What if Bray Wyatt wins the Royal Rumble?
As is the case just about every year, there’s a great deal of speculation about who is going to win the Royal Rumble, with quite a few names getting tossed around. The stakes are high, with the victor getting a world title shot at WrestleMania, but there’s also some additional intrigue with two world titles in play, meaning that it’s not the only road to ‘Mania title match, and WWE can get more experimental by using the Rumble to push an unlikely star as it did with Shinsuke Nakamura last year.
One name that hasn’t come up in many discussions of who will win the match, and that has scarcely been mentioned by WWE commentators at all in recent months is Bray Wyatt.
On paper, Wyatt seems like someone who should be in the Rumble conversation. Just two years ago, he was in the thick of a main event level run that included carrying the WWE Championship into WrestleMania, besides which he has spent most of the last five years as an upper card talent, and a unique one at that. Most critics agree that he is one of the best talkers of his generation.
Wyatt spent much of the time after his world title reign directionless and lost, most notably losing programs to Finn Balor and Matt Hardy en route to an oddball tag team with Hardy. Wyatt has since missed most of the year from WWE television, and not on account of injury but rather out of some combination of WWE not knowing what to do with him and wanting to keep him out of sight to freshen him up.
The Royal Rumble would offer a prime opportunity to reintroduce Wyatt as the match is known for its surprise returns. Moreover, Wyatt could be made an instant player if he actually wins the Rumble.
Given the way in which his old character felt played out, and given that both of the current world champions are heels, one of the more obvious paths would be re-debut Wyatt as a face and for him to go into ‘Mania in that role.
Wyatt could make an interesting fresh challenger for Brock Lesnar, for luring him out of the world of pure sport into more of his sports entertainment theatrics. In particular, those theatrics might pose the key to him being a credible challenger, and conceivably even unseating the Beast Incarnate. On the SmackDown side, Wyatt has proven his chemistry with Daniel Bryan based on their Rumble singles match back in 2014. With a different heel-face dynamic, this pairing could be particularly interesting.