It's no secret, nor is it a revelation, to say that Bray Wyatt has lost a good bit of steam of late. The current feud with Chris Jericho failed to deliver any kind of deep-rooted rivalry that long time fans of Y2J may have been hoping for, and as a result, Wyatt has gone from having "The Whole World In His Hands", to standing in the midcard with his cock on his hand. The audience's reaction to his Raw promo was telling, and it isn't the first time a live crowd has been apathetic to Wyatt's verbal jiu-jitsu. As well delivered as it is, his promos are void of substance, much ado about nothing, and the fans are clocking on to it.
Just a few months back, however, Bray felt like the hottest rising star the WWE had, and it was watching SummerSlam that inspired this column, when one of the people I was watching with, a longtime Cena detractor, tried to pin the blame on ol' JC for Wyatt's recent fate, calling him "the career killer", a comment I had to take exception to.
Let's get a few things established about Bray now - firstly, John Cena was THE reason he began to get the reaction he did. Before that, Wyatt wasn't this surefire, ready-to-explode-into-the-atmosphere character it later appeared he could be. Even though the feud itself was slapdash at best in terms of the content, direction and driving theme, the one thing it accomplished was allowing Bray to call attention to the anti-Cena backlash in such a way to tie it into his own momentum, and create the illusion he was on the cusp. The feud ended with Bray's best match thus far, a Last Man Standing match, that Cena won due to Daniel Bryan being injured and the need for him to step back up as the top babyface.
The second Cena was stripped away from Wyatt, Bray immediately began to flounder, and his reactions became less and less impressive. Love it or hate it, it's clear what the fans were responding to in hindsight - while Bray was the beneficiary, Cena was the facilitator.
Now, saying this sounds critical of Wyatt, and it's not. It's simply the nature of the character. These type of characters, the rooted in pure evil, "rare-breed" persona, is reliant on being constantly fed to stay relevant. They are what they are because they are special. They're involved, and involving. They can't be ignored, they are always to be dealt with, a unique presence that we happen to be witnessing at this particular place in time that is always a step ahead of the audience and his opponent. A Raven in ECW. A heel Jake in the WWF. This character exists and thrives because of the situations he finds himself in, that he creates. You have to cater to them, and it's fundamental wrestling booking.
You have this distinctly evil character, he builds up mega heat, and then it gets blown off in the end. Fundamental booking says that this character needs to come back more evil than ever. In other words, he needs to get his heat back. Once the fearsome monster gets what he has coming, what do you have to fear unless he reinforces why he's a terrifying presence? Bray Wyatt, like his predecessors, needs a constant stream of hot opponents or situations, or else he will fail to maintain the level of heat that results in success.
He can't be just another guy, and you can't book him like you do everybody else. He can't flounder in the middle. His entire appeal, and the reason the character works, is because he isn't "just another guy". He's not like every other wrestler, he's special. Once the audience subconsciously realises he's part of the furniture, just like everybody else in tights on the show, then the very basic element that got him over in the first place is lost. All he has to stand out then is his promos. Promos that can only do so much to separate him, when the fans know it's meaningless.
The problem with Bray Wyatt is that this character, as interesting as it could potentially be...doesn't actually do anything. What dynamic angle has this guy given us? "Creative" should be having a field day with this guy with all the manner of whacky human sacrifices, symbolic mind games and whatever else to give an aspect of danger to Bray Wyatt to make him a guy to tune in for every single week to see what he'll do next. And yet, the most memorable angle he's ever done on Raw is when Daniel Bryan beat the shit out of him in a cage.
That's as big a problem as anything. It's harder to get over and become a genuine star right now than it has ever been, because so many of the typical star-making devices mean less now than they did before. The fans need something concrete, but the character is all talk. He can talk about being the eater of worlds, but if you judge him by his actions, he's bluffing, he doesn't act evil. He commits no horrible sins for us to be angry about. He doesn't break any of the established conventions in his actions. He just talks about it.
Chris Jericho, on paper, is not a massive step down, and given the verbal abilities, it should have worked to reheat Bray after the Cena feud. But winning a match alone won't do it. Nor will going 50-50 in wins and losses with Jericho on Pay-Per-View. A half-assed program isn't the answer. Creative needs to do it's job, or Bray needs to come up with some diabolical acts he can perform, and push to do them.
That character needs to be fed to survive. But he's been positively starving since Last Man Standing.
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