When I first started seeing promos on WWE programming teasing the appearance of the Wyatt Family, I wasn't quite sure what to make of what I was seeing. The pieces took on a weird Max Cady meets Charles Manson vibe. From the very beginning, Wyatt declared himself to be a "monster" and an "eater of worlds" but he also stated that he was the man you relied on to "solve the mysteries of your mind." The Wyatt Family clearly was meant to look like a cult, using Bray as the savior for the fallen and lost souls. While the Undertaker and Kane were built as oh-so-spooky in a very cartoonish way, there is something legitimately frightening about cults and their leaders, as they are characters significantly more based in reality.
When the Wyatts debut on the main roster, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan are portrayed as Bray's personal attack dogs. We don't see Bray in a singles match until he competes against Kane in an inferno match, or as it is known in this particular situation, a "Ring of Fire" match. Even in a match where the ring is surrounded by fire, Harper and Rowan find a way to get into the ring to protect their leader. From the very beginning, a precedent is set that Bray will get his hands dirty if he absolutely must, but his army of followers will be more than happy to get involved to keep him safe.
From"Ring of Fire" to "House of Horrors," Bray has often been associated with matches that have some sort of mystical feel to them. This once again begs for him to be compared to Undertaker and Kane. He also feuded with both of these characters on multiple occasions, and is currently calling out Finn Balor, another character with a demon living inside of him. He has even at one point claimed to have captured the powers of the Undertaker and Kane. While he seems to have an obsession with others who have powers beyond those of a mere mortal man, I don't believe that he himself has powers beyond the realm of normal humans. This is what drives his feuds with these characters, and his desire to compete in matches that are outside of the traditional rules. He is jealous of their abilities and looks to find ways to get others to believe that he also exists in the world of the supernatural.
Another example of his jealousy comes from his feud with John Cena. Cena has been booked in a way that has resulted in many fans, especially the more-jaded ones, referring to him as "super-Cena." Completely untouchable, for the longest time, it looked like he was playing the game of professional wrestling in god-mode. Calling Cena's reign as the hero of the WWE as an "era of lies," Wyatt was trying to expose Cena as a fraud, but more importantly, he was trying to position himself as the new hero to the masses. In one match during the feud, he notably summoned an army of children in sheep masks (a recurring theme for members of the cult) to sing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" at him. I assure you it was much creepier than it reads.
This feud served to simultaneously recruit others and destroy what he has seen as others who would get in the way of him reaching out to new members. While Harper and Rowan, along with Braun Strowman have been the members of the family who have lasted the longest, one would be remissed to not mention other performers who have either joined or teased joining the backwoods cult. Heavily recruited, Daniel Bryan resisted joining the Wyatt Family for as long as he could before losing a match that forced him to become a Wyatt. In a storyline we have seen many times in the past (even as recently as Rey Mysterio and the Straight Edge Society and John Cena and the Nexus), things didn't go quite as Bray hoped and the two parties eventually parted ways, with no real lasting effect to the characters. This really just feels like a brief weird little tangent to the stories of all involved, something to briefly make you think "huh, that was a weird time."
During one of my favorite feuds for both the New Day and the Wyatt Family it was heavily teased that Xavier Woods was under a spell of sorts. While many fans thought that this was something of a literal spell, I always thought it was fairly obvious that it was more likely that Woods was simply frightened by the Wyatts and the compound they called home. While I never thought Woods was leaving the New Day to become a new Wyatt Family member, many did, and we also got a closer glimpse into how deep the Wyatts go through the lense of Xavier Woods' and the New Day's fear.
This brings us to one of the biggest storylines of Bray's career, and one that people seem pretty torn on. In 2016, Randy Orton decided that if he couldn't beat the Wyatts, he would join them, becoming the latest member of the family. Without changing his wardrobe, he did certainly change his character quite a bit. During his run with the family, Orton did everything he could to protect Bray. An interesting feud began during this time between Luke Harper and Randy Orton, eventually leading to Harper leaving the family. An interesting little feud between the two ensued until the moment where Randy finally turned his back on Wyatt. While burning down the compound, Randy claimed his plan all along was to infiltrate the Wyatt Family, screwing them over by destroying them from the inside. A decent percentage of the audience seems to believe that this made Bray look stupid. While I don't agree that he looked stupid, I think it did point to the biggest flaw the character has.
Bray didn't believe Randy would turn on him because Bray buys into his own hype. And why wouldn't he? He has been able to consistently keep his stable relevant for five years. Over those same five years, he has remained more relevant to the title picture than anyone not named John Cena, Randy Orton, or from The Shield. His fireflies show up at every live where he makes an appearance. As much as people protest that he's all talk, and that he doesn't wind up backing it up, we all still tune in. We all still light the entrance ramp with our cell phones. And that's because, just like he claims, he's got the whole world eating of the palm of his hands.
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