A scourge of releases hit WWE less than a week after WrestleMania 42. Some of the Superstars leaving the company were more surprising than others.
On one hand, it was not shocking to see The Wyatt Sicks let go in the sense that WWE had not done a lot with them in their 22-month tenure on the main roster and the faction missed back-to-back WrestleMania main cards. On the other hand, the stable was a cult favorite with an incredible presence on their ring entrance. That’s besides their emotional tie-in to the beloved late Bray Wyatt.
As the run for Uncle Howdy and company has come to a close it’s time to look back at their legacy in the company and what went wrong for the group of talented performers who never quite hit their stride in WWE storylines.
The Wyatt Sicks Had An Introduction To WWE Like No Other
WWE fans first got an inkling of The Wyatt Sicks were on their way in watching the Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal documentary WWE produced about the life and legacy of the late Eater of Worlds. His brother, Bo Dallas, had already debuted the mysterious Uncle Howdy persona alongside Wyatt in his later appearances and the end of the doc spoke to his desire to carry forward in his family’s honor, bringing back the dark character.
The group’s formal introduction came in a June 2024 episode of Raw with a variety of WWE personnel shown incapacitated backstage before the creepiest version of Nikki Cross to date emerged from a mysterious doorway, en route to the whole faction emerging. There was reason to be optimistic about the group’s prospects to follow as WWE gave them room for a unique presentation via vignettes of interviews between Bo Dallas and his Uncle Howdy alterego. The Wyatt Sicks would go on to best American Made in their first program.
The writing may have been on the wall about the limitations The Wyatt Sicks would face when the months to follow saw them feud with The Final Testament before transitioning their focus to the SmackDown tag team division. Whereas the most optimistic takes may have foreseen the group—Uncle Howdy in particular—entering the upper mid-card if not main event picture, they missed significant chunks of time on TV and seemed firmly planted in the mid-card and tag ranks.
The Wyatt Sicks Faction Was Defined By Missed Opportunities
There was a lot of potential surrounding The Wyatt Sicks, but the group never seemed to move on from their initial impression—they looked creepy, and they paid tribute to Bray Wyatt.
Erick Rowan was a legacy character—a bridge between the original Wyatt Family and this new group, besides offering a big body to play the heater in a supporting role. It’s telling, though, that despite her history as a Women’s Champion, Nikki Cross never got much to sink her teeth into as part of the group.
Dexter Lumis and Joe Gacy represented further stunted potential. Both men seemed like fits for this style of stable for having played dark, unstable characters in developmental. However, after graduating from NXT, they all but lost all their individual personalities when they joined this group—Lumis not a cold-blooded killer type, Gacy not a charismatic cult leader—each downgraded to more generic eccentrics who wore dark makeup. Not only were their more interesting, individualistic personas tamped down, but WWE forewent any and all opportunities for internal power struggle and strife.
Uncle Howdy, in particular, looked to be the breakout star of this faction as Wyatt’s brother and a proven in-ring talent who’d shown his first real character chops in his introductory promos for the group. A real push might have seen him flirt with the main event scene, perhaps posing an especially intriguing, chaotic Mr. Money in the Bank or offering an offbeat, memorable rival for Cody Rhodes at the top of the card.
Saying Farewell To The Wyatt Sicks
The Wyatt Sicks lost their televised match, going down in defeat to The MFTs in a Street Fight during the episode of SmackDown that kicked off WrestleMania 42 weekend. The bout came across like the end of the feud and, as such, a case can be made WWE resolved their outstanding storyline business en route to showing them the door.
There are ways of looking at WWE’s release of this group as a dismissal of Bray Wyatt’s legacy, besides being a more direct insult to the talented performers involved in the group. This perspective does demand the question, though, would the group be any better off relegated to the treadmill of mid-card purgatory than let go?
The failings of The Wyatt Sicks seem reflective of WWE’s own reluctance to push supernatural characters in the modern era. It’s a part of what made Wyatt himself such a square peg in main event round holes for the length of his tenure and, with all due respect to his legacy faction members, none of them captured the imagination to demand a spotlight the way he did. Indeed, it seems like the extent WWE is willing to engage with an act of that ilk is embodied in Danhausen, whose role is at least equal parts comedic as it is dark or truly magical. Perhaps The Wyatt Sicks alumni will find better luck rallying elsewhere—including, as some fans have already pushed for—jumping to AEW.
Time will tell the full scope of The Wyatt Sicks legacy or what’s next for its component members. Regardless, they remain a unique spectacle in WWE lore, unlike anyone else working before them, alongside them, or likely to follow.