How WWE Missed A HUGE Opportunity With The Fiend Bray Wyatt

John Cena's voyage into his own suppressed subconscious didn't happen by choice. 'The Champ' didn't intend to be reminded of the less-than-squeaky-clean actions of his curious past when he accepted Bray Wyatt's challenge for WrestleMania. But then why would he? This act of arrogance was baked into the plot of the Firefly Fun House Match.

What was in a reality a fantastic (in hindsight, WWE's best ever, 13 long months later) solution to a crowdless atmosphere, was in kayfabe a door Cena shouldn't have gone anywhere near, let alone opened.

He underestimated that because he underestimated Wyatt. He remembered the outback cult leader he'd beaten handily six years earlier. This - if you ignored the thrown out match against Seth Rollins and pathetic squash loss to Bill Goldberg, for f*cks sake - wasn't any of that. This wasn't a corny monster wrestler that turned babyfaces heel or used a toy hammer or hid under canvases. This was the vision from your nightmares that scared you the most - the worst elements of yourself. This was really clever stuff. Clever-ish. The sort of clever Wandavision fans think they're talking about when they say "Lynchian". It was clever enough for pro wrestling not least because of how well it resuscitated The Fiend.

At only one month into the pandemic, WWE would theoretically need this gimmick to sell tickets again in the near future.

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