Bray Wyatt – Step Up
So Bray Wyatt loses a grudge match to John Cena on PPV, and then disappears from Raw, Main Event and Smackdown tapings the week after, and manages to take a step up?
Yes.
The Last Man Standing match at Payback was a show-stealer; a shock to me, because I despise the gimmick match in general, and like it even less when John Cena is involved. It was a stroke of genius to involve the Wyatts and Usos, keeping up the pace and masking Cena’s tendency to over-sell in these types of environments.
Nobody loses in good matches. Nobody loses in good stories. Do you remember Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho in 2008? Of course you do; it was legendary. Perhaps the single best story told in either man’s career, and that is definitely saying something. Who won that rivalry? Technically, by wins and losses, I believe it was Jericho. But looking back on it, there was no real winner or loser, because wins and losses don’t matter if the story and the match is good.
I hear a lot of people whining that Cena literally burying Bray was too gimmicky, and they would have preferred a clean decision. WHAT!? So you’re telling me that you didn’t want Cena to go over Bray Wyatt, but you’d much rather he did it with his finisher – in a clean, undisputed fashion – than by brutalizing him within an each of his life, and symbolically putting him to rest in a stack of production boxes? You’re insane. Nobody lost that match. Wyatt and Cena both went to war, and one man happened to stand up just a little bit longer.
They’re keeping Bray off television to make a big deal about his return. It gives the two much-needed space, and allows Cena to get his pop back by working with Stephanie for a brief period. Wyatt will come back, bigger and stronger than ever, hot off an amazing three-part feud with the biggest name in professional wrestling.
People who don’t think John wanted to “put him over” are hilarious. After all the chest-beating and blow-harding he did about ending the cult leader’s era of dominance, there was no way he could lose. I realize that people want to see this guy GO AWAY, but he’s still in peak physical condition, in the prime of his life, and he’s the #1 draw in wrestling – get over it! You start marginalizing him with loss after loss, against people who’ve been in the company for less than a year, or two years, or three years, and sooner or later he becomes another cog in the machine.
