Former WWE producer Mike Rotunda , who was among the dozens of employees released by the company earlier this month, recently opened up about the wrestling careers of his two sons — Windham and Taylor Rotunda, who are respectively known to fans as Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas.
As quoted by WrestlingNews.co on Wednesday, Rotunda recently appeared on The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, where he touched on multiple topics, including the divergent career paths Wyatt and Dallas have taken, with the former currently being booked as one of Friday Night SmackDown ‘s top stars and the latter hardly getting used on the blue brand as a lower-card talent.
Talking about his older son, Rotunda said that he believes Wyatt is responsible for most of the ideas that have defined his current gimmick, which has him alternating between a friendly children’s show host and an unhinged masked man known as The Fiend. He suggested that the 33-year-old was heavily influenced by Fred Rogers when coming up with ideas for the kiddie show host part of his character, perhaps even before the release of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — the 2019 film that dramatized the life of the iconic television personality.
Rotunda added that Wyatt has pulled off his gimmick “so well,” stressing that the two-time Universal Champion benefited creatively from having so much input into his character.
Given how Wyatt has enjoyed far more in-ring success, Rotunda posited that Dallas may be a better in-ring talent than his big brother and should be given more opportunities in a main roster run that has mostly seen him used as an enhancement talent.
“Windham has had an opportunity to be World Champion a couple of times. I’m sure he will do it again. Taylor (Bo Dallas) even had an opportunity to be Tag Team Champion. I think Bo has a lot of ability. Even his brother will say that he’s a better worker than he is but hopefully they will figure out something that works for him and enhances his career.”
Quoting the same interview, Wrestling Inc . wrote that Rotunda also described Dallas as being “very creative like his brother.” Currently a singles wrestler on SmackDown , the 30-year-old had previously been part of The B-Team alongside Curtis Axel and had also spent some time with the lower-card Social Outcasts faction, as noted by Cageside Seats . He was, however, booked strongly during his time in NXT, where he became the black-and-gold brand’s youngest-ever champion prior to his official main roster call-up.