Despite the popularity of The Fiend and his inability to be stopped, WWE has decided not to have him defend his championship at TLC. In fact, he won't be wrestling at all despite the fact his alter-ego has taken aim at and challenged The Miz.

I know, that sounds confusing, right? Instead of The Fiend wrestling The Miz at TLC next Sunday, Bray Wyatt will be stepping inside the ring for the first time since his new Firefly Funhouse character debuted and will be wrestling a non-title match.

So, The Fiend is out, Wyatt is in.

WWE announced on Friday's SmackDown that The Miz vs. Wyatt will take place at TLC and based on the photo WWE used to promote the match, The Fiend won't be anywhere near the event. Wyatt will be wrestling as himself.

On Friday's show, Wyatt attacked another wrestler for the first time since returning to WWE. He provoked The Miz by threatening to infiltrate his family dynamic and when The Miz hunted for Wyatt backstage, The A-Lister was ambushed by Wyatt who was waiting in the dark.

While it was believed that the original plan was for The Fiend to have a rematch with Daniel Bryan, The Miz opened SmackDown to say that Bryan has virtually disappeared since The Fiend dragged him under the ring to close last week's show. The change was made to move to a Fiend vs Miz program and it seems as though The Fiend has been taken out of the equation altogether.

Is Wyatt As Strong As The Fiend?

It's easy to forget that since the debut of the Firefly Funhouse version of the Wyatt character, he's never stepped into a WWE ring. He's only done backstage video segments and WWE hasn't remotely teased the idea of him wrestling.

It looks like The Miz is the lucky first opponent and it will be interesting to see if Wyatt has the same strength The Fiend does. If this is non-title match, there is a chance he actually loses.

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