NWA/WWF/WCW Legend Arn Anderson worked with Bray Wyatt backstage for several years in WWE.
During an episode of his weekly ‘The ARN Show’ podcast, the former WWF Tag Team Champion remembered those days, and revealed what made Bray special as a talent.
Here’s what Arn had to say:
“Well. After they shut the Nexus down and everybody kind of went their own way, that character, Bray Wyatt, was not created in a booking meaning. It wasn’t someone taking you aside and going, ‘Here’s what you’re going to be. Your name is Bray Wyatt. Here’s going to be your style. This is what you’re going to say.’ He created all that, you know? And I don’t think he gets enough credit for the fact that he created that character.
I’m sure he had a lot to do with Big Red and Brody’s character development. I saw him a couple of weeks ago, Big Red, and we had a conversation about Bray and Brody, for that matter. I mean, they were special. And Bray was special. He was the leader, and there was no doubt who was the leader of that group.
And it was just, their performance level that was up there. They were killers, they were monsters, but they were great wrestlers on top of all that. And Bray comes from the lineage of Mike Rotundo, his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan. My guy, Barry Windham, is an uncle, you know? It’s like, God almighty. And he was one of them, more so than anything when he walked into the dressing room at the beginning of every night, he’d just light the room up.
He came in the door smiling. He was a guy that really, really enjoyed the business and loved the business and was — everything from when the lights would go out, what was supposed to be a monster coming through the curtain. When the lights would go out and everybody would hit their lighter or whatever it was they had to light up the arena and that music played. It made you feel good, even though you knew a monster was at the end of it.
It was a weird dynamic that just absolutely worked. And he was just a good human being. He’s just a loss to humanity. Forget the wrestling business. He’s a loss to humanity. And we’re going to miss him big time.
That’s a 300-pound Charles Manson. That’s what I get from that character. And they just went right after the resident monster. To your point, they didn’t start out with enhancement talent or somebody to be a punching bag. They went right after the monster. And they convinced me that this s**t is on.
What was the movie that had the guy, Robert De Niro, play the Bray Wyatt character, basically. Cape Fear, thank God you still have some memory left. I think part of that character was taken from that. If you saw that movie, Robert De Niro, who was 160 in that movie, made you believe he could not be hurt. Bray was 300 pounds. Great amateur wrestler, played college football.
Great athlete underneath that 300-pound, he can move around that ring. And he was the character. He had it so down. So you just, again, that’s another one of those guys very Terry Funk-ish.”
Bray Wyatt – the son of WWF Legend IRS aka Mike Rotunda – passed away from a heart attack in his sleep on August 24th 2023. He was only 36 years old.
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