Bray Wyatt may have gotten people talking at the Royal Rumble, but Jim Cornette was not impressed.
Wyatt overcame LA Knight in the first-ever Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match at the event in a little over five minutes. After the surreal contest, Wyatt donned a mask in the corner of the ring and followed Knight up to the top of the stage. He walked through Knight’s attempts to attack him before laying him out with a Mandible Claw.
With Knight lying prone on the stage, Uncle Howdy appeared and launched himself from a platform onto the star. This led to flames and pyro going off as Wyatt and the characters from the Firefly Fun House watched on.
Jim Cornette Slams Latest Bray Wyatt Appearance
The match proved divisive online with many being highly critical of how Knight had been “buried” after losing so quickly and decisively.
Speaking on his podcast, The Jim Cornette Experience, the legendary manager pulled no punches in appraising the action. Cornette said that none of Wyatt’s work stands out while criticising the outcome of the match and segment for beating Knight flat.
“Bray Wyatt then throws the toolbox into the ring. And normally I’m f*cking [thinking], now it’s a garbage match, but I would have loved it if he’d ever used it, but he didn’t. I didn’t see him take anything out of the toolbox. He sold almost nothing, he didn’t take any bumps, none of his work stands out. And then LA Knight gets a glowing fluorescent kendo stick and hits him two or three times with it. And Wyatt responds to that by just grabbing him and hitting his finish 1-2-3. And that was it, that was the match.
Then while LA Knight is selling, Bray Wyatt goes in the corner and puts another horror movie mask on and then turns around and starts menacing. You can’t call it chasing because there was not a lot of running, just menacing LA Knight. And LA Knight keeps backing up and out of the ring and down the aisle at same time. He’s hitting this goofy f*cker with this kendo stick and Bray Wyatt is not selling any of them.
He just keeps progressing forward, and finally they get to the back of the arena. And Bray Wyatt puts the mandible claw on LA Knight and f*cking puts him out and rolls him off the stage or whatever they’re on. You can’t see there, he’s on a crash pad, which they’re trying not to shoot because it’s a f*cking crash pad. And I’m saying my God, I’ve just thought they might as well, why not p*ss in his mouth while he’s down there. They beat him flat.
And then the guy sells nothing when he’s hit him over the head with a stick and then he puts the claw on him and f*cking shoves him off into something I’m thinking what the f*ck. And then there’s Captain Howdy on the top of whatever the set dressing was 20 feet in the air. And he does an elbow drop off this thing out of camera view supposedly onto LA Knight but obviously, not only nowhere near but onto a crash pad that actually goes poof when they land on it.
And you see that the guy’s feet kind of fly up like he’s bounced on the bouncy castle. He’s at a kid’s birthday party in the bouncy castle. And then Pyro shoots off when he lands the elbow and then at the top of the thing that he’s jumped off of the puppets the pig and the ocelot and the duck billed platypus whatever, they all appear. I never thought I’d say this, LA Knight was better off as Max Dupri.”
The match at the Royal Rumble was Bray Wyatt’s first televised bout since returning to WWE in October. Speaking in the post-event press conference about the match Wyatt stated that he prides himself on taking risks and trying to push the envelope.
If you use any of the quotes from this article please credit the original source with a h/t back to Inside The Ropes.