Bray Wyatt passes away, leaving WWE fraternity shocked; cause of death reported

Bray Wyatt, a professional wrestler and former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) champion has passed away, the company announced on Friday.

Triple H, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time and the current Chief Content Officer for the WWE, broke the news on social media, leaving the WWE fraternity devastated.

"Just received a call from WWE Hall of Famer Mike Rotunda who informed us of the tragic news that our WWE family member for life Windham Rotunda - also known as Bray Wyatt - unexpectedly passed earlier today. Our thoughts are with his family and we ask that everyone respect their privacy at this time," Triple H wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.

Wyatt, whose real name was Windham Rotunda, made his WWE debut in 2009 and was associated with the company until 2021, when he was released. The former two-time Universal champion returned to the WWE Company a year later at the Extreme Rules premium live event, where he began performing an intricate storyline involving a character called Uncle Howdy (portrayed by his brother, former WWE star Bo Dallas) and Alexa Bliss.

However, following Wyatt's match with LA Knight at Royal Rumble earlier this year, the story was supposedly postponed. Afterwards, Wyatt began a feud with Bobby Lashley prior to WrestleMania 39. Unfortunately, this story was removed later on because he was not medically cleared. It was due to an undisclosed illness, which was later revealed to have threatened both his career and his life. Just earlier this month, there were reports that Wyatt's recovery was moving in the right direction.

While the exact nature of Wyatt's illness was not previously revealed, after his death, it has been discovered that the 36-year-old wrestler contracted COVID-19 earlier this year, which aggravated his heart issues, according to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful. He even confirmed that there had been positive progress towards Wyatt's recovery and even a possible return to wrestling in WWE. Unfortunately, the WWE star suffered a heart attack and passed away on Friday.

One of the closest WWE stars to Wyatt was Braun Strowman, who put up an emotional tribute for the late wrestler. Strowman took to X and posted a heartbreaking picture featuring Knash, Wyatt's son and Strowman's godson. The picture also featured Wyatt's daughter.

Strowman and Wyatt were very close in real life, even outside their careers at WWE.

The WWE Company is now trying to help the Wyatt family in every way by donating the proceeds of all of his merchandise sales to them.