To the WWE Universe, Extreme Rules was a success, with a quality match card that was headlined by a Seth Rollins-Matt Riddle main event in a Fight Pit match. However, it’s what happened after the Premium Live Event that really had fans in a craze.
After Riddle got the victory over Rollins and was walking towards backstage with special guest referee Daniel Cormier, the arena went completely dark as the lights went out, which would lead to the revealing of all of the Firefly Fun House characters and their return – in human-form.
Following that, another reveal would happen, leading to a monstrous explosion of an applause from the crowd. After weeks of WWE’s “White Rabbit” mystery, and mass speculation surrounding the potential of a Bray Wyatt return, Wyatt finally made his comeback.
According to Fightful Select, the plan for “The Fiend” to return to the company was put into effect as soon as Vince McMahon announced his retirement. Also, Fightful is reporting that numerous people within WWE were left out of the Bray Wyatt plans, including the promotion’s creative team.
“As if there was any doubt, Bray Wyatt’s return worked out very well. WWE sources that we spoke with said that Wyatt’s return was very well received, and that they were very happy with the buzz created in the weeks leading up to WWE Extreme Rules with the QR codes and cryptic videos.
Several WWE sources had been playing up Extreme Rules as a “big night” to media ahead of the weekend. As early as one week after Vince McMahon’s retirement, members of the new WWE regime told Fightful they felt optimistic about Wyatt’s return. A full month before Wyatt returned to WWE, one WWE source was completely convinced that Wyatt was back with WWE and heading back.
Several that are usually in the know were kept out of the loop about the context of the White Rabbit videos until this past week. Some of the references had to be approved, but standard WWE creative were largely hands off. It’s worth noting that the returning Bray Wyatt has a very good relationship with WWE’s new Director of Longterm Creative, Rob Fee. Fee had even pitched a Fiend movie directly to Nick Khan last year before Wyatt’s release.”