Former WWE Universal Champion, WrestleMania headliner, and legitimately gigantic human being Braun Strowman was released from the WWE on June 2nd, 2021.
He wasn’t the only wrestler the company released that day, but he was the most well-known and maybe the most controversial. Last March, with indie wrestling promotions rapidly cancelling shows with no clue when or if they’d ever re-open, Strowman callously tweeted that wrestlers seeking fan support through GoFundMe pages should change professions, defending his words by bringing up his own pathway to a WWE contract, forgetting that, aside from being blessed with absurd genetics that brought him to the attention of WWE scouts before he’d received even a day of training, he also wasn’t up against a global pandemic. It was a bad look for a guy that many fans believe didn’t pay his dues.
This isn’t really true, though. Strowman may not have spent years in a New Japan dojo or logged thousands of miles on the indie circuit, but he wasn’t plucked out of high school and handed a World Title either. In fact, his actual list of WWE championships is shockingly low in an era where there are close to a dozen different championships, with most changing hands fairly regularly.
Strowman spent his early 20s trying to make it in football before finding success in Strongman competitions, winning the Arnold Amateur Championship in 2012. His accomplishments in strength sports put him on the WWE’s radar but his success in pro wrestling was never guaranteed. The WWE has hired (and fired) plenty of “should’ve-beens” over the years - from the Giant Gonzalez to Nathan Jones to all sorts of bodybuilders, mixed martial artists, and second generation prospects.
Strowman might have had the most inborn potential of any top recruit in company history, though. He may not have had the height of a Nathan Jones or Gonzalez, he was bigger, younger, more moldable, and American. His lack of training could be fixed in the WWE’s state-of-the-art developmental system. His lack of experience meant McMahon needn’t worry about Strowman playing hardball in negotiations or weighing too many other options. By Strowman’s own admission, he didn’t really have all that many other options anyway. Winning Strongmen competitions isn’t as lucrative as one might think.
And so Braun Strowman went to work for the WWE in 2013, spending roughly 2 years hidden in the background of NXT lest in-the-know fans spoil what was likely to be a huge reaction to his debut. According to Strowman, this is when his dues were paid as the 6’8’’ Monster with the “can’t miss look” was constantly challenged to prove his devotion to the business.
In the summer of 2015, Strowman debuted as part of the Wyatt Family, an interesting spot in light of the fact that the stable already featured two massive wrestlers in Erick Rowan and Luke Harper (not to mention the team’s leader, Bray Wyatt, 6’3 and over 300 pounds at the time). 5 months later, Strowman had an impressive showing at the 2016 Royal Rumble before getting eliminated by Brock Lesnar, McMahon planting seeds for a future rivalry.
Over the next year, Strowman would be split off from the Wyatt Family and given a solid singles run on RAW. His feud with Sami Zayn deftly played up the idea that Strowman was a “McMahon pet project,” undeserving of his roster spot compared to Zayn, the brave underdog and beloved indie darling.
While Strowman dominated the feud in terms of win/loss records, Zayn benefited from being positioned as an undersized competitor willing to do battle with a man of Braun’s, err, brawn. As much as his detractors may have ignored it, through 2016 and well into 2017, Strowman routinely played the dummy, falling prey to count-outs and disqualifications and the pesky rules of Dumpster matches and Beat the Clock challenges. Strowman was booked strong, for sure, but not unbeatable.
Most wrestling critics gave Strowman mixed reviews in what was essentially his rookie year. On one hand, no one could ever confuse his technical prowess for Daniel Bryan’s nor could his bumping and selling ever be described as Hennig-esque, but compared to what other big men like Mark Henry or Kevin Nash were doing as greenhorns, Strowman showed tremendous promise. And if his moveset was limited, why would a man with Strowman’s might need to do much more than clobber and powerslam a Sin Cara or Curtis Axel?
Around this time, Strowman appeared on Steve Austin’s not-yet-WWE-produced Broken Skull podcast. He came off as well-spoken, motivated, funny, and humble. He admitted to being a wrestling fan mostly during the Attitude Era, when wrestling was at arguably its mainstream peak. Of course, being “only” an Attitude Era fan is the type of statement that doesn’t sit well with the more passionate wrestling fans of the internet, the ones who believe the best wrestlers must be lifelong “students of the game” with deep knowledge of not only the WWE and WCW, but All Japan, New Japan, lucha libre, and the territories of the 70s. For those fans, Strowman would always be Vince McMahon’s hand-picked future star and with that came an automatic resentment. This is nothing new. When Sheamus was first getting pushed in the company, reports leaked that he was training with Triple H and the association made him the target of a backlash too. Still, in his talk with Austin, Braun came off as hard-working and dedicated and Austin’s enthusiasm for him came across as almost a full endorsement.
In the build-up to WrestleMania XXXIII, Strowman began his long-running rivalry with Roman Reigns, suffering his first pinfall loss to The Big Dog at March’s Fastlane pay-per-view. The loss was widely criticized as a not-so-subtle attempt to get Reigns’ babyface act over after a year of mixed reactions. Unfortunately, short-sighted booking led to Braun, who should’ve been practically unbeatable in battle royals, coming up short at the annual Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal too. As would plague him his entire career, unflattering comparisons to Big Show and Mark Henry reared their heads. Strowman had become another “Unstoppable Giant” who seemed to get stopped all the time.
As 2017 progressed, Strowman was reheated, to the point that he became one of the most over talents on the roster. He fought in the main event of SummerSlam and then, in his biggest singles match to date, against Brock Lesnar for the WWE Universal Championship at September’s No Mercy pay-per-view. In my Kwang The Blog review of the show, I wrote:
“...there's something to be said for striking when the iron is hot and the iron may never be hotter for Strowman than right now…[Losing] so decisively after a single F5 certainly didn't help Strowman's credibility and it will take some work to rebuild him to make him a reasonable [challenger] for Lesnar in the future.”
I heaped further praise onto Strowman, closing my review by calling him “one of RAW’s most consistently entertaining performers.” I was not alone in my assessment either as Strowman, like many monster heels before him, was slowly morphing into a babyface, winning over live crowds without making any major changes to his character. Like watching Godzilla destroy skyscrapers, more and more fans were excited to see what wreckage Strowman would cause each week.
Critically, his matches against Roman Reigns at the Great Balls of Fire and Payback shows were very well-received, the former earning a respectable 3.75 stars in Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer and the latter a better-than-average 3.25. As Meltzer has a reputation for favoring matches with high workrates, complex sequences, and innovative moves over “sports-entertainment” matches that often rely on set pieces and eschew any sense of realism, the fact that he would rate these matches so highly could be read as a tacit admittance that what Braun brought to the table may not be good wrestling, but it was still good fun. And, truthfully, what could be funner than one wrestler loading his opponent into an ambulance and then driving into another huge truck at top speed?
At the 2018 Royal Rumble, Strowman again challenged Brock Lesnar for the WWE Universal Championship (with Kane thrown into the mix in a triple threat match), but few expected him to capture the title. It was here that Strowman and Lesnar would have their most notorious altercation, though, as Strowman caught Lesnar in the head with a stiff knee (more like an upper thigh) and Lesnar retaliated with a devastating combo of un-pulled punches.
The internet buzzed with gossip about the incident, many fans assuming that Strowman’s off-the-mark knee, accidental or not, was going to cost him any chance of ever getting a victory over The Beast. While the cause-and-effect theorizing may not be wholly accurate, the next and final time Lesnar and Strowman did battle, at the notorious Crown Jewel PPV for the vacant Universal Championship later in the year, Lesnar left with the title.
But between the Rumble and that match, Strowman’s on-screen character would go through a 180, the one-time merciless behemoth becoming a full-fledged fan favorite. At WrestleMania XXIV, he won the RAW Tag Team Championships with a 10 year-old boy as his teammate. This was character softening to a level that even Hulk Hogan and John Cena, at the peak of their crowd-pleasing cloyish character arcs, never reached. The angle was almost universally panned.
On his podcast, for example, Steve Austin not only voiced the displeasure that many fans felt in seeing an excellent tag team in Sheamus and Cesaro drop the titles to a singles wrestler and a prepubescent, but also alluded to unease about Strowman losing the “brutal force killer” edge of his persona. The traits that had made Strowman “must see” were being whittled away with each cutesy segment he was forced to smile through.
As ill-fitting as his new babyface act may have been, though, the shift led to the biggest victories of his career. In April, at The Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia, Strowman bested Reigns’ Royal Rumble elimination record by tossing 13 fellow combatants on his way to victory. In June, he won the Men’s Money in the Bank Briefcase, granting him a title shot whenever he pleased.
As big as these wins were, Strowman’s momentum continued to be halted at random times. He suffered televised losses to Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal and, at October’s Hell in a Cell, lost again to then-Universal Champion Roman Reigns. While few of these losses were clean, the message being sent was that Strowman remained unable to win “the big one.” After the aforementioned loss to Lesnar at Crown Jewel, Strowman moved onto an unremarkable but lengthy feud with Baron Corbin that was broken up by a month-long stretch to nurse an elbow injury.
In 2019, Strowman won the Andre the Giant Battle at WrestleMania XXXV, a feat that could’ve put him back on the path towards the main event but has never been used as such. Strowman soon moved onto a series of matches with Bobby Lashley, a “can’t miss” prospect who, after a strong push in the mid-00s to late 00s, left the WWE, and returned only to spend even more years in upper midcard purgatory before finally winning his first major World Championship - a whopping 16 years after his debut.
While the feud with Lashley didn’t really raise his profile, it at least allowed him - and Lashley- to put on matches that played to both their (literal) strengths. These were not mat classics, but they worked at re-establishing what both guys brought to the table.
After being left off the SummerSlam 2019 card, Strowman challenged Seth Rollins for the Universal Championship at September’s Clash of the Champions show. Somewhat surprisingly, by the end of the bout, Strowman had most of the Chicago crowd behind him. Unfortunately, any momentum he may have had coming out of the match was thwarted by its finish (which saw “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt attack Rollins, signaling that their program would be at the top of the card for the next few months). Strowman’s connection to the live crowd, despite how often he was “cooled off,” would be somewhat of a recurring theme. Months later, at the 2019 Survivor Series, his elimination from a Team RAW/Team SmackDown/Team NXT match drew one of the loudest negative reactions of the night.
In the fall of 2019, Strowman was featured prominently in a feud with Tyson Fury, the world-renowned boxer who had made an attention-grabbing appearance on the inaugural episode of SmackDown on FOX. The image of Fury, who stands 6’9’’ and close to 300 pounds, squaring off against Strowman from that show and, days later, of the two in a pull-apart brawl from Raw, made headlines across the mainstream sports world.
Unfortunately, the match - a co-main event along with Lesnar taking on UFC rival Cain Velasquez - happened to occur at the most notorious event on the WWE’s yearly calendar, Crown Jewel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When the WWE started holding events in Saudi Arabia in 2014, these house shows generally flew under the radar of wrestling writers and political pundits. In 2018, though, starting with The Greatest Royal Rumble, the shows took on a grandiosity that surpassed even WrestleMania and were much more heavily promoted on the WWE’s TV shows. The added attention brought with it considerable scorn due to the country’s history of human rights violations, harsh punishment of homosexuals, and lack of equal treatment for women. After the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi, not just wrestling fans were criticizing the McMahon’s dealings with Saudi Royal Family either. Politicians, including Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, voiced their disapproval too.
While names like John Cena, Kevin Owens, and Daniel Bryan refused to participate, Strowman continued to prove his willingness to do whatever the company asked of him, from tagging with a pre-teen to taking a countout loss to Fury in a publicity stunt match that drew nothing but negative publicity.
In January 2020, Strowman would finally win his first major singles championship, taking the Intercontinental Championship from Shinsuke Nakamura on an episode of SmackDown. For the typical wrestler with just 5 years experience, such a win could be seen as a huge milestone. For Strowman, though, it felt like a step down, a title that he should’ve been above contending for.
Strowman’s run with the title was short-lived. Just a month or so after capturing the title he dropped it to not one but three wrestlers - Cesaro, Sami Zayn, and Nakamura - in a handicap match at the Elimination Chamber event. In my blog I wrote, “Strowman…showed he still has some presence and ability to draw in the live crowd - not by hamming it up or being goofy, but by using his power and playing his role (the angry monster) in a believable way.” Again, Strowman’s biggest flaw seemed to be the lack of direction for his character.
When Roman Reigns left the WWE in March of 2020 due to concerns regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, Strowman was quickly slotted in to challenge Goldberg for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania XXXVI. There would win his first and only Universal Championship, but it was hardly a crowning moment. There was no live crowd. There was barely any real storyline build-up for the match. Goldberg looked every bit his 53 years of age. The match was nothing more than spears, a failed Jackhammer attempt, and then Strowman delivering a series of powerslams. I described the match as “absolute shit” in my review of the show.
Through the spring and summer of 2020, Strowman feuded with his former mentor, Bray Wyatt, leading to a cinematic Swamp Fight at July’s Extreme Rules: The Horror Show event. Filmed like a cheap mid-00s slasher flick, the “match” was noticeably less fun than the acid trippy Firefly Funhouse and the outrageous Graveyard matches from WrestleMania. Strowman would drop the Universal Championship to Wyatt at SummerSlam, falling prey to a chokeslam and a pair of Sister Abigails on the exposed boards of the ring.
After losing a triple threat for the title involving Roman Reigns at Payback, Strowman was featured on the short-lived RAW Underground experiment. Like everyone else showcased on this “show-within-a-show,” it didn’t lead anywhere. Strowman would be kayfabe “suspended” at the end of the year for attacking RAW Authority Figure Adam Pearce in a prelude to his eventual and wholly unremarkable feud with Shane McMahon in the build to WrestleMania XXXVII.
Which brings us to Strowman’s unceremonious release this past week. Looking at his career as a whole, despite headlining a WrestleMania, multiple SummerSlams, and several other major events, it still seems like a case of unreached potential. There is an adage among modern wrestling fans that says Vince McMahon wouldn’t know what to do with Andre the Giant if he walked into the company today. With his handling of Braun, this may now be proven as fact.
This still doesn’t answer the question of why Strowman was released, though. While his contract may have been expensive, we’re still talking about a one-of-a-kind talent, one of the last remaining true big men in wrestling. Weight issues and injuries never really plagued him. He was a “company man,” willing to trust in McMahon’s vision at the expense of his own brand and credibility.
Most disheartening, though, is that this faith in McMahon’s support seemed to go beyond business. In a WWE-produced documentary released in late 2020, Strowman described dealing with depression and insecurity. While he would later talk about some of these statements, emphasizing that the depression was caused by tumult in his personal life rather than anything he was going through at work, his words in the documentary suggest the multiple start-and-stop pushes he’d received over caused him serious anxiety. He concludes that having man-to-man discussions with Vince helped assuage his fears, but in hindsight, McMahon’s reassuring words about having Braun around “for the long haul” proved to be nothing more than lip service.
As of this writing, Braun Strowman’s future remains unknown. Some have posited, based on comments Braun has made over the years, that he is not interested in working anywhere but the WWE. Of course, Chris Jericho said the same thing for years. These are the kind of statements people make when they assume they have a job for as long as they want it. The WWE is a family after all...until the family remembers it’s really a business.
Should Strowman choose to continue his career outside the WWE, the independent wrestling scene, as well as the international market, is as strong as it could possibly be following a global pandemic. The man who scouted Strowman, Mark Henry, was recently signed by AEW and, it goes without saying, Strowman remains every bit as physically imposing now in 2021 as he was seven years ago. If he were to go to AEW, for example, he would dwarf every one of the resident “big men” there, from Wardlow to Hobbs to Luchasaurus. His name value shouldn’t be underestimated either. Strowman was as close to being a top star as the WWE has produced this decade, but close to being a top star is as far as they wanted him to go. Even a giant can be kept under a ceiling.
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