#postscript: i just watched a bliss match for context and... wow

[duhragonball]

Sorry about all the weird asks you been getting, Here is an actual question: What do you think of Bray Wyatt's current fiend character?

Technically, this should be addressed on the wrestling blog, but I get them mixed up myself all the time, and let’s be real: duhragonball > buttdawg >>> imatlasarrestmeplease.  

In any case, I don’t have strong opinions about The Fiend, because I stopped watching WWE in October 2018, before The Fiend’s debut.   I think I have a general idea of what the character is supposed to be, but it’s probably not fair to judge it on hearsay.    So take this with a few hundred grains of salt.  

From what I understand, Bray Wyatt sort of dropped off the map for a while, then returned at... was it Summerslam ‘19?   I think it was.    He came back as the Fiend, who’s sort of like when Mick Foley switches from Mankind to Cactus Jack, only in this case The Fiend no-sells everything and he’s super strong.    Also, the Bray persona has become like this Mr. Rogers pastiche, and may not fully understand the Fiend’s actions.   

I have no idea how this Firefly Funhouse thing works.  I watched a pirated video of the John Cena “match” at WrestleMania 36, mostly because I wanted to understand what nWo Cena was supposed to be about.    I still have no idea, but I’m a huge nWo mark, so I was satisfied to see John rocking the black-and-white, even if it makes no sense.   

Actually, let me talk about nWo Cena for a minute here, because that’s been on my mind for a while, and I think it does sort of tie into Bray’s WWE career.   Okay, so for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Cena and Bray had a match at WrestleMania 36 which was like some sort of Twilight Zone thing where Cena kept quantum leaping into different eras of wrestling history.   He found himself in the Hulkamania era, then he relived his own debut in 2002, and for some reason he was on the set of WCW Monday Nitro, circa 1997.   There, he was wearing an nWo shirt, indicating that he was supposed to be a member of the legendary heel stable, the New World Order.   

What struck my fancy about this was that I saw John wearing the shirt and for a moment I imagined how cool it would have been if Cena really had been part of the nWo.   The group had this amazing start in the summer of 1996, but by 1997 it was running on fumes, and in 1998 they had absolutely no idea what to do with it.    After that, they just kept breaking up and reuniting over and over, trying to recapture the old magic.   There were a lot of problems with the nWo, but I think the biggest one is that there was no clear identity of the group.   Somtimes it was a bunch of cool dudes having a violent party, and other times it was Hulk Hogan’s personal cult.  Other times it was just Hall and Nash wearing matching shirts.    It didn’t matter in the early years, but when the group got older and the older members moved on, there was nothing to define what was left.   

I’ve only been watching New Japan for about a year, but I’m already impressed with how Bullet Club has managed to avoid the same problem.   Let’s face it, they’re a baldface ripoff of the nWo concept, but they have defining characteristics that don’t just rely on a specific person.   Prince Devitt (Finn Balor) was a founding member, but he’s been gone for years.   Then AJ Styles was their #1 guy, and he left.   Then Kenny Omega was their leader, and I showed up a few months after he left.     I thought the BC was doomed to decline after that, but then I saw how dominant their new leader, Jay White could be, and then they replenished their ranks with KENTA.   Generally, Bullet Club is a gaijin stable, so that sets the tone for their act rather than any single person.   If a Canadian leaves, you just get a New Zealander to replace him.   But with the pandemic keeping most of BC out of Japan, they adapted again and brought in EVIL as their new top guy.   It’s impressive to me, because NJPW figured out a way to make the nWo an evergreen angle.   They can sell those T-Shirts for the next fifty years.   

But I still miss the classic nWo, and I liked the idea that in some AU, John Cena might have formed his own nWo revival around 2011 or so, and they could have done it right.    Imagine someone with Cena’s prestige and longevity doing a heel stable like that, and when his time is over, he hands it off to another big star who can carry the torch.  “If only they had John Cena,” I thought to myself.  “He could have righted the ship.   He could have fixed it.”

Which brings me back to Bray Wyatt, because the vibe I get is that Bray’s fans seem more focused on what could be, and what might have been.   Bray’s entire WWE run feels like a running effort to fix Bray’s entire WWE run.   He started as Husky Harris in NXT, then they brought the entire NXT roster out as a new heel stable, the Nexus, and had them run roughshod over WWE, except they were mostly too green for that role, and they kept losing big matches to Cena and Orton.    Then CM Punk took over Nexus and they became his faceless sidekicks, and then they vanished altogether when Punk moved into his Pipebomb era.  

Then Husky came back as Bray Wyatt, and everyone loved the gimmick.   I never cared for it personally, because I never saw much of Waylon Mercy, and I’ve never watched “Cape Fear”.   But people loved it.   But he kept losing the big matches.   Then he comes back as The Fiend, and now he’s like invincible or something, and it seems like he’s finally on track to get the success people wanted him to have before.  

Only, I don’t think it’s worked out that well.   They made him invincible, but they don’t seem to know what to do with that.    This led to that Hell in a Cell where Seth Rollins got “disqualified” in a no-DQ match.    They literally couldn’t decide how to end the match, or who should win, so they just stopped it for no reason.    That’s a long-term WWE problem.    Vince can’t make up his mind, so he just doesn’t put anyone over.    He didn’t want Seth to look weak losing to the Fiend, even though the Fiend is literally a monster, and he didn’t want the Fiend to win the title because he’d eventually have to lose it later.    Except the Fiend did win the title eventually, only to lose it to a 50 year old Goldberg in Saudi Arabia.   So Vince’s efforts to protect the Fiend at HiaC were ultimately pointless.    

I’m not sure where the Fiend character is now, but I think he may have turned face, and Alexa Bliss is his girlfriend?  Sith Apprentice?    I see people saying she’s possessed?   Well, whatever, I like what she’s done with her hair lately.   Every time they revamp Bray, I always hear fans suggest that they’re finally going to have Sister Abagail debut.    No one even knows who or what Sister Abagail is.    She’s just a name Bray used to mention during his creepy promos, and I think Randy Orton desecrated her grave one time.    Wrestling’s pretty great.  

Here’s the thing, I’m 100% in favor of a real, live SIster Abagail character.   I’ve written a 600,000-word novel about a background character in Dragon Ball Z, and at least thirty chapters were devoted to the Shockmaster.    I remember in 1997, when everyone thought Kane was dead, and then he finally showed up and set everything on fire for the next twenty years straight.    I still want to know who the Black Scoprion really was.   If Sister Abagail turns out to be an on-screen character, it’d be amazing.   Maybe Alexa Bliss is supposed to be turning into Abagail somehow.   She needs to dress up more like a ghost, though.   

The problem is that--right now-- there isn’t a Sister Abagail, so until the real thing is introduced, it’s just a hypothetical that everyone can pin their hopes and dreams on.   “Oh once they pull the trigger on Sister Abagail, Bray will finally get the push he deserves!”   “Yeah, that last Fiend match wasn’t so hot, but it’s all building up to the big payoff when they finally bring out Sister Abagail.”   “Sister Abagail will fix it, she can right the ship.”  

What I’m worried about is that one of these years Bray’s going to retire from wrestling, hopefully on his own terms, but his fans will still be waiting for a dream storyline, long after his actual career has passed them by.   I guess there’s problems with his run, mostly systemic problems with WWE’s booking philosophies and indecision, and fans are praying for a miracle to fix it all, like John Cena in an nWo shirt.   And even if they did bring out a Sister Agagail, it would never live up to the fans’ expectations.    It just feels like everyone’s setting themselves up for a disappointment.  

And that’s one of the reasons why I quit watching WWE.   At some point I realized that there just isn’t going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, a big match that somehow makes up for all of the dumb ideas and bad finishes I’ve seen over the years.    I’m all about AEW and NJPW now, and those promotions aren’t always perfect, but they are a lot better about meeting my expectations.  

I guess, when all is said and done, my big opinion on the Fiend is that I hope Bray lets his WWE contract expire and shows up someplace else.  He’s a great talent, no denying that.   I just don’t trust WWE to do right by him creatively. I think they want to push him, but they don’t know how to push guys anymore.