Since Bray Wyatt’s return to WWE, one of the major talking points has been the now humanoid versions of the Firefly Fun House characters.
Previously, Wyatt had changed his Twitter handle to “Windham6” and sparked a lot of discussion of what he would do next. After coming back to WWE, this has changed to Wyatt 6 and all signs pointed to the series of characters we had previously seen in puppet form.
Abby the Witch, Huskus the Pig Boy, Mercy the Buzzard, Rambling Rabbit and The Fiend popped up in the crowd at Extreme Rules. Then, in his newly-dubbed Uncle Howdy mask, Wyatt emerged.
Since then, we’ve gotten no solid answers for what any of this means: typical of the Wyatt character. And, typical of his fans, everyone is grasping at straws to solve the mystery.
In doing so, one of the biggest fan theories I’ve been seeing has been a debate on who should portray these characters going forward. But while some merit should be given to that theory, I’m here to toss out an alternative point of view.
I don’t think ANY WWE Superstars should portray these characters. I’d go so far as to say that putting anyone in these roles defies the very idea behind them and dilutes their purpose, hurts those Superstars and does nothing for Wyatt’s future.
What Everyone is Pitching
The two main things I’m seeing are “Joe Gacy is Huskus” and “Alexa Bliss is Abby the Witch”. Things devolve even more with the others, as Bo Dallas is being tossed around as both Rambling Rabbit and The Fiend, Erick Rowan is suggested for either of those, and the go-to for Mercy the Buzzard seems to be Grayson Waller.
I get it. People immediately want to personify these characters even more, and they’re looking for any clues. Some make sense. Others are massive leaps.
For Abby the Witch, people are looking at the two women’s titles next to her and equating that to Alexa being the first woman to win the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Championships. Also, Bliss has a connection with Wyatt from the past, so that’s a natural fit and the theory that holds the most credibility. (And before she’s brought up, no, Liv Morgan makes even less sense.)
But when you get into the others, it falls apart.
Why is Joe Gacy now Huskus? Most say “because he’s fat.” Ouch. That’s it?
Why would Grayson Waller be Mercy? Because he tends to wear Hawaiian shirts and similar patterns, and the actor in the mask was a white guy?
There isn’t any true explanation for The Fiend or Rambling Rabbit that I’ve seen. People just want Bo Dallas to be one of those because he’s Windham Rotunda’s real life brother and Erick Rowan is mentioned since he’s a former member of The Wyatt Family and a free agent not signed to AEW or elsewhere.
Fans are trying to make sense of all this and the easiest way to simplify it is to just put people in those roles and call it a day. But what most don’t realize is that this booking concept makes no sense and creates multiple storyline and practicality problems.
Problem 1: It Doesn’t Work in Canon
Pro wrestling is far from the most logical storytelling vessel. More often than not, things happen “just because” and we all have to maintain an absurd level of suspension of disbelief to even function as fans. Sometimes, callbacks and feuds will carry over and wrap things up in a neat little package. But most of the time, it’s all terrible soap opera nonsense held together by paper-thin plots and the card is subject to change at any moment.
Eli Drake is LA Knight in NXT, for some reason, then, Max Dupri, and he’s the brother of NXT’s Sofia Cromwell, who is now Maxxine Dupri, but then, he’s not and he’s back to LA Knight, but he’s also a heel….because. Okay.
But whenever possible, the writers should at least TRY to make sense of things.
When we were introduced to the Firefly Fun House gang, it was fairly clear what these characters were supposed to be. They’re aspects of Bray Wyatt’s life, persona, inspirations and identities—not separate characters.
Mercy the Buzzard is named after Waylon Mercy. That former WWE Superstar was Bray Wyatt before Bray Wyatt even existed. Inspired by the film Cape Fear, you’ve got a creepy guy in a Hawaiian shirt with tattoos who is more of a serial killer than a professional wrestler.
Abby the Witch is inspired by Sister Abigail—the possibly real, possibly metaphysical entity Wyatt worshiped in his cult-like stable.
Huskus the Pig Boy is Husky Harris. This is what we saw before Windham Rotunda became Bray Wyatt. It’s as clear as can be.
Rambling Rabbit has always seemed to me to be based on Wyatt’s time teaming with Matt Hardy. The whole Woken gimmick was a bunch of rambling nonsense, Rambling Rabbit is the only straightforward babyface of the puppets and that was the most babyface time he had.
It’s strange that we never had extraneous characters that were sheep to represent Luke Harper, Erick Rowan and the black sheep, Braun Strowman, but that I think points even more to the direction that these are all aspects of the same person and not separate “people” in any sense.
The Fiend was brought in as the evil side of Wyatt. He was the only one donning the mask up until this return at Extreme Rules. From the start, they went with this idea that if you interacted with The Fiend, you were “changed” in some way. Most people turned heel afterward, like Seth Rollins, Bliss and Strowman. Strangely, Randy Orton turned babyface, but that was mostly because their WrestleMania feud was absolute trash and a complete waste of time and WWE decided to do the RK-Bro stuff instead of following it up in any other way.
If you change it up and make it so these are other people, it means all the established canon of Wyatt’s personas is null and void. Suddenly, it’s as if Cactus Jack, Mankind and Dude Love weren’t “The 3 Faces of Foley”, but that there’s Mick Foley and three “other people” which makes no sense.
Problem 2: Superstars Lose Their Individuality
Let’s say you don’t care about the writing aspect and you go ahead with casting these roles anyway. You’ve now opened yourself up to a different problem in that it isn’t just Wyatt who has his character hurt, but everyone else, too.
Alexa Bliss becomes Abby the Witch. Do you really think trying to retcon her in that way benefits her? We’re meant to think ALEXA BLISS was in Bray Wyatt’s head, making him create a swamp cult and do teleportation tricks and shit?! The same character that was, at the time, coming out in a Tinkerbell gimmick talking about glitter and glitz and sparkles? Or the one who was hosting her talk show and hitting on Finn Balor’s abs?
Bliss was warped to become a follower of Wyatt, not the other way around. And if you go forward with the idea that she’s Abby the Witch as her character, we’re getting into Isaac Yankem / Fake Diesel / Kane territory where you can’t quite acknowledge one without being tongue-in-cheek.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley became Triple H and it all makes relative sense. But Alexa Bliss becoming an otherworldly zombie woman means you can’t really just have her be the same person. Instead of transitioning The Supreme Fighting Machine KAMA into Kama Mustafa into The Godfather, you’re effectively going from KAMA into Papa Shango in reverse.
Joe Gacy becomes Huskus and suddenly, instead of being Joe Gacy, he’s wrestling as an avatar of Bray Wyatt’s past. The guy goes from having his own faction in NXT and his own title lineage (if he were to ever win a belt) to being an equivalent of how confusing it is to talk about who put on the Suicide/Manik mask in TNA.
You think Grayson Waller wants to completely throw away all the work he’s done to make a name for himself just to be Mercy the Buzzard going forward? I wouldn’t!
Do you think Bo Dallas wants to come back and be nothing but “the mask that Bray Wyatt wore for a while when he wrestled under red lights” and not be his own man?
It’s one thing to have Superstars put the masks on to stand in the crowd. We’ve seen that plenty times where someone was temporarily a security guard or something. Shawn Spears was a backstage hand named Stan that Shawn Michaels superkicked. Alexa, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks were the 3 women posing with Triple H for his WrestleMania 30 entrance. Those aren’t supposed to be actual character moments any more than The Hardy Boyz holding the doors for King of the Ring.
Problem 3: Wrestling in Those Costumes is a Big No
This is a short, but simple issue. It’s one thing to wrestle in a mask like Rey Mysterio or Axiom. Even something like The Fiend mask was doable. Plenty variations have happened like the masks we’ve seen Vader and Mankind wear, or Kane’s variants. But that’s a far cry from what we’ve seen with these costumes.
Look at the main image of this post. Could you honestly picture someone wrestling in that Rambling Rabbit costume? They wouldn’t be able to see a damn thing, it would get destroyed in a moment (and is far too detailed to make tons of replicas, as that is too expensive) and they would probably die inside since it wouldn’t be breathable.
You can’t show any emotion. Mercy the Buzzard wrestling would look RIDICULOUS with people pulling on the beak and avoiding the jagged teeth. We’re talking more Dragon Dragon here and less Luchasaurus.
It would be unsafe to even attempt to perform in these costumes, and it would be laughably stupid for an in-ring visual anyway. If your suggestion is to just find cheaper masks, wouldn’t that be a massive downgrade? Taking the masks off prior to the bell ringing is also dumb, as that would mean they would strip away the whole character and just wrestle as Joe Gacy and such!
A New Wyatt Family is More Useful and Logical
Instead, if people are wanting to see Bray Wyatt get some stablemates, they should be looking into the idea of casting a new version of The Wyatt Family.
For the record, I’m not entirely sold on this being a great idea. While I personally think the cult-leader gimmick was my favorite version of Wyatt, I don’t know if there are any standout people I’d put in his group that justifies another family faction.
Folks are quick to toss any dark character into this spot. I’ve seen suggestions for Dexter Lumis, Demon King Finn Balor, and of course, people like Gacy and whatnot to join the group. I think Lumis is better on his own with his stalker gimmick. I’d rather see Balor not lose his upper-midcarder / main eventer status to become an underling of Wyatt who is stuck in the midcard role, wouldn’t you?
Some people, like T-Bar, I could see being repackaged as a follower. A guy like Reggie doesn’t have much to offer, but if he’s bouncing around as a subordinate who Wyatt’s opponents can toss around, maybe there’s something there, so long as he doesn’t try to talk as he can’t cut a promo. Commander Azeez could be a strong and silent bodyguard type.
When you have a faction with a multi-time world champion like Wyatt, it defaults into “the top guy and his underlings” rather than something like The New Day where they’re all basically equals. The goal of a new Wyatt Family should be to give Wyatt some partners he can team with, use for his advantage in feuds, have some people for his challengers to beat up so they don’t beat Wyatt himself, and to elevate those Superstars over time like what happened with Strowman. You don’t take guys like Baron Corbin and downgrade them.
Technically, you could take a group like Schism (which I don’t like) and have Gacy, Jagger Reid and Rip Fowler be followers of Wyatt and try to build them up. Gacy would fit the midcarder role and Grizzled Young Veterans would be the tag team of the faction. But I still feel like while this would be the best course of action, it might just be a moot point in the long run.
So Who is Uncle Howdy, Then?
This new mask has yet to be explained. So far, it seems like they’re going with this being yet another aspect of Wyatt’s personality like all the others, but with less of a distinct persona quite yet.
Frankly, it seems redundant. Wyatt wore the mask and took it off one night. The next time we saw it, it popped up on the screen to interrupt him. So it’s basically just his darker side again, like The Fiend, but one that can talk? Meh. Hopefully, it’s more than that.
But an interesting aspect is that WWE also trademarked “Uncle Harper” at the same time. Obviously, that would be a reference to Luke Harper, but to have his spirit be in control of Wyatt seems off.
My guess is they’re going to just play the ambiguous role they’ve done all these years, have no real direction, and just do cryptic stuff that adds pieces to the puzzle without actually having a clear picture in mind.
In the past, I’ve been criticized for my “Wyatt’s stories are a bunch of nothing that go nowhere, and you’ll see that this feud won’t have been worth the months of build when we get to the finale” take that perpetually keeps being proven correct. Under this new management, I’m hoping that this has changed, but I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until there’s proof.
Right now, I have my reservations this will all be even decent and mean ANYTHING, but until proven right or wrong, I’m interested to see what they might have in mind.
Who would you put in these roles, if anyone? Where do you think this is going? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
