The Wyatt Family Must Regain Lost Momentum at WWE TLC 2015

Following an embarrassing showing against The Brothers of Destruction at Survivor Series, The Wyatt Family is due for a big win, which must come as soon as Sunday at WWE TLC 2015.

Bray Wyatt floundered without his followers earlier this year but slowly returned to relevance as the year progressed. He reunited with Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in addition to recruiting Braun Strowman into the bearded clan after SummerSlam.

With three monsters and a demented cult leader at the helm of the group, The Wyatt Family should theoretically be the most feared entity in all of WWE today. The questionable booking of the stable, however, has said otherwise.

It exchanged wins with the duo of Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose over the summer before the feud culminated in a Hell in a Cell match between Reigns and Wyatt, which was won by Reigns. Wyatt then shifted his sights to Undertaker and Kane but fell short of victory at the Survivor Series pay-per-view.

If The Wyatt Family has any shot of succeeding as a force to be reckoned with, it must defeat the ECW Originals at WWE TLC in decisive fashion on Sunday.

Credit: WWE.com

At a time when the WWE product is as stale as it has ever been, The Wyatt Family vs. The Dudley Boyz has been among the few highlights on Raw in recent weeks. The program has felt fresh and also seen the temporary returns of Tommy Dreamer and Rhyno to WWE TV.

The matches have been solid, but most importantly, The Wyatt Family has been able to assert its dominance more often than not. It's left the seasoned veterans lying on the ground on multiple occasions, gradually regaining lost momentum in the process.

As for The Dudley Boyz, in no way, shape or form have they been "buried" by The Wyatt Family.

They came back to the company not to steal the spotlight but to put over younger talent, and even in doing so, they themselves have remained fan favorites.

Dreamer and Rhyno may be old news to some, but they know their place and are only back to get one final run out of working with The Wyatt Family. If nothing else, they can still go in the ring and be counted on for a quality contest come TLC.

With that said, they're the perfect opponents for The Wyatt Family at the moment. The ECW Originals can suffer a loss to the sadistic stable without losing much in defeat considering half of them aren't full-time members of the main roster.

From The Authority to The New Day to The League of Nations, it's painfully apparent WWE is obsessed with creating villainous factions. The only issue is that it doesn't know how to book one properly.

It's unclear what type of characters The Authority's members are portraying half the time, and The League of Nations was doomed to fail from the start given that the audience has zero incentive to care about anyone involved.

The New Day has been the exception to the rule, but it can't be considered intimidating when it's making fans laugh with its entertaining antics.

But The Wyatt Family can be different. It has all the tools—the look, the size, the talent—to be one of the most destructive stables in years, but its win-loss record must reflect that.

Its losses to Reigns and The Brothers of Destruction didn't do permanent damage, but another shortcoming could push it past the point of no return. Besides, WWE would be foolish to hand the victory to extremists when they have nothing to lose and The Wyatt Family has everything to gain.

Currently, fans find it difficult to take it seriously when Bray Wyatt fails to back up his incessant rambling.

A win against the ECW Originals would be a step in the right direction, but it's going to take much more than that to get The Wyatt Family back to the level it deserves to be at.

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, is a Digital Journalism major at Endicott College. Visit his website, Next Era Wrestling, and "like" his official Facebook page to continue the conversation on all things wrestling.

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