When news broke that Windam Rotunda, known to the WWE Universe as Bray Wyatt, had passed away at the age of 36, it felt like only a matter of time before he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Though his run in the promotion was cut short before he could really let fans in on what he had cooking up for Uncle Howdy and the entire Windham6 Universe, with just one match wrestled after his 2022 return against LA Knight at the Royal Rumble in 2023, Wyatt's oeuvre, from the Wyatt Family, to the “Eater of Worlds,” “The Fiend,” and even Husky Harris had been more than enough to earn him a spot in the top honor WWE has to offer.
And yet, with the induction ceremony just over a week away, another Rotunda, Mike Rotunda, will be entering the Hall instead, going with his brother-in-law Barry Windham under their tag team, the US Express.
Discussing why he's entering the Hall and his son is not in an interview with WrestleBinge, Rotunda set the record straight on what WWE has planned and why they felt it might cause more stress than joy to give Wyatt the honor so soon after his passing.
“I was surprised because my son, you know, with Windham passing, I thought they were going to immediately put Windham into the Hall of Fame, which he will be at some point. I think WWE reassessed his stuff and thought it was too soon to go there and then the reactions and stress on us,” Mike Rotunda told WrestleBinge via Fightful.
“We got a call from WWE. They said, ‘Hunter wants to do a Zoom call.' We were thinking they were going to tell us what's going to happen at WrestleMania and Hunter said, ‘You guys are going to get inducted, you and Barry. You were part of the first-ever WrestleMania.' It was very flattering, obviously, and actually less stressful on us because of all the stuff we've had to go through with Windham passing, just the mental capacity of it. So, obviously, it's a great honor because you're getting rewarded for what you spent 40 years doing.”
Would it have been cool to see Wyatt honored in the same venue he returned to WWE in back at Extreme Rules in 2022? Sure, but do you know what? Something tells me Rotunda will mention Wyatt in his speech, and WWE may even run a video package to celebrate “The Fiend” and the other WWE Superstars like Billy Graham, who lost their lives over the past year. In the end, the moment will be special, and for the Rotunda Family, that's all that really matters.
AJ Francis celebrates getting to work with Bray Wyatt in WWE.
Speaking of Bray Wyatt's continued influence on the professional wrestling world, both in WWE and beyond, AJ Francis, who spent two stints in WWE as Top Dolla, recently stopped by Insight with Chris Van Vliet to discuss how much he learned from the “Eater of Worlds” during their time together on SmackDown.
Though his in-ring activities with Wyatt were limited to one very fun segment where Uncle Howdy and his nephew beat up Hit Row to the cheers of the SmackDown audience, Francis was able to watch how his dearly departed friend did business and is better off for it now as a result.
“Windham, to me, was somebody who would let me sit and learn. I would literally just sit and watch him and LA Knight put matches together. They did the match obviously [at] the [Royal] Rumble, but they were doing like dark matches, and house shows the whole time,” AJ Francis told Chris Van Vliet via Fightful. “Windham, his character was so much different than anything I had ever done, so I wanted to see how he implemented his thing into what he was doing. Then he always had the nicest, I don't wanna say disposition, but he would go out of his way to make everyone around him feel comfortable. He was great to bounce ideas off of because he is by far one of the greatest wrestling minds in the history of this business. And I don't think anyone would argue that.”
Say what you will about Francis' time in WWE and everything he's done on the indies and in TNA now that he's become a free agent for the second time in three years, but learning from Wyatt is about as good a masterclass as someone could ask for on how to tell a compelling story as a professional wrestler. Any success Francis earns moving forward will have a little tip to the cap to the Wyatt learning tree, which is all any professional wrestler can ask for from a legacy standpoint.
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