WWE Rumors on Bray Wyatt's Faction, Angelo Dawkins and Less Gimmick Shows Scheduled
Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from WWE and AEW.
Bray Wyatt's New Stable Still in Works
Apparently, not even WWE knows where Bray Wyatt's storyline is headed.
Wyatt made his return to WWE after a 14-month absence earlier this month at the Extreme Rules premium live event, and it's been assumed he would build some type of Wyatt6 stable based on his social media and the appearance of his past characters in Philly. That said, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer said nothing is set in stone.
“I’ve certainly heard names for a faction but then I heard other people say those aren’t the names," Meltzer said on TSN's Sunday Night Main Event. "And someone even told me it’s not even all worked out exactly how it’s all gonna go down.”
It seems hard to believe the meticulously creative Wyatt would return without a fully realized plan in place. WWE began teasing his return by playing "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane at house shows; this wasn't some "sorry we fired you" return featuring Wyatt just copy-pasting an old NXT gimmick.
If Wyatt's history is any indication, this is a very expensive and thought-out undertaking by WWE. While the latter part of the Vince McMahon era was famous for "plans may change, pal" up to the second the show starts, Triple H's first few months of leading creative has been full of longer-term and better storytelling.
The overwhelming odds are there is a plan completely decided upon, but it's being kept tightly under wraps to avoid leaks.
Angelo Dawkins Impressing WWE Officials
Since the outset of The Street Profits, Montez Ford has looked like the potential burgeoning singles superstar and Angelo Dawkins like the one who would fall to lower-midcard status when they inevitably broke up. A series of sensational singles matches from Ford over the past year only further stoked his hype.
That said, Dawkins appears determined to not be the forgotten Profit.
Fightful Select reported WWE officials have been impressed with how Dawkins has worked on his physique and improved his in-ring skills of late, which has gotten him an increased number of singles matches since the start of the summer. One AEW wrestler even told Fightful that Dawkins could be a singles star in the right situation.
Some sort of amicable split may wind up being the best long-term solution. Neither would have to become "evil" and have some formulaic feud where it was clear which wrestler WWE had actual interest in pushing (hello, Tucker and Otis).
There doesn't need to be a so-called "Jannetty" of every tag team, and it's arguably been a disservice to WWE's storytelling that so many "secondary" stars in teams have fallen by the wayside.
Dawkins doesn't have the WrestleMania main event-caliber talent of Ford, but there's little reason he couldn't settle in as an upper midcarder.
WWE Moving Away From Gimmick PLEs
In perhaps the single best news of the Triple H era, we could be saying goodbye to gimmick-based Premium Live Events.
Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer reported WWE is planning more international events and fewer PLEs based on a gimmick in 2023.
Yes, you heard that correctly.
No more Liv Morgan randomly carrying around a baseball bat just because it's October and that means it's time to be extreme because Extreme Rules is coming up. No more random feuds being blown off inside Hell in a Cell simply because it's that time of the year.
Gimmicked matches being placed on the calendar and storylines being shoehorned to include them was one of the worst WWE creative decisions of the last decade. Hell in a Cell used to mean something. Elimination Chamber, Extreme Rules matches and on down the line—these things used to carry weight because they'd be used to cap off a simmering feud.
For years, they became meaningless fodder in a corporate machine. Triple H already made a much-needed change to Survivor Series by adding the War Games element and eliminating the Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown battles of recent years.
WWE's creative is on a significant, much-needed upswing, and Triple H deserves credit for listening to fans (and general good reason).
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