As wrestling fans, we tune in weekly to the men and women who use their minds and bodies to tell a story. Some seem very far-fetched, such as somebody being buried alive or struck by lightning – but the beautiful dance exists between the push and pull of holding on to that belief. Even if the outcomes are predetermined, the special ones make you grasp that belief a little longer. The climate of escapism they bring when they walk out to the arena and climb through those ropes is unparalleled.
I’ve been a wrestling fan for a long time, and many of us have experienced our fair share of unexpected tragedy. It’s like experiencing two deaths – one of the characters and the actual person who put their lives unselfishly to bring it to life. It’s hard to write about Bray Wyatt, born Windham Lawrence Rotunda in the past tense, because we’ve seen so many brilliant incarnations of his wrestling character – almost David Bowie-esque what he could do with it.
When he sat down in that rocking chair as the leader of The Wyatt Family and brought that lantern out, you brought out any light you could find to be one of the Fireflies. You listened to all the elegant soliloquies he had in promos and wanted to believe in them. The dual threat of being The Fiend and having the Firefly Funhouse both intrigued us and gave us a sense of dread from a pristine horror film. Then there’s the story of Captain Howdy and the bread crumbs of the White Rabbit, which had every wrestling fan looking for QR codes and hidden puppets throughout the shows.
That’s the genius of Rotunda’s mind – to make us think that the thing we grew up on could be far larger than we’ve ever imagined. You always hear this saying of the next generation taking the torch and taking it to farther heights than the previous generation. I saw the beginnings of The Undertaker, and he made me believe there was a point when he was impervious to pain – and if there was a moment where he lay motionless, the late Paul Bearer would grasp that urn and have him rise.
Bray brought me back to those moments where I could live in disbelief and wonder what he would do next. In some sad way, I think it’s poetic that during his last run with the WWE, Wyatt dropped the costumes and spoke to the crowd as himself. Because, in this case, the myth and the man will live on together. As much as we were lucky to obtain pieces of his brilliance for a couple of hours at a time, Windham Lawrence Rotunda was a father, a husband, a brother, and a son. Those people were the luckiest because they saw the man behind the masks and the muscle man dance.
To quote the first promo Wyatt said before the group debut on RAW ten years ago, “I have no followers. I have only brothers and sisters, all in the name of cause.” It feels too soon not to be a firefly, but that’s the thing about the light they omit during those dark days. They are the light that shows you the way – the light that we can still shine even though the original lantern has been tragically dimmed.
