The Problem With Bray Wyatt That No One Wants To Talk About

Sean Ross Sapp confirmed in his first post-release report that whenever Wyatt was active, he made WWE money. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Bray’s name was a lock to appear on any list of top merchandise sellers to be published while he was on television. Whatever your subjective thoughts on his creations, they were marketable - and Wyatt’s passionate fanbase needed little convincing to trade cash for Fiend masks, “let me in” shirts, and other trinkets.

The “budget cuts” excuse is therefore hard to accept. It’s hard to accept in any case, of course, but if the company’s top merch-shifter isn’t safe, who is?

We now know that a considerable chunk of the WWE locker-room is as dubious of the company’s reasoning as the fans. Unfortunately for Wyatt, however, selling truckloads of t-shirts and $7,000 replica belts doesn’t mean what it used to.

Per Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston , only 30% of WWE’s revenue came from direct-to-consumer sources in 2020. Thurston estimates that the number will fall to 21% in 2021. In 2012, when Bray debuted on the main roster, it was 67%. The game is changing. As time passes, an increasing majority of WWE’s revenue comes from other businesses, not wrestling fans. Merchandise sales are a shrinking drop in a growing ocean.

This isn’t the case everywhere in wrestling. If Wyatt retains his merch-shifting prowess in his next wrestling home, wherever that may be, he will likely be an even bigger financial asset to that company than he was to WWE.

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