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WWE
The trail of clues and mystique via QR codes on WWE programming forged forward on "WWE SmackDown," with simpler content behind it than "Raw's" 20 pictures to sift through and a far shorter duration than Thursday's 55-minute takeover of WWE's Twitch stream. But Friday's reveal may have contained the spookiest breadcrumbs dropped yet.
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This time it was more straight to the point, at least in the propped up landing page content itself. There was no optical illusion to solve to get there; no step-by-step, one-little-clue-at-a-time journey upon which to embark. Instead, the QR code that flashed during the tag team match between DIY and Legado del Fantasma led straight to a video wrought with the glitches with which we've become so familiar, flickering on and off through an image of a picture of a child in a Halloween-style costume getup, laid upon several drawings of the glyph of Pluto we've seen time and again. The audio in the clip says first, in a robotic voice, "He is nobody. He is all of us," over and over again as it zooms in on the picture until it gets so close it goes out of focus. At that point, with the screen black, the voice asks, "Do you want to meet him?" before the video cuts to a black-and-white, grainy image of a hooded and/or masked figure staring back us.
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But in digging past just the video itself, as has become customary in this saga, there was more to decipher.
Can you keep a secret?
WWE
The slug in the landing page is 22423, which refers to February 24, 2023 — the date of Bray Wyatt's last appearance on WWE television, in a Firefly Fun House episode that also featured Uncle Howdy as the weatherman in a broadcast of "Fun House News." When Wyatt and Ramblin' Rabbit cut to Howdy, all he says is, "I am all of us." The segment then ends with Wyatt promoting a game show called, "Can You Keep a Secret?" before it cuts to Wyatt in a black mask, asking, "If I told you a story, could you keep a secret?"
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Meanwhile, images that flickered ever-so-briefly during the glitches in Friday's video itself included a wooded area, an old promo from Waylon Mercy (a character portrayed in WWE by Dan Spivey in 1995 from whom Windham Rotunda drew inspiration for his Wyatt character, and whose name Joe Gacy, another name rumored to be a part of this eventual faction reveal, has invoked in the past as well), a woman looking terrified and/or tortured, what fans have suggested was a figure that looked like Uncle Howdy in the crowd at Monday's "Raw" during a commercial break, and what looked to be the door from which Wyatt emerged at his 2022 Extreme Rules return, slightly opened, with light shining through.
Once again, as was the case on Monday, the announce team acknowledged the interruption, with Corey Graves and Wade Barrett remarking on the recurrence of these instances, seemingly indicating that the ultimate reveal could very well be imminent.
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