Jordan Huie of the Overtimer here, just about wrapping up this mini-series! I’ve been looking at ten favorites for both the men and the women’s sides, heading into this year’s edition of the Royal Rumble! We’re hours away from the big show here, ladies and gentlemen! One of the most significant days of any pro wrestling fan’s year! And the last two names were not people that I chose, but rather, names that the readers got to vote on! For the men’s side, the pick was none other than the Monster Among Men, Braun Strowman!
And really, that just makes sense when you think about it. I mean, c’mon. Who’s gonna throw Braun Strowman over the top rope?!
Braun Strowman – Relevant Stats
- WWE Debut: 2015 (Debuted in NXT in 2014)
- First Rumble appearance: 2016
- He won the Greatest Royal Rumble match in 2018.
- This will be his fifth Rumble appearance. (Includes Greatest Royal Rumble.)
- He has amassed thirty total eliminations.
- He has never been world champion.
- Current betting odds: +1600
How 2019 Went For Braun Strowman:
The big man sure started the year off in a big way. At last year’s Royal Rumble event, he eliminated six men and was actually the last man eliminated himself. Ultimately, Seth Rollins was able to oust him to take the victory however. Afterwards, Braun proceeded to finish off his feud with Baron Corbin. He lost to him in a No DQ match at Elimination Chamber, only to trounce him in a Tables match on Raw. With that out of the way, Braun went on to continue his annual tradition of partaking in goofy nonsense at WrestleMania. A year after he won the tag team titles alongside an actual 10 year old boy who he’d pulled from the audience, Strowman went into WrestleMania 35 feuding with Michael Che and Colin Jost who, I’m told, are famous celebrities.
This of course led to him eliminating the both of them en route to winning the *cough, cough* prestigious Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. That name seems more and more disrespectful with each passing year… but regardless. This was followed by Braun destroying Sami Zayn in a mini-feud. And since Sami couldn’t go to Saudi Arabia, he moved onto Bobby Lashely instead. He was fairly dominant in this feud as well, ultimately beating Lashley in what was surprisingly a pretty damn good Last Man Standing match at Extreme Rules.
Strowman then went after Seth Rollins’ Universal Championship, and this of course included the two of them winning the Raw tag titles for reasons.
Braun then impressively lost these titles and also failed to win the Universal title on the same night. Braun was repeatedly attacked by the Fiend around this time, but never wrestled him on television. The Draft sent the big man to SmackDown where he feuded with Tyson Fury who, I’m told, is a famous boxer. He defeated him at Crown Jewel, then teased a team up with him which never materialized. Strowman went on to be part of the winning Team SmackDown at Survivor Series. After this, he began pursuing Shinsuke Nakamura’s Intercontinental title, which he still has yet to get these hands on.
So where does that put his chances?
I’ve always been an advocate of Braun. He’s one of my favorite all-time monsters actually. He’s big and imposing and menacing, yet fun at the same time. Few people in wrestling today are as much like an oldschool cartoon as him. He’s even got the athleticism to hang with the other modern day big men. It’s no wonder then that he’s such a hit with every crowd he goes in front of. Braun’s just a really easy one to get with. That he’s never been world champion is perplexing to me. I’d love it to happen one day, and with the field so open… maybe it is the time that he up and wins the Royal Rumble.
I mean, it’d be weird, to go from challenging for the IC title for months and never getting a shot to then win the Rumble. But what do I know? Maybe he intends to unify the IC and Universal titles. It’s not particularly likely because they seem to have him pigeonholed as something of an attraction rather than a champion. Same thing that used to apply to guys like Andre the Giant. I’d still like to see it happen some day though.
What would his story be?
Monster Mash battle with the Fiend. That’s really the only way this one could go. He’s gone after Brock a number of times and it’s always destroyed his momentum. And he just got drafted to SmackDown so I don’t see him moving right back to Raw regardless. Braun certainly ain’t going after Daniel Bryan. The idea would definitely be to settle the score with the Fiend and to be fair, that would be a ways in the making. Plenty of history to play off of too, which Bray would surely remember…
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