligan, was destined for greatness in professional wrestling, being a third generation superstar. As in the case of most of the other second and third generation stars, professional wrestling ran through the family, as even his uncles and brother got into the professional wrestling business. Rotunda made his television debut during the second season of NXT, with Cody Rhodes being his mentor. He was repackaged as ‘Husky Harris’, and even though he failed to win the second season of NXT, he debuted on the main roster as an accomplice of Wade Barrett and joined the reformed Nexus.
In WWE, you often see the management trying to come up with a character which suits the performer. Most of the times, it doesn’t work out as planned, and hence the characters are altered. You have the Kanes and Triple Hs who were repackaged when their earlier gimmicks weren’t getting the response that management had hoped for. Similarly, Rotunda was sent back to WWE’s developmental program, Florida Championship Wrestling, and he altered his gimmick to a hockey player, before returning to his former self. Sometimes, good things happen disguised as misfortunes, and that is exactly how things turned out for Harris.
Husky debuted a new character, which was a creepy, eerie gimmick of a zealot. Although the management had high hopes for Husky, who was now called ‘Bray Wyatt’, he was unfortunately injured and was sidelined. Although he was injured, he still made appearances and soon was wrecking havoc in FCW. Instead of having Eli Cottonwood by his side, Bray Wyatt recruited two other performers, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, and collectively, they began calling themselves the ‘Wyatt Family’. Luke Harper, better known to the passionate wrestling fans as ‘Brodie Lee’, performed in various North American promotions including Ring of Honor before being signed by the WWE to its development territory. Harper made his NXT debut as the first son of the Wyatt family. Erick, on the other hand, has been in FCW since ’11, but was repackaged as the second son of Bray Wyatt in the Wyatt family. Harper and Erick won the NXT tag team championships, and are the reigning tag champs on the show.
The Wyatt family can become one of the most interesting factions in the business if the cards are played right. They have already created a huge buzz among the wrestling fans, and their arrival can mark one of the most interesting periods in WWE this year. With The Shield already dominating the WWE, one can only imagine what the Wyatt family has in store for the WWE Universe. Furthermore, WWE is in dire need of some fresh faces and characters, and the Wyatt family can be the answer to all of WWE’s problems. How successful will they be in getting over with the fans? Only time can answer that question, but the fact that the character of Bray Wyatt is loosely based on De Niro’s character ‘Max Bady’ from Cape Fear only makes it more intriguing.
