After months of speculation on his future, Bray Wyatt returned to WWE on October 8th at Extreme Rules. His comeback followed weeks of cryptic messages on WWE TV.
The company launched their viral campaign during live events, where the lights went out and Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ played through the speakers. Things ramped up when QR codes began appearing on Raw and SmackDown as well as social media, leading fans to various videos and images relating to the White Rabbit and hinting at what was to come.
Stephanie McMahon links ratings jump directly to Bray Wyatt
WWE Chairwoman Stephanie McMahon recently spoke about the campaign at the Wells Fargo 2022 TMT Summit. During her talk, she spoke about how WWE even hired a horror writer to help engage fans with the project.
“We were bringing back one of our biggest stars named Bray Wyatt. We used a multimedia approach and hired a horror writer to come in and really help us craft this narrative so our fans were engaged.”
One of the QR codes used during the campaign led to a series of numbers including “0923”, according to McMahon, this directly led to a 20% jump in viewership at 9:23pm on the following episode of SmackDown.
“It’s strategies like that that really do work. The audience today is different. They’re growing, they’re evolving. Some people want to have a laid-back experience, and that’s great, but a lot of people really want to engage deeply, and have fun, and have misleads and misdirections.”
Since his return, Bray Wyatt has spoken in a series of promos on SmackDown, claiming to have been reborn. These have often been interrupted by the mysterious ‘Uncle Howdy’, who seems to be trying to bring him back to his more violent personalities of the past like The Fiend.
More recently, Wyatt has engaged in his first feud since coming back, having had several run-ins with LA Knight, although no match has taken place yet.
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the above transcription.