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The point where I gave up completely on WWE was when they screwed up The Fiend. I was a lapsed WWE fan and I was starting to get drawn back in just by that character. The Wyatt Family was refreshingly original. He had such a creative mind and was just so captivating whenever he was on screen. You couldn't help but be drawn to him. I didn't know him personally but he was obviously beloved in the industry. And when it's someone younger than you it hits differently.
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Aug 25, 2023 14:11
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Yeah, this one was a stunner. The guy had a singular knack for unburying himself, which is basically necessary when he worked where he did and didn't look like a body builder. I always figured he'd show up again someday, if not in the Fed, then elsewhere, doing something unhinged and brilliant and maybe not ruined this time. And on a personal level, this doesn't exactly help deal with my midlife crisis.
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Aug 25, 2023 14:29
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Man, he was an all time great character wrestler. Like Taker, he went full in on a gimmick that was so over the top very few other people could have pulled it off. Even when the storylines sucked and the matches were booked poorly, he was still pulling off his part. This one has hit harder than other recent celeb deaths. Funk's passing is sad, but he was getting on in years and wasn't completely unexpected. A too prospect on my fave NHL team just died at 21 from cancer and a kid dying sucks hard, but it was a long publicized battle and I can kind of compartmentalize cancer as an outlier event. But this was a guy who checked off the same age category box in surveys dying of something that's an active risk. Like on a personal level, dying like Funk is something to worry about in a couple decades and there's no point worrying about cancer because what are you going to do? But COVID getting a peer in age? That poo poo is scary.
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Aug 25, 2023 15:13
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El Gallinero Gros posted:There was some of Jake's mystique in Bray For me I loved the early Wyatt family - a mix of Jake, Max Cady & Undertaker wrapped up neatly in the best creepy package. He just had a way of drawing people in & I was loving the idea of him bringing in a stable of guys, essentially representing parts of his broken psyche. Some of those final promos he did before Mania were amazing & he just had a knack for drawing people in, you HAD to see what would happen next. The world lost a unique, talented, creative & awesome human being 
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Aug 25, 2023 15:13
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This just plain loving sucks.
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Aug 25, 2023 17:09
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I remember learning that Bray was still a top merch mover for the fed when they released him. All the silly Halloween masks and dumb booking and stupid looking belts in the universe couldn't stop what people saw in him. I'm not going to sit here and say I was Bray's biggest fan. I was a fan for about 9 months before I lapsed off the fed never to return. I'm not suddenly going to say that Uncle Howdy and Mountain Dew matches were genius. But all the same I wish things weren't this way, both in the sense that somebody died at 36 and in the sense that I feel like the world lost something important.
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Aug 25, 2023 19:07
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I really wish we could've seen Bray in an environment that'd let his freak flag fly. Not even AEW but somewhere like Impact that'd never say no to anything he wanted to do and which wasn't bound by things like ratings or profitability.
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Aug 25, 2023 19:13
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I wish we would have gotten to see him get one tenth the push Reigns got when he was building to that match with Undertaker. That was the moment that could have put him in the spotlight for good if they hadn't hosed it up so bad his next PPV match was against loving Ryback.
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Aug 25, 2023 19:48
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ChrisBTY posted:I remember learning that Bray was still a top merch mover for the fed when they released him.
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Aug 25, 2023 19:58
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I feel like “they were building to something and they hosed it up” sums up so much of his career. There are just so many times where he’d be booked to lose when he needed a win, or the victim of creative booking themselves into a corner. He should’ve beaten Cena at Mania 30. He probably should’ve beaten Taker the next year. That HIAC match probably should never have been booked (or at least not been a Cell match) and he should not have been booked to face Goldberg at that Saudi blood money show.
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Aug 25, 2023 20:04
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edogawa rando posted:That HIAC match probably should never have been booked (or at least not been a Cell match)
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Aug 25, 2023 20:45
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Coaaab posted:now let's not talk crazy now For real though. That match wouldn’t have been the fiasco it was had it not been a cell match, and instead, “ref calls off match because The Fiend is battering the piss out of Seth, and acted in the interests of his health and well-being” would not have raised too many eyebrows. Bray Wyatt obviously spent a lot of time trying to make lemonade out of the booking lemons that went his way, and honestly, considering how he was nevertheless able to maintain a connection with the audience makes me wonder how well-regarded he’d have been had he been booked competently.
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Aug 25, 2023 20:52
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You just know that in 10, 15 years we're going to see a whole new generation of Wrestlers and many of them will say that seeing what Bray Wyatt was doing was what made them want to be a part of Wrestling
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Aug 25, 2023 21:27
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Reading the Wikipedia article for Bray Wyatt and this part regarding his team up with Matt Hardy: Is just the most WWE thing I can think of.
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Aug 25, 2023 21:37
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flashy_mcflash posted:I really wish we could've seen Bray in an environment that'd let his freak flag fly. Not even AEW but somewhere like Impact that'd never say no to anything he wanted to do and which wasn't bound by things like ratings or profitability. Yeah. I've complained a lot about Bray's characters and how they turn out in practice, but there's only so much you can do when it seems like your company resents having to deal with all the character stuff you want to do. Even universally maligned stuff like Lily probably would have been a lot better if creative was actually into spooky bullshit and they could be made collaboratively instead of trying to hammer it into a shape all the weird old men who make decisions in WWE would approve of.
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Aug 25, 2023 22:11
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It's telling that Alexa and Cena said repeatedly (before and since this horrible news) that doing the silly bullshit was some of the most fun they'd ever had in the companyedogawa rando posted:For real though. That match wouldn’t have been the fiasco it was had it not been a cell match, and instead, “ref calls off match because The Fiend is battering the piss out of Seth, and acted in the interests of his health and well-being” would not have raised too many eyebrows. Even just making it not have that lovely red lighting might have been enough to achieve this
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Aug 25, 2023 22:26
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drrockso20 posted:You just know that in 10, 15 years we're going to see a whole new generation of Wrestlers and many of them will say that seeing what Bray Wyatt was doing was what made them want to be a part of Wrestling A whole generation of spooky wrestlers. Gives me something to live for.
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Aug 25, 2023 22:34
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edogawa rando posted:he should not have been booked to face Goldberg at that Saudi blood money show. Saudi Blood Money Shows always being bad aside, I don't mind him being booked against Goldberg, but he should have squashed Goldberg. I mean, you're trying to get the fiend over as a true monster, yeah? The stars aligned and then WWE fired the Cosmic Star Canon into their own dicks.
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Aug 25, 2023 23:23
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Stone Punkbull 141 posted:A whole generation of spooky wrestlers. Gives me something to live for.
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Aug 25, 2023 23:30
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they needed to get over that young star goldberg so he could job to lashley and reignspseudodragon posted:I dunno. What makes him unique is that it's so hard to pull off the creepy act and making it believable. There's like Jake, classic Taker, and Raven that have really pulled it off without making it look like a dude playing a creepy character.
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Aug 25, 2023 23:30
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drrockso20 posted:You just know that in 10, 15 years we're going to see a whole new generation of Wrestlers and many of them will say that seeing what Bray Wyatt was doing was what made them want to be a part of Wrestling I was just thinking about how sad edgy middle schoolers must be today. I'm there with them.
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Aug 25, 2023 23:42
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Echoing what many have already said, Bray was a supremely creative guy who somehow managed to spin poo poo into gold when he wasn't supposed to. I was in attendance at WM30 and his Firefly entrance with the live band was absolutely electric, it gave me goosebumps. Such an insane talent taken from us way too soon.
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Aug 25, 2023 23:45
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Stone Punkbull 141 posted:A whole generation of spooky wrestlers. Gives me something to live for. Think we'll be seeing people following the trail of his fireflies for a long time pseudodragon posted:I dunno. What makes him unique is that it's so hard to pull off the creepy act and making it believable. There's like Jake, classic Taker, and Raven that have really pulled it off without making it look like a dude playing a creepy character. I didn't just mean the spooky stuff, I meant more his theatrics, his ability to put on a show
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Aug 26, 2023 00:05
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When I got sorta back into modern wrestling years ago now, Bray was 100% my favorite thing in WWE and there was no competition at all. The crowd was super into him, too. I remember The Wyatt/Shield dueling chant, it was crazy. And I continued to love him after that. I just never understood why they built him up up only to always, ALWAYS pull the rug out from under him at the last second. It happened god knows how many times. When he lost to Goldberg I pretty much just gave up they would ever give him his due. But I never stopped loving him. This loving sucks and while it's no compensation for losing a great man at such a young age, I'm glad to see so much outpouring of respect and affection, even on this rather cynical forum.
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Aug 26, 2023 02:01
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https://twitter.com/ZelinaVegaWWE/status/1695082282913050882?s=20
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Aug 26, 2023 02:08
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Edit: removed
Seams fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Aug 26, 2023 |
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Aug 26, 2023 02:09
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Seams posted:I think Bray really only had one good run and that was his first go as the swamp cultist. I don’t think he was particularly good in the ring and The Fiend just really sucked even though it provided plenty of lols. It was like having a Shockmaster around all the time. you didn't need to post this in the memorial thread
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Aug 26, 2023 02:19
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I got little to add, but Bray was always my favorite for the very silly reason of meeting him at Wrestlemania 29. Dude was very obviously trying to keep character, I had an incredibly silly sign with me (Fandango's head on a Bulbasaur). I asked Bray to sign it. Bray stares. Stares. Stares. Cracks up. "Pfffft okay". I'll always have that memory, and this photo of Bray completely failing to hold it together You were awesome dude, and I'll miss you DeathChicken fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Aug 26, 2023 |
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Aug 26, 2023 02:26
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show us the sign
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Aug 26, 2023 02:29
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https://youtu.be/EkLtItxkbXQ?si=DD0qONIRCTDcJwpu
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Aug 26, 2023 02:40
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SHE should be with us Goddamn, what an absolutely great person. I've probably posted multiple times here but I still can't believe Bray is gone, it's so loving unfair
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Aug 26, 2023 02:43
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fez_machine posted:you didn't need to post this in the memorial thread Yeah fair enough. I thought I was in the main Fed thread .
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Aug 26, 2023 02:57
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I'm really, really going to miss that man. But him dying at the same age I am now, me almost dying in December, just kinda kicks me in the rear end even harder to keep working on things I care about and not just things that make money as much as I can. Dude died having made himself a well-known name in something he loved. Way too young, but still way too few can say that. I don't wanna be one that misses out on that. Funk spent his life spitting in death's face, Bray didn't have anywhere near enough time to do that. I really wish covid was/is as low of a concern as we treat it on a broadly societal level, but it's still killing (and contributing to deaths, like in this case) and with wrestlers being pretty bad about having cardiac issues, I really hope we don't see anymore deaths like this.
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Aug 26, 2023 04:08
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I haven't watched wrestling or lurked in this subforum for years but finding out a couple hours ago that one of my favourite wrestlers in the past decade died just yesterday is a loving bummer. Bray Wyatt always seemed to make the most of what he was given by creative and when he did have more control it gave us stuff like the incredible match against John Cena at WM36. The buildup and match against Cena at WM30 also owned, as did his feud with Daniel Bryan earlier that year. RIP man.
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Aug 26, 2023 04:21
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Only kept up on WWE to talk about it with my 9yr/old nephew and this was his favorite wrestler
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Aug 26, 2023 06:31
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flashy_mcflash posted:I really wish we could've seen Bray in an environment that'd let his freak flag fly. Not even AEW but somewhere like Impact that'd never say no to anything he wanted to do and which wasn't bound by things like ratings or profitability. Bray in modern Impact is something that I craved for a long time just to see how wild they'd let him get and because they wouldn't have gotten in his way. Can you imagine how much fun Bray and Rosemary might have had working together?
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Aug 26, 2023 09:51
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Woah. Apparently WWE knew (according to Dave) about Bray's heart issue when they first released him a couple years ago. Like obviously COVID worsened it but according to Dave it was a known variable even then. Honestly that makes a bunch of things make more sense (why he didn't do indies, why he seemed so introspective about wrestling in the few times he did say anything public, why he was maybe looking into other media like movies as well).
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Aug 26, 2023 14:01
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I'll always remember JTG's story about Bray saving two girls from a car crash. https://www.inquisitr.com/4071399/former-wwe-superstars-story-about-bray-wyatt-risking-his-life-resurfaces While I wasn't a fan of the Fiend, I did enjoy his swamp cult leader character a lot, plus he was always trying stuff no matter what. It sucks that he passed and so young as well.
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Aug 26, 2023 14:10
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SamuraiFoochs posted:Woah. Apparently WWE knew (according to Dave) about Bray's heart issue when they first released him a couple years ago. Like obviously COVID worsened it but according to Dave it was a known variable even then. Honestly that makes a bunch of things make more sense (why he didn't do indies, why he seemed so introspective about wrestling in the few times he did say anything public, why he was maybe looking into other media like movies as well). I always figured he'd eventually go the Rob Zombie route and end up making cult classic horror films when he was done wrestling.
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Aug 26, 2023 14:27
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Windham Rotunda was a man with more creativity in his head then most of us. Not all of it landed. A lot of it was weirdo self indulgent cringe. But there were nuggets of pure gold. Gold that shined so bright it managed to be seen as beautiful in the morass of beige and poo poo that WWE likes/wants/actively promotes. But the most important thing is that even when those ideas didn't land, or were actively stifled/strangled by the company he worked for, he didn't let that stop him. He pushed forward with a new idea, something creative and different, that HE knew could be cool if they'd let it be. Even if you didn't like what he was doing, you have to admit he was trying to do something, and doing something that was his., Whilst my personal favourite was always "Firefly Funhouse" Bray, and I didn't like "Swamp cult leader" Bray as much as others in this thread. The man was always trying a new, potentially cool, idea. And you knew it was his idea. Which is something to be both respected and admired. 38 is far too young to lose a man such as this.
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Aug 27, 2023 01:45
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