Bray Wyatt Released From WWE

WWE announced the release of Bray Wyatt overnight. He got the stock-standard article that read, "WWE has come to terms on the release of Bray Wyatt. We wish him the best in all his future endeavors."

Bray Wyatt made his first WWE appearance in 2010 under the moniker of Husky Harris on NXT, and was part of the Nexus faction. He was ultimately sent back to NXT and repackaged as backwoods cult leader Wyatt. His career highlight was a brief run with the WWE Championship in early 2017, besting top stars AJ Styles & John Cena inside the Elimination Chamber, before dropping the title to Randy Orton a month later at WrestleMania 33.

Wyatt was noted for his creative mind. The real-life Windham Rotunda reportedly came up with the Wyatt gimmick himself, and largely wrote his own promos. He revitalised himself again in 2019 as The Fiend, a horror-movie esque monster with an incredible presence. The apex of this character was his Firefly Funhouse cinematic match with John Cena at WrestleMania 36, an incredible match/segment which displayed a depth of character development and intricacies rarely seen in WWE. His final appearance was this year at WrestleMania 37, losing once again to Randy Orton.

Thoughts: This really depends on whether the decision was a mutual agreement or an outright firing. Reportedly, the reason for Wyatt's absence from WWE TV this year has been his struggle with mental health following the loss of his close friend, the late Jon Huber (Brodie Lee, Luke Harper in the Wyatt Family). If WWE straight up fired him because of that, that's despicable. If both parties wanted this, then I simply wish Bray all the best and hope that we see him again in the future.

The news isn't overly surprising to me. The writing seemed on the wall when Alexa Bliss became the focus and she ultimately took The Fiend's gimmick for herself. Wyatt is one of the most creative minds the business has ever seen- I'm reserving judgement on this until we know whether he wanted to go or not, but regardless losing a talent like him is a massive blow to WWE.