10 Terrible Wrestling Debuts (That Led To Awesome Careers)
8. Bray Wyatt
The Debut:
Teased with well-produced vignettes that somehow conspired to make credible a supernatural character in the 21st century, initial signs were deeply promising for the Bray Wyatt character. It seemed like a perfect storm: a performer they raved about on the inside chartering his own, off-road path to superstardom. Wyatt was the new Undertaker in broad daylight, surfacing from the depths of a Louisiana swamp, until he relied on his henchmen to put out a fire with the same blanket you or I could use in his shockingly normal, boring, and damaging SummerSlam '13 match with Kane. The great horror of the 21st century went over a great horror of the 20th through shenanigans in a stark metaphor for everything.
The Career:
From April to September is a Hulk Hogan run by 2019 standards, so while charitable, 'awesome' is about right. And why not live in the moment, with (tentative) optimism? The Fiend is a revelation - a burst of unsettling creativity in primary colours and blackest black alike, a colour scheme that mirrors the absurdly diverse tone Bray Wyatt's rebirth brings: horror, comedy, dance, meta in-jokes and, at long last, credibility.