Brian Gewirtz Says Bray Wyatt Brought A Revolutionary Approach To Wrestling

In a recent conversation with WrestlingNewsCo, Brian Gewirtz took some time to praise the late Bray Wyatt’s creative impact on the wrestling industry (per Fightful). Gewirtz cited his work with Wyatt and Dwayne Johnson’s promo segment as a particular example of Wyatt’s caliber as a performer. you can find some highlights on the subject and watch the complete interview below.

On how Wyatt stood out among the rest of the talent: “I likened it to this. Imagine 1920s basketball, where they’re all throwing it through a peach basket and doing all those old-timey moves and everything, and then LeBron shows up. You’re like, ‘Yes, we’re technically playing the same sport, but this person is on a completely different level than anything we’ve ever witnessed before.’ That was Bray Wyatt. As a writer on the creative team, this happens to everybody I think on the creative team, sometimes you get stuck in a funk, where you’re like, ‘Oh my god, this has been done before, and this has been done. Everything’s been done before. How can we possibly do something new when literally every story, every iteration of wrestling…’Yes, that’s just like McMahon and Austin’, or , ‘Yes, that’s just like Hogan versus Andre’, or whatever. Here comes Bray, doing stuff that had never been seen before. It’s all coming out of his brain. The promos, the first time you saw Firefly Fun House. My brain was like, ‘What is this? This is insane, this is hypnotic.’ When he’s doing the dance and the song and the Vince puppet, and the match with Cena at the COVID WrestleMania, and all that stuff, it was truly mind-bending. That all comes from Bray. That wasn’t Bray sitting down. I know he worked with several members of the creative team and collaborated with them. But he was the driving force behind all of this stuff.”

On working with Wyatt and The Rock together: “Even when we worked together at WrestleMania 32 with The Rock, we wanted to, I know taking to Rock, it was like, ‘This guy, Bray Wyatt, he doesn’t have a match. This is the promo we should be doing.’ That’s basically what we discussed with each other. Rock wanted to work with him, I wanted Rock to work with him. Bray obviously would be more than happy to do a segment with The Rock. But even when we put that segment together, it was like, ‘Alright, Bray, you’ll say your stuff, I’ll just let you do it. Because I’m certainly not writing anything for Bray Wyatt. Here’s the outline. Whatever you say, Rock will respond to.’ That’s sort of, it’s not necessarily a given with a lot of performers. A lot of performers can and do write their own promos. But Bray, from the start, from the incarnation of the Bray Wyatt character, it was all him putting forward the character, the aura, the mood, the atmosphere. He’s just really, really remarkable.”

On Wyatt’s ability to break out of the industry’s status quo: “The other thing I would add is that in putting that promo together, the one key in that promo that we wanted to do, above everything else, is Rock putting Bray over. Usually, there’s this dynamic where the heel comes out, and maybe there’s a line, some lip service or whatever, of ‘Yeah, you’re a great athlete, but,’ blah blah blah, typically with a heel and babyface. But in this particular case, we had the spotlight on us. The world of wrestling is watching. This is a good opportunity for The Rock to really put over the dynamic personality, the magnetic presence, the fact that he’s supposedly a heel, and 101,000 people are holding up their cell phones. I always thought, certainly at the time, at WrestleMania 32, that the Bray Wyatt character should transcend babyface/heel. He’s just this agent of chaos, and you can either like him or not like him. I don’t like that be as sometimes pigeon-holed as, ‘You gotta be a heel because wrestling is babyface and heels.’ I thought he was just an anomaly in the sense that he transcends that and is much more than that. So we definitely took that opportunity for The Rock, and the fans responded too, by the way. When The Rock’s talking about how he’s got the look, he’s got the charisma, he’s got this magnetic power about him, and of course, you can’t teach this stuff, and I couldn’t teach it, but Bray and Rock, with the presence to take that moment and take their time, acknowledge the crowd. They’re popping, they’re responding to it. There’s not a ‘What?’ in the building during the time where lots of ‘Whats’ would happen, where Bray and Rock would go back and forth. Everyone was truly listening to hear what they would have to say. So yeah, that was really great to be able to work on that promo with those guys.”

On the innovation that Wyatt carried through his career and the legacy he left behind: “When we talked about it before, the ascension or progression from WWE to film and television, with Rock and Cena and Batista and several others have made inroads. But in the back of my mind, and the back of probably lots and lots of people’s minds, that was where you could easily see Bray, Windham, ascending to. Because he’s such a good actor and such a good performer, and had such great instincts, and so genuine. This scary guy, this horror character, was really ahead of his time in a wrestling world. It’s difficult in a wrestling world. It’s not easy when you’re sitting in the rocking chair going back and forth, and talking about these cryptic promos, otherworldly type promos. But at the end of the day, your goal is supposedly pin someone’s shoulders to the mat for a count of three and/or get them to submit in order to win a championship. The motivation and the goals aren’t necessarily aligned in that particular case, and so it’s a challenge sometimes to have them be aligned. It’s like, ‘Yes, if you’re not trying to be champion, then what are you doing?’ Well, Bray Wyatt is operating on a much different plane than everyone else. I would have loved to, like everyone… basically, yeah, I agree. Go back, treasure back the materials that we do have, the legacy that he left as far as a performer. But all these outpourings, the tributes that are coming, you can tell, whether you knew him or you didn’t know him, what a genuine human being he was, above being a performer, and he was a remarkable performer. He was even more valued and more loved and treasured as a human being.”