The WORST Wrestling Story Every Year (1989-2025)

2017 - Bray Wyatt Vs. Randy Orton

It’s very harsh, since the man has since passed away tragically at no age, but the reality is that Windham ‘Bray Wyatt’ was involved in some of the worst storylines in modern WWE history.

Wyatt was very creative, and it was clear that he was capable of brilliance before the machine got to him, time and again. The Firefly Fun House vignettes are evidence of that. Wyatt could build a character; Vince, only vaguely understanding it through some junior writer’s shallow knowledge of the horror genre, could only knock it down.

The universe-breaking Wyatt and Orton feuded over the WWE title in 2017. At WrestleMania 33, Wyatt projected what was meant to be a series of unsettling images of creepy-crawlies on the ring apron. Orton wasn’t scared - possibly because he made his entrance on a projection of a snake, rendering the terrible idea even more stupid - and popped back up with a signature move every time.

At Payback, they did battle in a House of Horrors match. This was even worse. Considerably worse. The set was barely lit. The very idea of a haunted house was so trite, a reflection of WWE’s complete lack of imagination as it pertained to the Bray Wyatt character, and the action was a dismal, slow walk-and-brawl.

Wyatt possessed supernatural powers, which he used selectively. At Payback, in a haunted house, he temporarily escaped from Orton by trapping him under a refrigerator. That was hardly something of which only a horror monster was capable. Anybody could do that, even Lexis King.