Wyatt goes from Full Sail to WWE champion
Bray Wyatt says Full Sail University is where he truly found himself as a wrestling character and as a person.
The portrayal you see today in WWE – the in-ring violence, rambling soliloquies, cultish devotees – hasn’t strayed much from his NXT character. Instead of an arena full of cellphone lights, though, Full Sail had a small studio full of fans with hands raised, waving in the wind.
Paul Levesque (aka Hunter Hearst Helmsley) may have brought NXT to Winter Park, but Wyatt believes he deserves credit for its current popularity.
“At Full Sail when I started, the crowds were scattered at best,” Wyatt told the Sentinel last week. “When they started doing that wave, it’s the first time they ever got behind anything like that. Now there are a lot of unappreciative, spoiled rotten people down there who don’t know how good they have it. Full Sail is the house that Wyatt built … and Hunter.”
These days, Wyatt is having the same effect on much bigger crowds. The WWE champion will defend his belt against Randy Orton at WrestleMania 33 on Sunday.
Wrestling is a family business for Wyatt. He is the son of Mike Rotunda, the grandson of Blackjack Mulligan, the nephew of Barry Windham and the brother of Bo Dallas. He embraces that family heritage – he said he’s dedicating Sunday’s match to the memory of Mulligan, along with mentor Dusty Rhodes.
“Blackjack has his own legend,” Wyatt said. “Every old-timer that ever comes around the locker room has a Blackjack story, the tough outlaw choking somebody out or beating somebody half to death. He was a tough, hard man and it’s an honor to follow in his footsteps.”
At the same time, the man born Windham Rotunda is quick to emphasize that he’s his own man.
“What people don’t understand is, there is no Windham,” Wyatt said. “Not anymore. There once was, but you change and evolve as people do. I dabbled in some things I shouldn’t have, and my spirit just became different. There were disruptions in my brain. It’s like I evolved from a caterpillar into a butterfly.”
A few other superstars, when moved from NXT to Raw or Smackdown, have struggled to find themselves and adjust their characters to the bigger arenas. Not Wyatt. When he arrived with his “family,” Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, in 2013, it was an immediate sensation.
“It was all about timing,” Wyatt said. “... It happened because I found myself. In misery, I found my greatest inspiration.”
Wyatt may be cast as a heel, but look at any Raw crowd and it’s easy to tell that fans enjoy his work after nearly four years on the WWE roster.
“That is gratifying,” Wyatt said. “I don’t have a catchphrase that I pound 1,000 times. I was never asked to do that, but I’m getting full respect from the people who appreciate my performance. What an honor that is. When I’m about to go through the curtain, every time, my mind is more clear than it is everywhere else. That’s where I feel closest to home.”
Wyatt and Orton teamed together for several months before going their separate ways to set up Sunday’s match. Wyatt is excited to see what the two of them can do as opponents.
“I’ve done battles with John Cena, the Rock and the Undertaker,” Wyatt said, “and Randy is a legend in his own right. He’s got something no one else can offer in his attention to detail and the stories he can tell.
“We’re going to steal the show at WrestleMania. It’s our show.”