Minus-Star Match Reviews: Randy Orton vs. ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt – WWE WrestleMania 37

Few people in modern wrestling history have had worse luck than Bray Wyatt.

Since his untimely passing last summer many people both within the wrestling industry and among its fans have lauded him for his creativity and who he is as a human being. We all saw glimpses of that when his character first emerged in early NXT and then on the main roster in 2013. But then it was all downhill from there.

If there was ever evidence for the conspiracy theory that someone at the top of WWE was trying to sabotage Triple H by ruining one of his creative projects, it’s Wyatt’s career. He started off incredibly strongly and then year by year things kept getting worse for him. There was hope that things would turn around for him starting in 2019 when he reinvented himself and created a new alter-ego in The Fiend.

Alas, those hopes proved to be nothing more than wishful thinking. Wyatt had one awful match after another with each passing year. All the promos, hype, and outside-the-box thinking didn’t lead to anything exciting or even logical between the bells. In fact, had it not been for Damian Priest and The Miz fighting off a horde of surprisingly polite zombies, Bray Wyatt might’ve had the historic honor of being the only man to win the Observer’s Worst Match of the Year award twice for wrestling the same opponent on two different editions of the same show.

His 2017 match with Randy Orton was awful, especially since it was a title match and thus had more importance on the card. But was this rematch four-years later any better or worse? Read on to find out.

The story

In late 2020 Orton found himself involved in a feud with both Wyatt (as his Fiend character) and Alexa Bliss (Wyatt’s new friend/ally who embraced a twisted and unsettling alter-ego of her own). As part of this new twist on an old feud, Wyatt and Orton had an Inferno match at TLC 2020 which ended with Orton literally setting Wyatt (or at least a body double/dummy) on fire.

Months later The Fiend returned, this time sporting charred skin and singled clothes. His return allowed his opponent at Fastlane Alexa Bliss to pin him, thus setting up this singles match at WrestleMania.

The match

This match took place on April 11, 2021. It was rated -* by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

Orton comes out first with a normal entrance and then he’s followed by nonstop lunacy. Bliss comes out pretending she’s a child’s show character, skipping and twirling until she reaches a gigantic jack-in-the-box covered in weird images and pentacles. She cranks the handle and out pops The Fiend, his burns magically healed. Fiend poses atop the box for a moment and then clotheslines Orton to start the match.

Fiend hits an uranage and a neck snap. He does his upside down taunt and rushes Orton but Orton bails to ringside. Fiend chases Orton but Orton counters and suplexes Fiend onto the announce table. In a surprising twist the table doesn’t break (which should hurt more) but Fiend is up instantly and goes for the Mandible Claw. Fiend releases the Claw for some reason in the ring which enables Orton to hit his hanging DDT. Fiend feigns injury but gets up before Orton. Fiend blocks an RKO and charges but Orton sidesteps, which sends Fiend into what Michael Cole has to describe as a “box-like structure”. Poor guy is forced to call commentary as per the crazy man screaming in his ear.

Orton hits a second hanging DDT and a barrage of forearms but Fiend is unharmed. Fiend lands a clothesline and a crossbody but misses a senton splash. Fiend falls to ringside off a missed charge but he’s back up in an instant. Orton lands some kicks through the ropes followed by a third hanging DDT. It’s RKO time. Fiend counters an RKO into another Mandible Claw. Orton starts fading so Fiend teases Sister Abigail when suddenly fire goes off from each corner of the ring. Is Kane making a cameo? Fiend stops his match because he’s distracted. He looks up at his big box to see Alexa Bliss sitting on it, reaching out to him as black liquid pours down her head. An artificial and undeserved ‘holy shit’ chant starts up. Methinks the crowd confused the word ‘bull’ with ‘holy’. Fiend turns around and eats an RKO. Orton gets the win out of nowhere.

Winner after 5:54: Randy Orton

Review

This was yet another case of Bray Wyatt’s creative ideas being consumed by stupidity. This was well on its way to being a completely passable and at times entertaining squash match, one that would’ve actually made Fiend into something of a big deal and that would’ve somewhat negated the previous garbage he had been forced to endure. And then it all came undone at the end. The story of the match, basic as it was, completely fell apart at the end when some nonsensical distraction completely broke the Fiend and rendered him completely vulnerable.

It was one of the dumbest booking ideas I’ve seen in years: WWE put so much time and effort into building this monster up as a big deal, only for him to lose almost all the time. Forget about title matches; a monster character like him could’ve been like Undertaker or Kane: an attraction that draws people in without needing gold around his waist to prove he’s a big deal. But even those two when they were at their worst when it came to matches at least won from time to time. And when they didn’t there was plenty of smoke and mirrors or shenanigans to protect them in defeat? How did this nonsense elevate Wyatt in any way? He looked like a complete chump, like one of the many superstars on the long conveyor belt of idiots who lost of a match because of the “hurr durr, entrance music” trope, only this time it was due to random outside distraction.

Final Rating: -**

If The Fiend’s match with Seth Rollins stopped the character’s upward momentum, this match killed that off permanently. This is a guy who allegedly came back to life after being, as WWE’s own people described it, “burned to a crisp”, yet got dropped by one single move after dominating a multi-time world champion with ease for five minutes. The story behind the match was stupid but it could’ve been salvaged with the right man winning. It seemed like it was going in that direction but then a ghost from the past appeared with a ‘dude, swerve, bro’ misdirection that didn’t help anyone.

Orton didn’t need a win here: he had reached Teflon status long ago to the point that he could endure the worst booking imaginable and still bounce back because people loved him so much. Bliss did her best with the crap material she was given and judging by fan reactions, she’ll still get a warm reception when she comes back.

But “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt? He became an unquestioned joke after this match since he lost all remaining semblance of credibility. There’s only one way to book a monster effectively: by not only having people be scared of him but by having him look monstrous and as invulnerable as possible.

Even the most inexperienced novice writer knows that a monster is only a credible threat if it shows results: would Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers – the two horror movie characters most commonly compared to wrestling gimmicks – have had entire franchises built around them if they had been subdued so easily or made to look so stupid?

Either way, this was six minutes of average wrestling and an eternity of pre-and-post-match nonsense worsened by an all-time nonsensical finish. If you have the WWE Network avoid this match as much as possible; making yourself a snack, folding your laundry, or even doing your taxes, would all be a better use of your time than watching this.

Thanks for reading.