On the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania 35 , WWE aired a short video featuring a puppet suddenly popping out from a box. The clip did not come with any outright hints as to what it may be about, but multiple reports suggest that it could be WWE’s way of hyping Bray Wyatt’s return after several months away from television.
The video, which was shared on WWE’s official YouTube account, lasts 53 seconds (including a WWE ad toward the end) and shows a box in a dark room, with smoke emerging from inside. As creepy music plays in the background, the puppet bursts out at close to the 20-second mark, cackling ominously and coughing until the video abruptly stops, with a split-second long close-up glimpse of the “mysterious” creature.
According to WrestlingNews.co , the vignette is likely the first in a series designed to reintroduce Wyatt’s new character to audiences, given the “major changes” that had long been rumored for the 31-year-old former WWE Champion. While it isn’t clear what these changes may be, Wyatt had taken to social media in December to hint at a gimmick change, only for him to remain absent from WWE television in the months that followed.
While WrestlingNews.co described the puppet in the vignette as dinosaur-like in appearance, Comic Book offered a different take, writing that the creature is more like a “buzzard puppet.” This is in line with Bray Wyatt’s previous catchphrase of “follow the buzzards,” and as noted by the outlet, many fans believe that the presence of such an unusual puppet in the video could indeed be a sign that Wyatt is coming back soon.
Raw is either teasing the return of Bray Wyatt or the Gobbledy Gooker https://t.co/f5JYXn2Hqc pic.twitter.com/hjuWMHVQ96
— Cageside Seats (@cagesideseats) April 9, 2019
As noted by Comic Book , Wyatt has not been seen on WWE programming since July 2018, shortly after he and Matt Hardy lost their Raw Tag Team Championships. Wyatt, who had previously been booked as a villainous character, switched to a babyface role at WrestleMania 34 , helping Hardy win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and forming a team known as the “Deleters of Worlds,” which combined Hardy’s “delete” catchphrase with Wyatt’s nickname of “The Eater of Worlds.” This was his last storyline in WWE before the company took him off television to be repackaged.
While Wyatt had appeared to be on his way to returning to TV when he was booked for WWE’s non-televised Starrcade event in December, the second-generation WWE superstar has mostly kept a low profile since the start of his hiatus. Aside from the occasional tweet hinting at a gimmick change, Wyatt recently took to social media to announce that he and his girlfriend, WWE ring announcer JoJo Offerman, were expecting their first child.
