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When Wyatt Sicks finally debuted in WWE this summer, they left a trail of destruction in their wake in a horror movie come to life.
As that episode of Monday Night Raw came to a close, fans saw the Gorilla Position – essentially WWE’s production hub for their TV shows – torn to pieces, with Uncle Howdy and more of Bray Wyatt’s sinister creations leaving crew members lying with monitors smashed all around.
Jason Baker, a practical effects guru at Collosum Studios who helped close friend and late wrestling icon Wyatt – who died unexpectedly aged 36 a year ago – bring so many of his creations to life, exclusively told Metro.co.uk how the terrifying scenes came together.
‘Let me think of the best way to say this without getting in trouble,’ he laughed, admitting that the short answer is, ‘it was amazing’ being part of a night where WWE was ‘firing on all cylinders.
‘We had that whole thing set up in like, 15 minutes,’ he recalled. ‘Paul [Levesque, Triple H] came in earlier that day and was like, “This is what we should do.” And everybody was like, “Yes, sir, we’re going to do it and it”.
‘The fraction of error is so – when you actually step back and think about it, that is insane, to do that long of a tracking shot with so many variables and so many people and so many things, and do it live in one take.’
Baker insisted Triple H showed ‘faith’ in the talent and crew to be trusted to take apart WWE’s ‘control centre’ and turn it into the spectacle fans saw on screen.
‘We all know that he has that faith in us. So by proxy, everybody wants to do the best job that they can humanly possible, because having a boss that actually cares about you,’ he said. ‘You want to return that tenfold.’
So much could have gone wrong, with ‘bodies on the floor’, rubble for wrestlers and cameramen to bump into or trip over.
It was an emotional experience for everyone involved, as it acted as a tribute to Wyatt, real name Windham Rotunda.
Baker misses having his best friend around to exchange memes and talk about movies like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but it’s been ‘amazing’ seeing his brother Bo Dallas (Taylor Rotunda) take his role as Uncle Howdy to a new level.
He thinks Bo is doing ‘some of the best work’ of his entire career, while having Wyatt Family member Erick Rowan – another of Baker’s ‘dearest friends’ – back in the fold has been special.
‘Nikki [Cross] is another one who is just so, so smart to the business. She’s so creative and energetic. Anything she does, she puts 125% behind,’ he said, while he’s been talking to Dexter Lumus and Joe Gacy aboure collaborating ‘for years’.
‘When all of this kind of came about. It was little, almost like serendipitous, in a way,’ he smiled, while noting he isn’t sure ‘exactly’ how much of this mirrors Wyatt’s open plans before his death.
It’s been a ‘huge collaboration’ between the Wyatt Sicks themselves, Triple H, the writing team, Rob Fee and more, with plenty of Easter eggs hidden in the outfit as nods to Wyatt himself.
‘But I’m not going to tell you,’ Baker chuckled. ‘There’s a few that nobody’s caught yet.’
Wyatt himself was known for putting a lot of hidden details into everything he did, and everyone involved in this group wants to ‘do right by Windham’ and his ‘legacy’.
It’s also been important to let this be a ‘jumping off point’ for the wrestlers involved to ‘take the ball and run with it and make it their own’.
That’s not to say Wyatt’s influence isn’t still being felt, as Baker, Bo and others have noticed how despite being ‘gone for over a year’, he’s ‘still getting one over on us’.
He explained: ‘Windham gave you one piece of the puzzle, Bo and Rob and some other guys other pieces of the puzzle. So now, everybody comes together to figure out what he wanted.’
A perfect example is the jacket Bo wears now as Uncle Howdy, which Wyatt bought him to wear, while buying a similar one – also in the style of The Fiend – which was used for a tribute statue to Wyatt at WWE World earlier this year.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5Qb9ofOEZO
‘If you look at the what we did with The Fiend and then the jacket that Uncle Howdy’s wearing, obviously Windham had some plans going on in his head that he didn’t let us in on,’ Baker said.
Wyatt’s mother told Baker his friend had been ‘wearing it around the house’, without letting anyone know how it all pieced together.
There were a lot of sides to Wyatt – and the real man, Windham Rotunda – which was shown artistically when, months after his death, it emerged he’d recorded a voice role for Disney’s latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid film.
‘He was so excited about that,’ Baker said. ‘I remember him telling me, “I’m doing a Disney movie, and I got some other stuff I’m working on!” ‘
He added: ‘I know him and his agent were working on a bunch of stuff, trying to get everything going and just start slowly branch out of WWE.’
Baker and Fee, who is heavily involved in WWE’s creative team, were working on a horror film with Wyatt before his WWE return in 2022, but it was shelved and ‘it feels in bad taste’ to make it without him.
There’s also the sense that the late star would be irreplaceable, given how much fun Baker had teaming up with him on their various projects.
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‘It never felt like work, it was just two big kids goofing off,’ he smiled. ‘Coming up with whatever weird thing we could possibly think of.’
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