Opinion: What if The Fiend is Bray Wyatt unmasked?
I know, sounds bizarre, right? But hear me out.
Everyone's talking about Bray Wyatt wrestling in a mask as The Fiend, but what if the true narrative is that The Fiend is Bray Wyatt unmasked, and he's been wearing a false identity in WWE for years?
Maybe the lantern of Bray Wyatt's severed head isn't actually just a lantern, and that's the mask The Fiend wears as Bray Wyatt to shield his true identity and suppress his violent side and to seem more human - both in appearance and personality - to present Firefly Funhouse.
Purely on a logistic side, let's analyze The Fiend's face. The Fiend has no lips, The Fiend's nose does not protrude as a humans' should. He looks almost Joker-esque as though he's suffered acid burns, and the black and red marks around his eyes only further this as being burns or wounds.
Now, add to this that we all know Bray Wyatt and The Fiend are most likely the same people in kayfabe. While it's not confirmed 100%, and WWE refers to The Fiend as a separate identity, they're at the very least split personas working together, or against each other, in a Jekyll and Hyde-esque story.
Bray Wyatt introduced us to the Fiend way back in 2015 via a ghost story where it transpired that he was the man in the woods, who sounded a lot like The Fiend in terms of both appearance and personality.
The Fiend was inside Bray Wyatt - so it wouldn't make sense for this to be unleashed when the mask went on, but rather when it came off.
What if The Fiend's face is a mask and he were "unmasked"?
Unless The Fiend is later unmasked in the ring and loses his powers, of course, which would then set us up that the mask is The Fiend, and whoever wears it becomes this nasty, violent, destructive creature, but let's assume for now that this violent demon-type character is the real Bray Wyatt and the mask is merely a prop.
Couple this with the reasoning that The Fiend gave some incredible nods to the previous Bray Wyatt character during SummerSlam, and we know that the character is an evolution as opposed to a repackaging.
This does require suspense of disbelief, as the lantern is previous Bray with the red streak, but that can be forgiven by maybe saying only the flesh part is a mask.
Could it be possible that The Fiend wears a Bray Wyatt mask to seek normality and to actually be trying to become a better person, and that the lantern cover is his human mask, that he puts on backstage to present the Firefly Funhouse in human form so as not to scare the children viewing the show?
Credit to Thomas Broome-Jones, whose initial tweet inspired me to delve a little further and write this article.