Erick Redbeard, formerly known as Erick Rowan, will go down in history as one of the members of The Wyatt Family.
The group, which also featured Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper (also known as Brodie Lee), and eventually Braun Strowman, was unforgettable for its creepy presentation, and Rowan’s look was the most frightening of them all. He often wore a disturbing sheep mask on TV, and this element of his wardrobe remains one of the lasting images of the stable’s WWE run.
In an interview with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, the former WWE star looked back on the origins of his sheep mask and described how, at first, he tried out several different gimmicks. He joked about how he tested a Viking persona, but others told him it would never work. After Rowan pointed out the ironic success of the Viking Raiders, he described how he then tested out several different types of masks, though NXT higher-up didn’t even want him to cover his face at the time.
I was doing all these different gimmicks, and I tried a Viking gimmick,” said Rowan. “I was told that would never make any money, which is funny three or four years later, there’s the Viking Raiders and they’re great. So I tried all these different things, and I did all these promos with Windham and Jon.
“Windham went to a Halloween shop and got all these masks—and one was a sheep mask. I tried all the masks on promo day, and I tried all these different mannerisms and characteristics. But back then, Dusty Rhodes didn’t want me to cover up my face. He said I was ugly enough without the mask [laughing], meaning I had a unique face.”
Rowan then specifically recalled the night of the group’s debut in NXT and how he didn’t want to wear jears because he didn’t want to wear the same thing as Harper. In a lucky coincidence, he had a jumpsuit in his trunk, and his attire, which became his iconic costume, and the mask were two “funny coincidences.”
“Fast-forward, I debuted with the Wyatts in NXT,” said Rowan. “No one told me I was debuting that night at Full Sail. I had blue jeans, but I didn’t want to do that because that’s what Jon was wearing and I didn’t want to wear trunks, but I was lucky to have that jumpsuit in my trunk. It’s funny how things come together. When we filmed our Wyatt Family vignette, I decided to bring all those masks. So it just happened to be a series of funny coincidences.”
Throughout their time in the group, Rowan became close friends with Lee after some initial tension. When asked whether they clicked in one specific moment, Rowan noted that he and Lee bonded by telling each other jokes, though he admitted that his stablemate often got the better of him. He also made it clear that he still misses his friend, who passed away in 2020.
“It was one of those things where the ice broke, and we both let our guards down,” said Rowan. “He was a really funny guy. I tried to be funny, too, but I ended up throwing a lot of foul balls. For every 50 jokes, maybe I’d get him to laugh at one. There was no one like him. Not a day goes by I don’t think about him.”
The Wyatt Family will partially reunite at Northeast Wrestling’s Wrestlefest XXVI; Redbeard and Adam Scherr (Strowman) will face Billy Ray and nZo.
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