Marc RaimondiESPN Employees Author4 Minute Learn
Former WWE champion Bray Wyatt dies at 36
Marc Raimondi reflects on the legacy of professional wrestler Bray Wyatt, who has died at the age of 36.
WWE star Bray Wyatt, known for being one of the most creative minds in professional wrestling who pushed the boundaries with innovative characters, died Thursday at the age of 36, WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque announced on social media.
Wyatt, whose real name was Windham Rotunda, had been inactive over the past several months in WWE while dealing with an undisclosed health issue. He had been with WWE since 2009, save for just over a year in 2021 and 2022 when he was surprisingly released. Rotunda returned to WWE last September with much fanfare and a mysterious storyline, including cryptic vignettes, which helped boost television ratings.
“Just received a call from WWE Hall of Famer Mike Rotunda who informed us of the tragic news that our WWE family member for life Windham Rotunda — also known as Bray Wyatt — unexpectedly passed earlier today,” Levesque wrote on X, previously often called Twitter. “Our ideas are together with his household and we ask that everybody respect their privateness right now.”
Rotunda got here from a wrestling household. His father Mike gained fame in WWE as Irwin R. Schyster, in addition to in different promotions underneath his actual identify or Michael Wallstreet. Rotunda’s uncle Barry Windham was one of the extremely regarded wrestlers of the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties and a former member of the celebrated 4 Horsemen steady. Rotunda’s brother, Taylor, additionally wrestles for WWE and previously used the moniker Bo Dallas.
Windham Rotunda was married to former WWE ring announcer JoJo Offerman. That they had two youngsters and Rotunda had two different youngsters from a earlier marriage. He was a two-time former WWE Common champion and former WWE champion.
After beginning in WWE’s developmental program because the character Husky Harris, Rotunda discovered himself with Bray Wyatt, a maniacal swampland cult chief who recruited followers with a devilish allure. He and his Wyatt Household (Erick Rowan and the late Luke Harper, whose actual identify was Jonathan Huber) bought fashionable in NXT, WWE’s developmental model, and got here to the WWE important roster with a lot fanfare in 2014.
Rotunda was identified at that time as one of the gifted performers on the roster, particularly when it got here to telling a narrative on the microphone. He began utilizing the catchphrase “comply with the buzzards” and the music lyrics “he is bought the entire world in his fingers.” Throughout his entrances, with the world shrouded in darkness earlier than he appeared holding a lantern, followers would maintain up their cellphone lights as his eerie music performed.
In 2019, Rotunda reinvented himself because the supernatural character The Fiend, sporting a horror film masks that was a terrifying facsimile of a clown. Bray Wyatt nonetheless existed in kid-friendly skits referred to as Firefly Funhouse, however The Fiend, a darkish alter ego, wrestled in his place. These had been intricate, inventive concepts that Rotunda for essentially the most half got here up with himself. The Fiend was polarizing as a personality as a consequence of its close to invulnerability within the ring, nevertheless it was an creative leap and one of the fascinating issues on WWE tv on the time.
Rotunda returned to WWE final yr after being launched in 2021 as the previous Bray Wyatt, a good-guy character who was apparently haunted by previous demons like The Fiend and Uncle Howdy. The storyline was nonetheless growing in February when Rotunda disappeared from tv as a consequence of well being points.
“All the time had large respect and love for him and the Rotunda household,” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wrote Thursday on X. “Cherished his presence, promos, in ring work and reference to the WWE universe. Very distinctive, cool and uncommon character, which is tough to create in our loopy world of professional wrestling.”
