>>13953800It was always going to end in failure under Vince. Anyone else could have seen the gimmick for what it was and kept it going for longer. Vince still has the brain of a child and turned him into 97 Kane with the red light and the no selling.
Bray hated the red lights. If you go back to the early days of the gimmick you can see what he was going for. The Finn match had him under normal lights and he sold. The Firefly Funhouse ended around the same time. It wasn’t supposed to be part of the gimmick full time but it pulled in too much merch to be ignored. They had to have “the funhouse” be a table with a cloth over it and a blue wall with a couple of pictures instead of the full set he originally used. The funhouse carried on purely because Vince saw money.
Before his return, Bray posted on Twitter about his character being confined to a mental institution. The puppets were part of his treatment. The funhouse existed in his head and the Fiend was a mask where the doctors put all his pain and anger and hate. So long as he didn’t wear the mask he’d be a good guy. He tricked them into releasing him, and was secretly still a schizo that talked to puppets, imagined himself inside a funhouse and wore a mask as an excuse to hurt people without it being “him” that did it.
Bray tried at first to show it was all in his head. The puppets were on RAW as lifeless toys that didn’t move or speak when other wrestlers interacted with them unless Bray was around where he could “speak” for them.
He was meant to be like Mankind instead of Kane. But the Funhouse made too much merch so it became a real place. Vince got a boner for red lights and no selling and the Fiend became a demon. Originally the gimmick would be he’d eat his first loss when the mask was pulled off. Ramblin’ revealed it several times. Then Bray would cut a promo saying the Fiend was him all along and he’d get his heat back but be more beatable.
So yes, Vince ruined The Fiend.
