When a reputation is earned
You know a company has a bad reputation for messing with darker storylines or characters to make them more palatable when reports yesterday claimed the WWE was toning down Bray Wyatt’s newest character, the much beloved Fiend.
In many ways, the reports made sense as Vince McMahon has stated numerous times the WWE is NOT going back to the Attitude Era and WILL remain PG.
But with their biggest competition since TNA looming on the horizon, WWE executives shutting down what is potentially their most popular character arc in years would be beyond stupid. Add to that, that the Fiend’s theme song was number 6 on the soundtrack charts and 26 overall over the weekend in downloads shows the popularity of the character.
The creation
During an interview, Braun Strowman stated that Wyatt was 100% behind the creation of the Fiend and the Firefly Fun House segments that fans starving for something that wasn’t cartoonish drooling.
Add to it Wyatt’s awesome portrayal of the character and having his mask and lamp designed by some of Tom Savini’s special effects students (Cool fact: according to Savini, the lamp is Wyatt’s head, as he’s dead since cutting the head off the cutout of him early in the Funhouse segments), really makes this a personal thing for Wyatt, and who can argue with that?
McMahon and others believed in Wyatt’s ability and character so much they gave him the green light and he’s taken the ball and run with it.
Will it be toned down?
Thankfully, it appears it was a rumor or conjecture that was reported as fact as Bray Wyatt came out and stated the Fiend is NOT being toned down.
The conjecture most likely came with Wyatt not appearing on Raw following SummerSlam. While the popular belief/reasoning would be he’s a special character that would lose his mystique if seen regularly (like Lesner and many other current and former superstars) and as such, he won’t be on every week.
Whatever the reason, it’s good that Wyatt has come out and cleared things up, especially after the Fiend’s assault on Jerry Lawler on last night’s Raw feeling typical Fiendish.
This gives us hope that the WWE is loosening the ropes and allowing their creative and in ring talent to walk the edge more, and this should only give us more exciting matches and storylines going forward.
