Bray Wyatt Carrying on Undertaker's Supernatural Gimmick Is Brilliant Move

Bray Wyatt is poised to deliver on his scorched-earth promises now that he has siphoned both the Undertaker's and Kane's godlike powers.

Thunder echoed at his command, fire rose as he directed and lightning hailed down because he willed it on Monday's Raw in what was a stunning display of WWE's boldness with Wyatt's character.

Making The Eater of Worlds Undertaker's heir as the supernatural entity among earthly warriors is a torch-passing like no other. It is a case of WWE's pushing the boundaries of the pro wrestling medium. And it has Wyatt wielding more momentum than he ever has; it has him set to be a unique, compelling figure for years to come.

Credit: WWE.com

Wyatt, like Undertaker before him, exists in a lonely alcove in the WWE universe. The carnival of characters that the company trots out are mostly variations on angry tough guys. Their strengths range from great power to great speed.

Undertaker, though, has always been an outlier, the exhibition of WWE's will to force the audience to suspend more disbelief than normal.

In a world of braggarts and bruisers, Undertaker has always stood out. He is undead. He drew power from a golden urn. He reaches up to the heavens and calls lightning down to the ring.

He's the wizard who somehow sneaked into the action movie.

With The Deadman closing in on the last moments of his Hall of Fame career, WWE has clearly decided to make Wyatt his successor. The cult leader calls himself The New Face of Fear, and after abducting Undertaker at Hell in a Cell (and then Kane one night later), he now boasts about feasting on their souls. 

But WWE is not just making Wyatt Undertaker's scion in spirit; it's giving him the full range of The Phenom's mystical abilities.

Wyatt showed them off on Monday's Raw. In a haunting speech, he told fans that he had "successfully harvested the souls of The Undertaker and Demon Kane." And what to that point had been a story full of abstractions, of Wyatt's claim that we was devouring The Brothers of Destruction's essences, quickly took a turn toward the spectral.

"I summon the forces of darkness," Wyatt shouted before summoning thunder, fire and lightning.

He had stolen his enemies' powers, seizing their supernatural weapons for his own use. 

WWE drove home the point by showing clips of both Kane and Undertaker on the big screen with Wyatt cackling in the ring. The message was clear: Wyatt is taking over these men's spots in the WWE landscape; Wyatt is morphing into the men he is currently devouring.

This unfolding story is refreshingly creative. It's a bit of narrative risk-taking that forces the audience to take notice.

And once this rivalry is done, Wyatt will have a lasting memento from it. 

It's smart to keep this element around after Undertaker and his brother walk away from the ring. Wrestling thrives when it boasts a menagerie of intriguing characters. There's a place for a grounded, realistic character like Kevin Owens, just as there is for a backwoods necromancer.

Having Wyatt be able to control the forces of nature makes him special. As pro wrestling writer Kevin Berge noted, it puts him on a different plane:

The Eater of Worlds now has more to back up his claims of being a monster. He has so often told us that we should fear him, that he is not like other men. Now that he has shown himself to be a vampire of souls and a man in command of the natural world, all that rhetoric has more weight.

WWE Creative now has more options to toy with when it comes to Wyatt. It can tell stories we have yet to see, angles that feel like myths unfolding on the screen.

Former WWE writer Alex Greenfield, for one, believes that WWE shouldn't hold back here:

Even with Wyatt now portrayed as a dark deity of sorts, one can't blame some fans, though, for not fully buying in. The biggest issue with him throughout his career is that his wicked proclamations don't lead to enough results.

The need for him to triumph at some point doesn't change with Undertaker's and Kane's powers in tow.  As Rolling Stone's James Montgomery wrote, "No matter how spooky the special effects, when Wyatt proclaims, 'I have become the higher power,' it's tough to believe him when he loses every feud."

Seeing that WWE is fully committed to making Wyatt its next Undertaker, the company would be smart to remember how it booked The Deadman early on. Undertaker locked the Ultimate Warrior inside a casket, defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWE title and defeated Jimmy Snuka and Jake Roberts in his first two WrestleManias.

Wyatt hasn't enjoyed nearly that kind of success just yet. The key to truly transferring Undertaker's powers to him is to have him emerge victorious when the lightning stops and the flames die down.