Real Reason Why WWE Released Bray Wyatt
This may have been the deciding factor in Bray Wyatt's shocking WWE release last month...
Bray Wyatt remains the most shocking name to be let go by WWE in this year of mass cuts, as the 34-year-old former WWE and Universal Champion was released by the promotion on 31 July, sparking disbelief amongst the fanbase.
Like many 2021 releases, WWE told Bray he was a victim of "budget cuts" (in this period of record profits for the promotion). PWInsider's Mike Johnson later revealed that Bray and WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon endured a "hot and cold" relationship, despite the former Fiend seemingly possessing a significant level of creative control compared to some of WWE's other wrestlers.
Now, former WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr. has revealed that Vince and Bray often clashed creatively, leading to Wyatt. being released for "not playing ball."
Speaking on the Ringer Wrestling Podcast, Prinze Jr. claimed this creative tension was also the reason Bray lost his Universal Title to Goldberg at Super ShowDown 2020 (h/t Web is Jericho for the transcription):-
"Look, Vince is a product of the 80s it’s Reaganomics. When there’s problems, he throws money at it, it’s an old-school way of thinking. It sometimes works, it sometimes doesn’t, but they’re men that will double down, him and Kevin for better worse they will always double down, and I don’t think Bray had a good enough hand to play poker with them that game, and that’s why he lost the first time in a weird way in [Saudi Arabia], and that’s why things kind of went south from there."
That defeat to Goldberg was particularly damaging to Wyatt, whose Fiend character had already suffered from a reviled match with Seth Rollins at Hell In A Cell 2019 two months prior. Though Bray remained on television after losing in Riyadh, he gradually declined in importance, leading to him being temporarily written off after being burned alive in a Firefly Inferno match with Randy Orton at TLC 2020.
Returning ahead of WrestleMania 37, Wyatt dropped one last match to Orton before disappearing following a Firefly Fun House segment a few days later on Raw. He did not return to television prior to his release.
Prinze Jr.'s second stint as a WWE writer ran from 2010 to 2012, so he would have had a crossover with Wyatt, who had been with the company since 2009.