Hello everybody, it is John Pollock and waiting. We're doing a special bonus show today. Of course, it's been a very tragic week in the industry of professional wrestling. We were talking on Wednesday about the passing of the legendary Terry funk and today we are back to talk about the very untimely death of Windom retunda better known as Bray Wyatt stunning news for everybody on Thursday. We had known that he had been off WWE programming since February and been kept

relatively quiet about what he was dealing with and it was Sean Rossap that reported the news that he suffered a heart attack on Thursday and had been battling heart issues that came as a result of COVID that he had been off television since as you recall back in February. He was already starting his WrestleMania program with Bobby Lashley and then there was confusion for whether that program would continue or not. It did not and

the latest we had heard on the status of Windom retunda was a comment by his father Mike retunda to bill after over summer slam weekend that at least provided some optimism that he would hopefully be returning soon and it just seemed to be a question of when not if he would be returning and obviously nothing that is going to prepare you for the type of news that we received late Thursday afternoon early Thursday evening. It's a very difficult story to process way but

I mean you know you've had some time to I guess digest the news obviously everybody is in mourning over just a very tragic story and I mean this is a 36 year old father of four and that's a tarp breaking.

Yeah 100% so again like anytime one of these tragedies happens in professional wrestling it's it's it's strange because like on the one hand it's it's awful on the other hand it's like we I feel like as a community we we we've gone through these things especially like if you're a long time fan

fan um but it still doesn't really diminish I guess like how I think it is different way because with the just the propensity of the the immediacy to interact with people I mean when I look back at like even though you had various social media that existed it wasn't to this extent like where we were going through like in the late 90s or through the 2000s where there is such so much more of like a

public forum that people can openly mourn these individuals and you just see like how um significant it is when you see like the industry kind of stops when one of these stories occurs.

Yeah yeah I mean it's it's it's awful every single time um and I just in in a case like this when it's when it's shocking when it's when it's um you know completely um I guess we know it none of us really had any

warning or any expectation of something like this happening um it's it's really hard to process and sorry if this is not the smoothest audio but it's still really hard for me to process it right now um I think beyond just even you know no and thinking about his creative contributions uh it's it's just a knowledge that you know he'll never be able to see his children again and his children will never be able to see him

and his fiance will never be able to see him and his father his siblings you know um that's that's immediately now what I start to think about.

Yeah I mean this was somebody that was you know we were making like the comparison to like a Terry funk that was born into this industry uh his his father his grandfather uh you had his brother uh his uncle's

Barry Wyndham Kendall Wyndham I mean this was a wrestling family and one that I mean this this individual I mean he he sought out like a you know he was a very good athlete in high school and college doing the football

he also did uh he was a state champion in wrestling in high school as well and then you know he he redshirted in university he went to he went to two different schools and then was on uh team at Troy University

and at the end of the 2008 season that's when he gave his notice and he just went full full bore into professional wrestling and I think that's where

like you you look at him as a relatively like new or character but when you think about the fact that here was someone that's been in the WWE system for 14 plus years um like

and this like to me part of the just writing all about him last night and this morning is like the story of Wyndham Ratunda in terms of the pro wrestling side of him it's one of constant struggle

like this was not someone that just had this smooth ride to the top he had multiple highs multiple lows there was division among the character itself and it just seemed always trying to find this um this perfect balance

that was going to ultimately click and become this this big main event level a character for for the company and he went through so many iterations of the bray Wyatt character you go back to when he was husky Harris as part of the NXT and just go under Duke Ratunda in Florida championship wrestling like he went through so many different versions and that to me as part of the story of this guy who

was I think extremely creatively gifted I think you can take that away from just his work from the outside looking in and from those that worked with him but also being able to get that extreme creativity out in a system that sometimes like is more regimented and like that's

a huge part of bray Wyatt to me is looking at this guy that was constantly retooling this character and you know one of those highs was that return last year when he became like they had that great campaign behind his return and then coming in and he was a difference maker on television for those first couple of weeks like you saw attendance go up you saw television numbers go up it was and you watch that first return uh speech that he gave in New Orleans right after his

return at extreme rules I mean it's chilling to listen to it today um as I did um but then you know you go into um the character itself and it was kind of the supernatural elements that some loved some hated and it was always trying to strike uh that balance and it seemed to be you know constant retooling and trying and trying to find the the magic formula.

Yeah absolutely um maybe just even taking it back to you know the very beginning or at least you know the his on screen beginning from when he came on our my radar at least you know that that season of NXT were um it was like the contest and he came out with a terrible name Husky Harris and you know just I mean Mike returned to sun that was really the guys identity at that point um you know bit of that he's pro what's no who Cody Rohit

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