How To Make The House Of Horrors Great

There’s nothing I love more than a wacky gimmick match. The Chamber of Horrors, the Doomsday Cage, the Doomsday Chamber of Blood, World War 3, and really any gimmick match from WCW and TNA is my favorite thing of all-time.

That’s why I’m so excited for the House of Horrors match between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt on Sunday. There’s no intrigue in the outcome, their WrestleMania match was terrible, and I have no real interest in either performer. But, HOUSE OF HORRORS! No one knows what this match actually is and I don’t have a lot of faith in WWE doing something over the top and campy the way WCW and TNA did, but I’m willing to give it a chance.

I’m also willing to give them some ideas.

Consult Matt Hardy

We saw what Matt Hardy did with the Deletion segments. They were amazing and everything right with pro wrestling. WWE tried to copy it with the New Day go to the Wyatt’s compound segment, and that was like watching Gobots compared to the Hardy’s Transformers. Now that they have Matt Hardy under contract, they can pick his brain a bit. Maybe Hardy isn’t as creative for other people as he is for himself, but I’m sure that he has a few ideas in his head. It never hurts to get the input of other wrestlers.

Have Real Horrors

WWE has done a pretty terrible job at establishing horrors for Orton. The projection screen maggots and worms at WrestleMania scared him for a bit, but he quickly overcame those fears and won the match. So, what exactly is Orton afraid of? Here’s what I‘ve come up with after watching him the last 15 years.

*Pants: The most obvious horror. Orton wore pants the other week, but that seemed like a preemptive decision to prove he’s not afraid of them. He’s still afraid of them. Wyatt needs to throw as many pants at Orton as he can. I assume that Luke Harper left plenty of jeans at the Wyatt compound that Bray no longer has a use for. Well, now he has a use for them.

*No Voices: For the longest time now, Orton has heard voices in his head. They’ve counseled him. They understand. They talk to him. Bray must find a way to silence those voices in his head. Electroshock therapy would be an extreme solution. Noise canceling headphones may not work. Bray has to find a happy medium between those two choices. Maybe loud music that drowns out the music? Or, maybe Bray can have a pre-match chat with the voices in Randy’s head. He can convince them to give Randy bad advice. Bray has these types of powers, right?

*Good One-on-One WrestleMania Matches: Orton has had a lot of WrestleMania matches. Some have been good, but they’ve almost always involved multiple people. The one-on-one matches are typically bad. I’m not quite sure how you relay this to fear during the match. Maybe a video screen that replays all of Orton’s one-on-one Mania matches? And then graphics of one-on-one matches for future WrestleMania’s? Sure, that could work.

*Change: Orton has been the same character and wrestler for 15 years now. All he’s done is aged, shaved his head, and added tattoos. He’s a man that fears change. So Bray should throw nickels and dimes at him. Also, hire a minor league pitcher to throw him nothing but change-ups.   One of the rooms in the house should be a changing room. “Change Clothes” by Jay-Z should play throughout the match. If it involves change, Wyatt should use it.

*Sharks: Dustin James tells me that everyone is afraid of sharks. I don’t believe that Brock Lesnar is afraid of sharks. But Randy Orton is not Brock Lesnar.

Live Animals

We’ve seen projections. The Wyatt Family has worn masks. Orton’s spirit animal is a snake. This is all well and good, but I want live animals. Sheep need to be in the background, representing the sheep who still follow Wyatt despite his proof of nothing. Maggots and worms need to crawl around, representing the sheer stupidity and annoyingness of this feud and match. And snakes need to come into play because the event is in California, home of famous snakes like Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant.

Every Horror Cliche

If a black guy doesn’t die, a woman doesn’t trip while running, someone doesn’t try to escape through a locked door, Orton doesn’t lose cell reception, there’s no weird writing on the wall, creepy kids aren’t wandering around, and the car outside doesn’t start; is it really a horror match?

Faces of Fear

Bray Wyatt claims to be the new Face of Fear. But did the old Faces of Fear sign off on this? Meng and The Barbarian should somehow be involved in this match. And they should win.

Got ideas for House of Horrors? Let me know @jeremylambert88