WWE WrestleMania 36 Results: John Cena Vs. Bray Wyatt Was Fantastic, But Did It Actually Help Wyatt?

WWE made the controversial decision to end “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt’s Universal title run at Super ShowDown, and even an incredibly bizarre WrestleMania 36 victory over John Cena can’t erase that.

In one of the most unique matches in WrestleMania history, Wyatt defeated Cena (we think?) in the 16-time world champion’s first match in well over a year. Initially pegged to defend his Universal Championship against Roman Reigns at WWE’s flagship pay-per-view, Wyatt was one of many stars who was shortchanged due to WWE’s constantly changing plans that resulted in the 53-year-old Goldberg getting an ill-advised title run, likely because he provided a little boost to SmackDown viewership and Vince McMahon saw dollar signs.

WWE thought that having Wyatt face Cena at WrestleMania for the second time would be a big deal, but regardless of whether he was going to win or lose against “The Champ” and regardless of Cena’s star power, this bout—if you want to call it that—-was a major step down for Wyatt after he had been riding high as perhaps the hottest star in WWE.

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In route to Super ShowDown in February, Wyatt had been protected by the booking in a way that very few stars have been over the years. He had yet to lose a match and had recently run through top names like The Miz, Seth Rollins and Daniel Bryan to establish himself as someone with the potential to be the most unbeatable world champion in history. Then, Goldberg’s return happened even though he wasn’t originally set to be at WrestleMania, and WWE completely destroyed any and all momentum Wyatt had when he was defeated in just a few minutes at an otherwise throwaway Saudi Arabian special event. The entire lure of “The Fiend” character is how unstoppable it is, and yet, at Super ShowDown it was stopped dead in its tracks.

WWE tried to remedy that at WrestleMania 36 by giving Wyatt what, on the surface, seems like quite the consolation prize: A match with the biggest star in the entire company in WWE. Cena has put over Wyatt on multiple occasions in the past, and at WrestleMania 36, Cena entered the bizarre world of the Firefly Fun House to put over Wyatt, which certainly doesn’t hurt Cena given that his legacy as perhaps the greatest WWE superstar of all-time is already etched in stone.

Although Cena and Wyatt delivered a cinematic masterpiece, Cena’s loss to Wyatt, however, feels like a classic case of too little too late.

It was in late 2019 that Wyatt became the unquestioned hottest act in all of pro wrestling. Wyatt’s merchandise was selling like hotcakes in route to him becoming WWE’s No. 1 merchandise mover and perhaps the most innovative and compelling character since The Undertaker. Of course, that didn’t prevent WWE from nearly dropping the ball with his character and doing so on more than one occasion, like at Hell in a Cell 2019 when Wyatt—although he didn’t lose—also failed to beat Rollins for the Universal Championship. That bizarre booking move almost did Wyatt in before he even really got started, and though Wyatt was ultimately able to recover from that, it’s not like his run hasn’t been without its fair share of hiccups.

Wyatt’s memorable performance at WrestleMania 36 was undoubtedly an overt attempt to wash away the putrid stench of his disappointing loss to Goldberg at Super ShowDown, but its impact was minimized because many WWE fans could see that that was exactly what WWE was trying to do. On one hand, a win over Cena in one of the strangest matches ever sure looks great on paper, but on the other, fans didn’t simply forget that Wyatt lost to Goldberg in comically short fashion just because of what happened at WrestleMania 36.