Bray Wyatt R.I.P. - Simon Miller's Tribute
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00:00 Hello my friends, Simon from What Culture here and very sadly we have to do another
00:04 one of these videos.
00:05 If I had it my way we would never do one of these videos ever again but in case you don't
00:09 know Bray Wyatt, WWE superstar has passed away at the age of 36 years old.
00:17 What do you even say about that?
00:19 Now again news will come out over the days and weeks but Sean Ross Sapp from Fightful
00:25 seems to have information from the family saying that it was a heart related issue made
00:30 worse by Covid and then essentially in the last 24 hours Bray had a heart attack and
00:36 he passed away.
00:37 Now I know I've said this in every other video we've done like this but I want to make it
00:39 clear in case you haven't seen those.
00:42 The reason I like is the wrong word but the reason I think it's important to do these
00:46 videos is I have a bunch of other videos to do today for What Culture, I'm very blessed
00:50 to do what I do but I do not feel it's appropriate for me to be waving my arms around or whining
00:55 or ups and downsing when this has just happened.
00:57 I think sometimes we do just have to sit down again, stripped back video, just speaking
01:01 from the heart here, no script or anything and just try to remember Bray Wyatt as best
01:06 as we possibly can because there's no two ways about it.
01:09 One of the most creative minds that wrestling has ever seen, whether you like the Firefly
01:13 Funhouse stuff or The Fiend or The Eater of Worlds, the fact that he even came up with
01:17 that stuff to begin with and the fact that he was able to copy and paste that onto a
01:22 sports entertainment template is absolutely incredible.
01:25 Do not forget when the Wyatt family, obviously they debuted down at NXT but when they first
01:29 debuted at SummerSlam 2014 I think it was against Kane, maybe 2013, I was there.
01:35 It was completely fluke, I actually went on a work trip of all things when I used to work
01:38 in video games but I was there and I think they did an Inferno match that night and while
01:43 the Inferno match was a bit like, this feels a little bit strange, you knew straight away
01:48 that there was something here and it was all down to Bray Wyatt.
01:50 It was Bray Wyatt's idea, it was Bray Wyatt's plan, he knew what he wanted to do with it
01:54 and I think one of the coolest things about it was he brought Luke Harper and Erick Rowan
02:00 along for the ride too.
02:02 Now I'm not saying that they wouldn't have been an awesome tag team by themselves, they
02:05 would have been but the fact that he didn't just make it about himself because we're a
02:08 unit and we're going to do this and this is going to tie into that and in six to eight
02:11 weeks to two months we're going to start doing this.
02:14 It was just an incredible way to view things and as we said constantly, it doesn't matter
02:19 now, this is the most important of the least important stuff but WWE just never really
02:25 booked him in the way that he should have been booked.
02:27 I mean it doesn't matter because again, he still made an absolute impact on the wrestling
02:31 landscape but that was the criticism at the time, like you would get into these major
02:34 feuds but he wouldn't win.
02:36 But I think that now, looking back in hindsight, almost ties into the genius, I use that word
02:43 again because I do genuinely believe it, the genius of the character because if you can
02:46 go into a predetermined world where wins and losses don't matter but they also do matter
02:51 depending on how you're watching it but you're still able to get inside people's heads and
02:56 look at the loyalty that his fan base have.
02:58 I should also have said, sorry I should have said at the start of the video, again it's
03:01 all a bit scattergun here but more importantly than any of this, thoughts and feelings and
03:06 love and whatever other positive word I can think of to his friends and family because
03:11 as hard as it is for us as fans who can't believe the news, I mean I'm sure when you
03:16 first saw it you didn't want to believe it and you couldn't believe it, I know that's
03:18 how I felt but it'll be nothing compared to what they're going through so again just thoughts
03:23 and feelings to them and I think the WWE is donating, again I may get my words wrong here
03:29 but I think it's all, basically all the money they're making from Bray Wyatt merchandise
03:32 now is going to the family so if you do have some money and you can buy a t-shirt or a
03:36 mug or whatever it may be, that may be a cool thing to do today but again going back to
03:40 the character and what he did, he was able to sort of almost circumvent whatever anybody
03:44 threw at him and after the Eat of the World character kind of came to its conclusion and
03:49 he came back with The Fiend, this is honestly just coming into my brain, I have a very strange
03:53 relationship with when Bray Wyatt debuted things because I was at the Raw after WrestleMania
03:58 when you had the first tease for the Firefly Funhouse and the buzzard came out of the box
04:03 because I remember I turned to Phil Chambers who also works here at WhatCulture, I was
04:06 like was that a dinosaur? I thought it was a raptor which is absolutely ridiculous and
04:10 it sums me up I suppose and I remember when I first saw the Firefly Funhouse I was like
04:13 oh my gosh he's lost it, he's gone totally crazy and I think in many ways that was because
04:18 I thought WWE was going to WWE it, we go back to stuff like the Gobbledy Gooker but again
04:24 with Bray Wyatt's influence and anything that he was manifesting in his brain, that became
04:29 some of the best stuff that WWE had done in ages and it also underlined and it reminded
04:33 you why professional wrestling is so damn cool because you can do whatever you want,
04:37 you just have to make it work, you just have to believe in it and you just have to buy
04:40 into it as much as you possibly can. I mean Bray Wyatt would hang around and talk to puppets
04:44 and yet when he came to the ring he was still like man this guy terrifying and he's going
04:48 to whoop somebody's ass, that does not just happen, you have to make it happen and that's
04:53 what he did and I think it's a huge shame we never got to see what the ultimate plan
04:57 for this Uncle Howdy stuff was. I was always massively intrigued by it, it was definitely
05:02 something there, the lights out match whatever it was called at Royal Rumble, it was absolutely
05:07 nuts but again it doesn't work without Bray which is why he was such an amazing person
05:12 to have on your roster and you just know that he would have had an incredible plan for this
05:17 at some point and I'm sure Uncle Howdy probably was Bo Dallas and that would have been wonderful
05:21 too, obviously Bo Dallas is Bray Wyatt's brother so again just all the love to that guy, I
05:26 can't even fathom what he is going through. And Triple H did that interview with Ariel
05:29 Hawane, I think it was end of last year, it was around about Cluster Castle so I remember
05:33 listening to it when I was driving to Wales and he said you know Bray Wyatt's almost too
05:38 creative, it's almost like you talk to him and the stuff that comes out of his brain
05:41 you're like bro we've got to slow this down a little bit because it's too much, it's almost
05:45 too much for a fan base to comprehend and it would have been great to see what their
05:50 long term relationship would have been like because I can only presume that a lot of the
05:53 stuff we saw was Bray Wyatt and Vince McMahon working together and Triple H has his own
05:57 take but all of this is, it doesn't matter, it's all irrelevant, like he is a legend,
06:03 he is a hall of famer, you know to have this kind of influence on professional wrestling
06:08 is, again it's unheard of. Even more so in the sense you go back to that WrestleMania,
06:14 he almost saved WrestleMania, do you remember WrestleMania 36 that was in the Performance
06:18 Center and we did the Firefly Funhouse match with John Cena of all people, you know one
06:21 of the best ever, oh my gosh John Cena and that was you know some of the greatest stuff
06:25 that we saw that weekend and would we have done that if the world hadn't have closed
06:29 down I don't think that we would have done so once again that is Bray Wyatt, look at
06:32 the situation and goes well I've got a plan and everybody else had to go and wrestle in
06:36 an empty warehouse which is not fun to go back and watch now but that Firefly Funhouse
06:41 match you'll be able to watch next year, 10 years, 15 years, 25 years, it's got legacy.
06:45 I can't believe that we're having this chat, even more so because of course I mean Jay
06:48 Briscoe only happened a few months ago and Brodie Lee happened a few years ago, obviously
06:53 Brodie Lee was in the Wyatt family and I remember Bray Wyatt's tribute to him being you know
06:57 we should be in the rec halls or the gymnasiums when we're 70s doing old Wyatt family spots
07:05 and now they've both passed away before they are 40.
07:08 So this is just like I say a mini tribute to the man, I was always such a huge fan of
07:13 his work and when there is so much professional wrestling on TV again 52 weeks a year, multiple
07:18 shows, multiple hours especially if you're watching all the promotions, when you have
07:21 someone like Bray Wyatt and you're never really 100% sure what he is going to do it just makes
07:26 it all the more fun and it makes it all the more crazy.
07:29 And I read, it may have been on Reddit or something earlier but back in the early days
07:33 of NXT when the Wyatt family were just getting going, WWE has prop trucks obviously you know
07:38 because there's so many props that wrestlers need and they drive to the shows, they didn't
07:41 have that back in the early days of NXT as NXT was just getting going.
07:44 So Bray Wyatt would throw the original Wyatt family rocking chair into his pickup truck
07:50 and he'd drive it to every single event and I was like that's it, that's the guy, that's
07:53 the man.
07:54 And then there's Husky Harris, you could tell that he had ideas but that one just fell apart.
07:58 But it's almost like pretty inspiring for your own life as well especially if you are
08:02 involved in creative things because Husky Harris didn't work so what did he do?
08:06 He went and created Bray Wyatt.
08:08 When Bray Wyatt kind of faltered because again maybe he hadn't had the backing of The Office
08:11 as they say, what did he do?
08:12 He went and created The Fiend.
08:14 And oh man, how can we not talk about the, it was the SummerSlam right when he debuted
08:17 again against Finn Balor.
08:18 That entrance as a Fiend, the first entrance as a Fiend because if you just look at that
08:22 character in the mask you're like that's the silliest thing I've ever seen in my life.
08:25 But when you bring the context into it and the lights and the music and just the way
08:28 that Bray Wyatt played it and Finn Balor, you know he totally smashed it too.
08:32 Man that's a moment, that's a moment and I tweeted this earlier or X, whatever the hell
08:36 we're calling it now.
08:38 This would have been true regardless but one of the coolest moments in professional wrestling
08:43 history is when we were doing that storyline between Bray Wyatt and Roman Reigns.
08:47 I can't remember who the hell the tag team they're facing is but Bray Wyatt is about
08:51 to win the match and Roman comes in to spear the other guy to stop him breaking up the
08:55 pin.
08:56 Bray Wyatt puts his fingers up and he does the gun pose exactly as Roman hits the move.
09:02 It's amazing.
09:03 It was amazing six months ago, it will be amazing in six months time.
09:06 It'll be amazing in 2084.
09:08 And look anybody could have done that and I understand that I'm repeating myself now.
09:12 But it's the timing, it's Bray's face, it's poise, it's just, it's so badass.
09:17 It is so, so, so damn cool.
09:18 I think either Roman or Bray got injured there so we weren't able to continue that.
09:23 But any time we ever even hinted that he was going to be a good guy people just went crazy
09:28 from him.
09:29 People loved him and he got evasions all over the place and the loyalty like I say from
09:33 his fan base was second to none.
09:35 I mean they released that Fiend Championship, it was like $6,000 and it sold out.
09:41 I can't even believe that we're making this video and I do apologize if I said anything
09:45 silly or I haven't done it justice but it is difficult, again nothing to do with me,
09:50 far more difficult for other people that are going out there.
09:52 But I just, I don't want to, I don't want to do the wrong, I don't want to do the wrong
09:55 thing.
09:56 But like I say I don't want to ignore this.
09:58 I think it's impossible to ignore.
10:00 So let's hope that it all brings us together a little bit closer as a community.
10:04 I know that's a massively over the top and cheesy thing to say but I sometimes feel like
10:08 we always say that after these things happen and then six weeks down the line.
10:12 I'm not saying you can't be critical about wrestling but we kind of go over that line
10:15 and we become insulting about wrestling and there's never a need to do it.
10:18 These are human beings with real lives.
10:20 You know Bray Wyatt had a family, he had children.
10:24 You know what, I'm just going to end it there because I'm not sure there's anything else
10:28 there is that we can say.
10:30 But one last time just all the love and all the positive vibes to anybody close to Bray
10:35 Wyatt.
10:36 I hope that in time, well I say time is a healer, I'm not sure you can ever heal from
10:40 something like this.
10:41 And I totally understand if you guys are going through it as well.
10:45 Like ironically I saw this at 3am in the morning, woke up to use the toilet, as ridiculous as
10:49 that sounds, and I had a text message from a friend that just said Bray Wyatt question
10:53 mark and I was like, has he been fired?
10:55 And then I looked and yeah, you read that and it's kind of crazy.
10:59 So go give someone a hug today, go tell someone that you love them, try and be a little bit
11:03 nicer.
11:04 All those things do help even though you think Simon that's the most ridiculous thing you've
11:06 ever said.
11:07 It probably is.
11:08 I am a moron.
11:09 I'm not going to do stuff that's not what this video is about.
11:12 And I will mention the comments.
11:15 There is a certain power in a community coming together to share stories and you can certainly
11:21 do that in the comments.
11:23 And yeah, let's just tell our favourite Bray Wyatt stories, our favourite Bray Wyatt angles
11:27 and everything like that.
11:28 And I'm definitely going to be watching all the Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan stuff today.
11:31 I love it when they're in the steel cage and Daniel Bryan leaves the Wyatt family.
11:34 I watched that, not recently, but I do watch that a lot because I love the crowd reaction.
11:39 And of course a lot of that is Daniel Bryan, but it doesn't work without Bray either.
11:42 Genuinely, last time I said, one of the most creative people to ever be in wrestling.
11:46 I'm happy to, that can be my unpopular wrestling opinion or whatever the usual phrase is.
11:53 But thank you for tuning in.
11:55 I hope everyone is doing okay.
11:56 I'll see you soon.
11:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]