Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
A gimmick is something that is intended to hook the attention of fans to a wrestler. They may be outrageous or steeped more in reality, whatever the case may be…some have succeeded and many others have failed. The Gimmick Table takes a look at the origins of some of your favorite and not so favorite gimmicks of professional wrestlers.
Today we browse the gimmick of The Fiend
The entire concept of ‘the Fiend’ and the split personality of the Bray Wyatt character came directly from the mind of the wrestler portraying the gimmick in Windham Rotunda. Rotunda wanted to explore a darker, more sinister side to the Bray Wyatt gimmick. When he initially pitched his idea to Vince McMahon and upper management, it was met with resistance, as many “did not get” what Rotunda was attempting to create. Rotunda was extremely passionate and persistent about his concept and was eventually given the greenlight to move forward with it.
Vince McMahon assigned writer Nick Manfredini with the task of bringing Rotunda’s ‘out of the box’ ideas to life. Manfredini was credited with creating the ‘Firefly Funhouse’ which introduced the sweet, innocent side to the new version of the Bray Wyatt character. The Firefly Funhouse segments were based on popular children’s shows like Blues Clues and Mister Rogers Neighborhood. It also introduced puppets such as Mercy the Buzzard, Abby the Witch, Huskus the Pig Boy and Ramblin’ Rabbit. All of them represented parts of Rotunda’s past gimmicks.
There were times where Vince simply didn’t understand the direction of the new Bray Wyatt and was ready to scrap it altogether. WWE executive Bruce Prichard became one of Windham Rotunda’s biggest advocates to keep the gimmick alive and moving forward. The second half of the new Bray Wyatt gimmick was called the Fiend and was the monster inside of Bray Wyatt. His mask was developed by renowned make up artist Tom Savini and Jason Baker. Despite Rotunda’s description of how he wanted the Fiend to look like, Savini and Baker just couldn’t perfect the Fiend mask that Rotunda wanted. Rotunda personally hired a professional sketch artist to draw out what he wanted it to look like and that is how the mask was ultimately designed. A lantern was also created to look like the head of Bray Wyatt. This was done to symbolize the death of the old Bray Wyatt character.
WWE costume designers worked on the Fiend’s outfit from those sketches. His new entrance music came from the band Code Orange. WWE did not hire them directly…it was Rotunda who followed them on social media. The band were wrestling fans and private messaged Rotunda about collaborating down line. Rotunda met the the band explaining his vision of his character and the band produced the song ‘Let Me In.’ During the run of the Fiend, Rotunda and Vince McMahon often disagreed on how to creatively move forward with the gimmick. Rotunda was eventually released in July of 2021, only to be rehired in October of 2022. Sadly Windham Rotunda passed away in August of 2023 at the age of 36 from a heart attack.