What's Next for 'The Fiend' Bray Wyatt After WWE Crown Jewel 2019 Victory?

It's been a chaotic year for WWE, and in typical fashion, things are even more of a mess after Crown Jewel 2019.

Even ignoring the travel problems, Bray Wyatt's victory over Seth Rollins created an interesting conundrum, with both world championships being property of SmackDown Superstars.

Originally, the plan for SmackDown was for The Miz to host Wyatt in a MizTV segment. Undoubtedly, they would have clarified at least some of his future direction, the Universal Championship and Survivor Series, but that didn't come to fruition.

Instead, Wyatt skipped SmackDown, and we're left wondering what's next.

Normally, it's quite easy to look at the next special event, try to figure out potential opponents for each champion and backtrack to set some projections, but that isn't the case.

All the promotion for Survivor Series has been vague, simply stating that Superstars from Raw, SmackDown and NXT will compete against each other. However, is that Raw vs. NXT vs. SmackDown in a series of Triple Threat matches, or some other setup?

For that matter, will WWE follow the pattern of the past two years by having the champions of each brand face each other?

If that is the case and no titles change hands, what's next for Wyatt will be a matter of killing time until he faces Adam Cole and Brock Lesnar on November 24.

But that match seems unlikely, particularly as WWE is continuing the feud between Lesnar and Rey Mysterio. Even with the champion vs. champion vs. champion guidelines, it would be on-brand for WWE to ignore that for only the world titles and just tell the fans to go along with it despite the lack of logic.

Instead, Lesnar vs. Mysterio may happen at Survivor Series, which would free up Wyatt to make a title defense of his own.

If that happens, his opponent would depend on how WWE treats the story of Lesnar quitting SmackDown.

Assuming that becomes official and he is now on the Raw roster, that solves the issue of having two world champions on the same brand. The Beast Incarnate will simply fight Mysterio, and Wyatt will face someone from SmackDown.

A No. 1 contender will need to be established, possibly on the next episode of SmackDown.

If he is treated more as a babyface since the crowd cheers him anyway, that would allow a challenger like King Corbin to step up. More than likely, though, he will stay a heel, and the top candidates in that scenario are Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan, The Miz and Roman Reigns.

But there's still a chance Lesnar doesn't fully move to Raw. After all, he's still listed as a SmackDown star on his WWE profile page.

Credit: WWE.com

In that case, WWE could treat Lesnar vs. Mysterio as a Raw vs. SmackDown attraction and do something similar with Wyatt, booking him against a member of the red brand.

That could even be the key to fixing the world title situation, as Wyatt could drop the Universal Championship to his opponent.

The most obvious contender would be Rollins, even though that could be disastrous. It would be their third match together in a short time frame, and if Wyatt were to drop the title right back, fans would feel cheated that his reign amounted to nothing.

That backlash is risky, but there aren't any alternatives that make sense.

There is not enough time to set up a new feud with someone like Kevin Owens. People like Aleister Black and Ricochet aren't ready for the responsibility of being universal champion. Unless WWE turns Wyatt babyface, all the heels on Raw should also be ruled out.

Rollins has been advertised to face Wyatt on the upcoming Raw on Monday, though that was before he lost his title:

The only benefit to this booking would be to put the red-strapped world title back on Raw, even at the expense of The Fiend's credibility and to the dismay of the fans who are growing increasingly frustrated with that sort of nonsense writing.

For the most part, Wyatt's future depends on how WWE wants to handle the championship situation at Survivor Series. Either he fights Lesnar and/or Cole in a brand warfare scenario, defends the title against a SmackDown star like Bryan, Strowman or Reigns or fights Rollins one more time with the belt on the line.

Given those options, the smart bet is that Wyatt will defend the title against Bryan, Reigns or Strowman, neglecting the theme of Survivor Series because WWE didn't plan out everything well enough in advance for it all to run smoothly.

At the very least, we should know more come Monday Night Raw, so stay tuned to Bleacher Report for any news on what to expect from The Fiend's twisted future as universal champion.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.