Bray Wyatt always seemed to be working on a level of creativity and uniqueness artists only dream of reaching in the craft.
Wyatt, whose real name is Windham Rotunda, died unexpectedly on Thursday night at the age of 36.
Fightful reported Wyatt, who has been off the road with WWE since February, contracted COVID-19 earlier this year and it exacerbated a heart issue.
He was on the mend and progressing toward a return, but died of a heart attack, according to the outlet.
During his 14 years in the pro wrestling world, he stretched the definition of what performers can do creatively in business, basically building his own universe within WWE.
From his legendary Wyatt family to the duality of the horror-movie-type character of The Fiend and his twisted Mister Rogers-like Firefly Funhouse, everything he did felt one of a kind. The White Rabbit trail of clues used to build to his most recent return at Extreme Rules last year was revolutionary for the industry. WWE rarely gives performers the creative license they allowed him.
Wyatt made you hang on to every word, every image, and every sound he weaved into his creative symphony.
The son of WWE legend Mike Rotunda and grandson of WWE Hall of Famer Blackjack Mulligan left an indelible and lasting mark on the business and its fans that may never be replicated. You can make the case the three-time world champion in WWE was right there with Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins as the biggest, most popular and most influential male stars of this era.
So many brilliant artists don’t get to grace the world with all they had to give, leaving us forever robbed of their future visions and creations. Think Tupac, Heath Ledger and Andy Kaufman. Wyatt’s legacy will now tragically join that group of unfulfilled genius.
His storyline with recent Uncle Howdy, reportedly played by brother Bo Dallas, was just getting started – now forced to end on an ill-received Mountain Drew Pitch Black Match at the Royal Rumble in January. Wyatt always left an audience thirsting for what came next.
Now we will never know.
It makes for a complicated legacy as Wyatt’s detractors will complain his creativity didn’t always translate into quality in-ring action and story later in his career and that The Fiend’s invincible nature made it hard to get his opponents over. All of that seems so trivial now.
Today is about the man, Windham Rotunda, who Bray Wyatt very rarely let us see until late in his final run. That man was guarded by lanterns, masks, darkness and the rocking chairs of his WWE characters.
That man leaves behind his fiancée, former WWE ring announcer JoJo Offerman, their two children and two children from a previous relationship along with an endless group of family, friends and fans who loved him.
Somewhere up there, he is reunited with fellow Wyatt family member Brodie Lee, whose real name is Jon Huber, who died in 2020 at 41. Probably sharing a hug and smile.
We read the tributes that poured in around the wrestling world after the news of Wyatt’s death. For every one of those, there were probably countless times more texts and calls made fan to fan, friend to friend on Thursday night. One of the first texts I received from a fellow WWE fan truly told me the impact Wyatt had.
“My friend’s kids are crying their eyes out,” it read. “He was their favorite.”
Even if Wyatt wasn’t your favorite, his genius will be unquestioned.
He always seemed to be working on a level of creativity and uniqueness artists only dream of reaching in the craft.
We were just lucky enough to get to share in it with him.
