Bray Wyatt's first edition of the Firefly Fun House saw him drive a chainsaw through his old self. It was a potent and powerful visual, and just about more in keeping with kayfabe than that time the former Headbanger Mosh abandoned the Beaver Cleavage gimmick live on Raw to become plain old Chaz.
In wrestling you can't savage yourself so profoundly unless you're absolutely certain the audience already agrees. Cleavage was some stupid sh*t alright - stupid enough that even without the instant metrics available today the company were able to mercy kill it through the character there and then. Wyatt's was more of a gamble but then not really. If anything, it brought even more people in because this appeased all his original fans whilst letting others know that the company were aware of what an almighty screw up the first attempt was.
It directly translated into a major, major push for The Fiend, and naturally it went to sh*t after that. WrestleMania was another rebirth that could again be flattened now he's back in the Universal Title chase. But why was that first attempt successful enough to make non-believers look again, or old fans drop thousands on replica belts?
It wasn't just the - at times, excellent - character work. It was the catharsis of WWE admitting it sucked hard at something, and the audience closest to those failings getting the closest they'll get to an apology for it.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
