"Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal" review

“Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal” details the life, story and career of Windham Rotunda, better known as Bray Wyatt, narrated by Mark Calaway.

The documentary also included words from his brother, Taylor Rotunda, sister, Mika Rotunda and a variety of different wrestlers including Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Braun Strowman, Erick Rowan, John Cena, Seth Rollins and Alexa Bliss.

Rotunda was a third-generation wrestler, with his father, Mike, and uncle, Barry Windham, combined as the U.S. Express, who will be elected to the Hall of Fame this week.

Rotunda played college football, but when Taylor was offered a contract with FCW, Rotunda quit football and decided to wrestle.

The two started as the Rotundos but were split up. Windham was moved to NXT, where he played Husky Harris, an awkward character that Rotunda felt poked fun at his physique.

After Husky Harris failed, Rotunda expanded creatively and developed the Bray Wyatt character, a cult leader-esque patriarch tasked with saving minds.

Wyatt’s popularity exploded from there, with Luke Harper, Rowan and later Strowman by his side. The Wyatt Family feuded with Kane, The Shield and Cena on all sorts of pay-per-views and shows. Fans were fascinated by them and began lighting up their flashlights to act like fireflies in the dark arenas.

The faction was split up, and Wyatt was dubbed “The New Face of Fear.” Wyatt then challenged an older face of freight at WrestleMania – The Undertaker.

Though Wyatt lost, he soon won the World Championship in the Elimination Chamber in February 2017.

After some time, Rotunda felt he needed to reinvent once again, and he let his creativity roam free with his next character.

Wyatt hosted the Firefly Fun House, a segment designed to be a harmless kid’s show, when in fact, its grotesque puppets and constant glitches led up to the build for The Fiend. Nobody had ever done anything like this dual persona, and Wyatt/The Fiend became a two-time Universal Champion with it.

However, Rotunda was then released from the company in 2021. During his time off, he painted and explored with Taylor, but he was really missing wrestling.

In 2022, WWE began alluding to a white rabbit – playing the acoustic Jefferson Airplane song during breaks and holding up QR codes during matches. It all made sense during Extreme Rules when, out of an ivy-clad door, came Wyatt, ready to make a return.

He was more Windham Rotunda than he was Bray Wyatt this time around, and he finally fulfilled the childhood dream of competing with Taylor, as his brother became Uncle Howdy, a character Windham developed from boy nightmares.

Rotunda was unable to compete for long – he developed an illness, and after being rumored to be close to returning, passed away unexpectedly on Aug. 24, 2023.

Rotunda is survived by his parents, his two siblings, his ex-wife Samantha Pixley, his fiancé JoJo Offerman and his four children.

The ending detailed how even though Rotunda is gone, his legacy lives on in the fans.

I know – I experienced it firsthand. I went to my first WWE live event this past December at the Bryce Jordan Center. The energy in there was palpable; kids, college students and adults alike cheering on every moment and forgetting about life for a little while.

The final match of the night was Shinsuke Nakamura against Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship. I was there, in my “Still Freakin’ Champ” t-shirt, waiting to see the Visionary the whole night.

The place was dark. They had the one central light above the ring on, and nothing would have been visible – if not for the fireflies in the audience. I looked around as everybody, myself included, had their flashlights on, paying tribute to Rotunda.

That’s when I felt it – something bigger than myself.

Wrestling is not a love story like Rotunda said. It’s good against evil, right against wrong and conflict against peace. Wrestling is unlike anything else, extremely unconventional, blurring all sorts of lines. If you try hard enough, you begin to see yourself in some of the characters, both good and bad, and that’s how you get attached so quickly.

You see yourself through somebody else’s creation, and then they have you nailed so perfectly you want to scream and ask how they know you so well. Rotunda created characters through things he knew – his Florida hometown, his love of monsters and even his own nightmares.

WWE wouldn’t be what it is without the creative mind of Rotunda. It’s almost unheard of to reinvent yourself so many times and still have the success he had. He was more than a wrestler to so many people – he was a father, a son, a brother, an artist and a genius, and the documentary couldn’t have portrayed that better.

The film is streaming on Peacock, and, at the end, the shadow of Uncle Howdy is standing over a lit lantern – possibly signaling Taylor’s return to the wrestling world.

“I am the color red in a world full of black and white. I am the eater of worlds. I, Bray Wyatt, am forever.”

Adrianna Gallucci is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, please email amg7989@psu.edu.