What if Braun Strowman brings back the Wyatt Family?

On the Monday Night Raw after SummerSlam, The Shield staged a surprise reunion. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins rallied behind their old ally Roman Reigns to protect him against Braun Strowman’s attempt to cash in his Money in the Bank contract and take Reigns' Universal Championship. It looks as though we’re off and running with a fun storyline of faces battling faces. The Shield are behaving a little like heels for outnumbering Strowman but justified because Strowman himself is an awful lot like a monster heel for his size, not to mention the threat of him cashing in a title shot.

One intriguing possibility is that Strowman might not try to take on The Shield himself, but rather call on some old friends to even the odds: The Wyatt Family.

Strowman wasn’t yet a part of the Wyatts when they feuded with The Shield originally in 2014, but the timing could be perfect for Strowman to summon this specific backup. Erick Rowan is out to injury, leaving just three members active. Without Rowan, Luke Harper doesn’t have a clear outlook, and Bray Wyatt has spent most of the last year looking lost, and especially so since Matt Hardy got hurt.

So what if Braun Strowman brings back the Wyatt family? This article considers what might be in store.

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#5 The six man tag era is back

Six man tag team matches may abound in WWE's future.

While six-man tag team matches have always been a part of WWE, they’ve more often than not been treated as filler to have feuding talents interact without giving away or over-using one on one matches that are better saved for a later date. This runs contrary to lucha libre where trios matches were often staples, and various promotions that have featured more faction feuds than WWE tends to.

WWE did have a brief period of really celebrating this form of match that not so coincidentally coincided with the Shield’s first run. During that time, they feuded with the likes of Team Hell No and various partners, major star triumvirates, and Evolution. That time also included one of the group’s very best outings with the Wyatt Family (a feud revisited to good, if less memorable results months down the road).

If Braun Strowman were to bring Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper in as a backup, it would invite revisiting not only this specific three on three feuds but having the two factions have other featured six-man tag team matches.

#4 Bray Wyatt gets reestablished

Relaunching his family could be key to reigniting Bray Wyatt.

Bray Wyatt has had a rough go of it over the last year or so. Sure, he arrived at rarefied air when he won the WWE Championship in early 2017, a feat many major stars go their whole careers without doing. In a career that has felt largely directionless and wandering, though, he reached new lows of having no real purpose or drive. First, he lost a dead end feud with Finn Balor. Then got stuck in an ill-defined issue with Matt Hardy, before becoming subservient to him in a kind-of-sort-of rebooted version of his character.

A relaunch of the Wyatt Family, even if Wyatt plays a supporting role to Braun Strowman, would lend him a clear direction again, not to mention participating in a marquee feud, likely have some great matches and moments. It’s probably the best thing that could happen to his career now, shy of shuffling back to NXT for another complete gimmick reassignment.

#3 The end of the Woken Universe

The Woken Universe experiment may be over.

Bray Wyatt’s feud with Matt Hardy culminated in the two of them teaming up together. Rather than an odd couple tag team of partners who fought each other and rallied around a common cause, Wyatt became consumed by Hardy’s Woken antics. After taking a swim in the Lake of Reincarnation, he returned as Hardy’s sidekick and partner.

While the duo did win the Raw Tag Team Championships, playing second fiddle to Hardy felt like a big step back for a former main eventer. In returning to his old form, and partnering with Strowman and Harper rather than Hardy, it would more or less represent WWE hitting the reset button and asking us to forget all things Woken, at least as they pertain to Wyatt, if not in general. For as much fun as Hardy’s antics had been in Impact Wrestling, WWE never seemed to fully get behind his vision, and it’s probably just as well if the company were to let go of the Woken gimmick wholesale.

#2 Luke Harper is back to square one

For better or worse, a Wyatt reboot may mean a total reboot for Luke Harper.

Luke Harper has never managed to break out as much of a singles star in WWE. Despite a brief period when he reigned as Intercontinental Champion, he has otherwise spent the overwhelming majority of his time teaming with Erick Rowan. When they were Bray Wyatt’s henchmen, it arguably put a ceiling over Harper’s potential, and the team may well have underutilized the athletic big man. In Harper’s most recent team with Rowan, however, the two were booked as dominant monsters under their own power under the Bludgeon Brothers name.

Going back to the Wyatts feels like a step backward for Harper. However, it may also represent a chance to start over in the purest sense. With Braun Strowman as the biggest star of the three, and Bray Wyatt recovering his own image, Harper would have the potential to be less of a supporting cast member than one of three major forces teamed up in the group.

#1 Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt in the long term

Braun Strowman may eventually wind up at odds with Bray Wyatt.

The resurgence of the Wyatt Family could rehabilitate Bray Wyatt’s flailing career and set up some killer six man, tag team, and one on one matches against various permutations of the Shield. In the longer term, there’s another potential story to be told coming out of this reunion. What if we ultimately arrive at Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt?

Strowman vs. Wyatt would be a fresh feud between first time opponents, perhaps stemming from a power struggle over who was really in charge of their rekindled faction. Better yet, based on the real life friendship between the two that Strowman has attested to in multiple interviews, it’s likely the two would collaborate nicely to build a compelling storyline, not to mention get the best out of one another in matches. Even if Strowman were to pull off the probable victory, being competitive with the Monster Among Men could be the last step in Wyatt’s rehabilitation as an upper card act.