A year after his legendary streak was ended The Undertaker defeated Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 31. But what if the match would have taken place 12 months earlier with ‘The Streak’ on the line?
The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania became the cornerstone on which at least part of his legend was built. Each year a challenger would step up, and each year that challenger would fall. That is until The Deadman faced Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 30.
The decision to have Brock Lesnar defeat The Undertaker is one of the most controversial booking decisions in wrestling history. Even many of those who thought ‘The Streak’ should end, disagreed with Brock Lesnar being the man to end it, instead believing that the honour should have been given to a star on the rise.
“I Always Thought Bray Wyatt Should Have Beat The Undertaker”
One such candidate was Bray Wyatt. The star had amassed a lot of fan support as he rose through the company and many thought he could be the ‘next Undertaker.’ One of these voices belonged to Diamond Dallas Page. Speaking on his DDP Snake Pit podcast, Page initially waxed lyrical about Wyatt’s recent WWE return.
“I just love the way they’ve teased it all the way through, you know, and I also saw Triple H on an interview talking about it. And not in bringing him in, but you know, just because he is one of those creative cats who you got to hold them down. Yeah, being Bray, that’s the way Triple H has talked about it anyway, because he’s got all these crazy ideas. And bottom line is that some really good sh*t man.
How they went through the crowd, and showed the different little characters from his little play house, really cool. The lights are all out there, and then you think you’re not going to see it, and then boom, the door opens and you see, I mean, the timing.”
Page went on to explain why Wyatt would have been the perfect man to end ‘The Streak’ and carry the baton forward.
“I always thought Bray should have beat Taker, and he becomes the next Taker. Taker could only go so long. Who’s going to get that next spot? And I always thought it was him. I talked about it for years. Why would Brock beat him? Brock didn’t need to beat him. If Bray beat him, and I just think a lot of how they handled Bray was really good in the beginning before, but then it sort of lost it and got a little tarnished. And then they brought him back with that new style of character.
I thought, Okay, where’s he going with this? And it just went and fizzled out. And they let him go, and I was like, Oh, my God, how soon before Tony goes and picks him up? And then you didn’t hear anything, and couldn’t have been better than just to sit and wait. And when he revealed on Saturday night, originally, when they showed that and they showed him reveal and then go back in the door.
Now that to me left everybody with like give them it and then take it away. Like that was magic. And my question is that character, how do you make him a heel? Because they’re gonna love him no matter what he does, and maybe they listened to the crowd and they keep him the baby face because they got a lot of heels now. Yeah. And they’ve been building these heels, it has just happened over the last three months. So this isn’t something that was happening nine months ago. It’s a different animal.”
Bray Wyatt returned to WWE at Extreme Rules after being released by the company back in July 31st 2021. Wyatt has since appeared on SmackDown where he cut an emotional promo addressing his exit and subsequent return.
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