Brian Gewirtz – ‘Bray Wyatt Was A Remarkable Performer & Genuine Human Being’
Bray Wyatt (Windham Rotunda) tragically passed away from a heart attack while asleep at his home in Clermont, FL on August 24 at the age of 36.
On a recent edition of “The Ten Count” podcast, former WWE head writer Brian Gewirtz praised the late Bray Wyatt for his impeccable talent and for leaving a vast legacy behind.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how Wyatt stood out among the rest of the talent: “I likened it to this. Imagine 1920s basketball, where they’re all throwing it through a peach basket and doing all those old-timey moves and everything, and then LeBron shows up. You’re like, ‘Yes, we’re technically playing the same sport, but this person is on a completely different level than anything we’ve ever witnessed before.’ That was Bray Wyatt. As a writer on the creative team, this happens to everybody I think on the creative team, sometimes you get stuck in a funk, where you’re like, ‘Oh my god, this has been done before, and this has been done. Everything’s been done before. How can we possibly do something new when literally every story, every iteration of wrestling…’Yes, that’s just like McMahon and Austin’, or , ‘Yes, that’s just like Hogan versus Andre’, or whatever. Here comes Bray, doing stuff that had never been seen before. It’s all coming out of his brain. The promos, the first time you saw Firefly Fun House. My brain was like, ‘What is this? This is insane, this is hypnotic.’ When he’s doing the dance and the song and the Vince puppet, and the match with Cena at the COVID WrestleMania, and all that stuff, it was truly mind-bending. That all comes from Bray. That wasn’t Bray sitting down. I know he worked with several members of the creative team and collaborated with them. But he was the driving force behind all of this stuff.”
On the innovation that Wyatt carried through his career and the legacy he left behind: “When we talked about it before, the ascension or progression from WWE to film and television, with Rock and Cena and Batista and several others have made inroads. But in the back of my mind, and the back of probably lots and lots of people’s minds, that was where you could easily see Bray, Windham, ascending to. Because he’s such a good actor and such a good performer, and had such great instincts, and so genuine. This scary guy, this horror character, was really ahead of his time in a wrestling world. It’s difficult in a wrestling world. It’s not easy when you’re sitting in the rocking chair going back and forth, and talking about these cryptic promos, otherworldly type promos. But at the end of the day, your goal is supposedly pin someone’s shoulders to the mat for a count of three and/or get them to submit in order to win a championship. The motivation and the goals aren’t necessarily aligned in that particular case, and so it’s a challenge sometimes to have them be aligned. It’s like, ‘Yes, if you’re not trying to be champion, then what are you doing?’ Well, Bray Wyatt is operating on a much different plane than everyone else. I would have loved to, like everyone… basically, yeah, I agree. Go back, treasure back the materials that we do have, the legacy that he left as far as a performer. But all these outpourings, the tributes that are coming, you can tell, whether you knew him or you didn’t know him, what a genuine human being he was, above being a performer, and he was a remarkable performer. He was even more valued and more loved and treasured as a human being.”
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