Watch: Bray Wyatt Plays Mind Games With the Viper

With the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the line, AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose were tonight’s main event, but that didn’t stop tensions from mounting in Randy Orton’s feud with the Eater of Worlds.

Orton opened the show to accuse Bray Wyatt of fearing him, an accusation to which the Wyatt patriarch responded as you might expect.

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Orton went backstage to seek out Wyatt, and his encounters made up a B-plot that ran throughout the show.

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Eventually Orton tracked Wyatt to the smoky room where the Eater of Worlds delivers his messages, and delivered an impressive beatdown.

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Or he appeared to, anyway. After Randy knocked Wyatt down and took his chair, some supernatural shenanigans started happening, and Wyatt was right back in control, with the Viper nowhere to be seen.

Parts of the show-long segment were certainly corny, but the horror movie aesthetics are just the brand of cliche necessary to make Wyatt’s character work. It’s exactly the sort of work that needs to be done to establish Wyatt as a dominant heel on SmackDown.

A match between Orton and Wyatt is not yet set, but you can expect the pair to clash at No Mercy.