Childhood & Early Life
Bray Wyatt was born Windham Lawrence Rotunda on May 23, 1987 in Brooksville, Florida to middle class parents. His family has a very long history in professional wrestling with his father, grandfather and uncles being professional wrestlers. So it was quite natural that both Bray and his little brother Bo Dallas grew up learning the tricks of the game from their elders.
Bray had a keen interest in football besides, wrestling. The hulking built he had played a massive role in him getting selected for the school football teams. While he was attending the Hernando High School in his hometown, he played football as a defensive tackle and a guard. However, he also participated in wrestling competitions during his school years and won many of them. Before graduating from high school in 2005, he earned a state wrestling title for his high school.
Once he was out of the high school, he further pursued his love for football while he attended College of Sequoias. He played for the college team for two years and ended up earning All-American honours as a sophomore offensive guard. Despite lacking an interest in academics, his football skills ensured him a place in Troy University via a scholarship.
It was that time when Bray was flying high and was looking ahead for a successful career in professional football. He attended the Troy University and played football during that time. He was so engrossed in football that his academics got affected and this led to his grades getting worse. When his final semester ended, he fell short of earning enough credits to earn a bachelor’s degree. Devastated by this, he decided to pursue wrestling.
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Career
He adopted the ring name Alex Rotundo and made his professional wrestling debut in April 2009 with Florida Championship Wrestling. His younger brother Bo was also wrestling in FCW at that time and the brothers formed a Tag Team and won the Championship in July 2009. They defended the Tag Team Championship for months until losing it in November 2009 to Dude Busters.
In June 2010, he adopted the name Husky Harris and made his debut on NXT, at The Nexus. He did a villainous act on June 22 by attacking announcer Matt Striker, the way he had done in the previous week. He narrowly escaped elimination by moving on the sixth place in the second poll. Following this he appeared in a six-man tag team match on August 9, which his team won and he climbed up the ladder and stood at the fourth place out of six rookies in the poll that occurred later that night.
Bray also kept making regular appearances in WWE Raw owing to the long time feud that was burning between WWE and NXT. In early 2011, he made his comeback to FCW adopting a contrivance of a hockey mask, however that did not work and he continued playing the Husky Harris character. His brother Bo was having an on-going feud with Lucky Cannon and Damien Sandow and Bray embroiled in the feud. Bo and Bray then teamed up and defeated Sandow and Cannon in a tag team match.
Towards late 2011 and early 2012, he started a very infamous rivalry with Richie Steamboat. Following the end of a long and brutal feud, Bray once again eyed the Tag Team Championship and teamed up with his brother yet again. In February 2012, the brothers won the title only to lose it a month later. In April 2012, Bray debuted in the rebooted NXT’ taped at the Full Sail University with a new character. He presented himself as the leader of an evil cult, who was more monster than a human.
He further laid the foundation of The Wyatt Family, a professional wrestling stable in WWE by teaming up with Erick Rowan and Luke Harper. In May 2012, WWE Raw showed some small clips hinting at the arrival of The Wyatt Family on the show. In July, the Wyatt family made their debut by spanking Kane in a match. They continued assaulting wrestlers including Heath Slater, R-Truth, Jinder Mahal and Justin Gabriel. During a title match for WWE Heavyweight Championship, they distracted John Cena in his match against Randy Orton, causing John to lose the title.
After Elimination Chamber in 2013, Bray started a one-on-one feud with John Cena. He was all hell bent on proving that the ‘heroism’ that Cena portrays is just a facade and that he is a ‘monster’ at heart. Following that, Cena challenged Bray for a WrestleMania match, which was accepted by Bray. At WrestleMania XXX, despite facing trouble from two other members of The Wyatt Family, Cena managed to win the match.
In 2014, Bray remained in the limelight owing to his feuds with several wrestlers such as Dean Ambrose, Undertaker and Ryback. In June 2015, he interfered in a Royal Rumble match with his attack directed particularly towards Roman Reigns, to take revenge for the loss in a singles match on Raw.
In November 2017, Bray had a feud with Randy Orton, however, Orton interfered on behalf of Bray on October 25 episode of SmackDown. With this move the feud ended resulting in Randy Orton becoming a part of the Wyatt Family. They ended up forming a Tag Team and winning the SmackDown Tag Team Championship against Jason Jordan and Chad Gable. In February 2017, Bray fought in a match to earn the WWE Championship at Elimination Chamber. He won the title defeating John Cena, AJ Styles, The Miz, Dean Ambrose and Baron Corbin. His 49 days reign was ended by Randy Orton, Bray’s former partner.
In November 2017, Bray defeated Matt Hardy in a singles match and the two ended up forming a Tag Team. Towards late 2017, Bray and Hardy ended up winning the Raw Tag Team Championship match against Apollo and Titus O’Neil. They faced Sheamous and Cesaro for the championship fight and won it.
