Braun Strowman (Picture: WWE)

Braun Strowman has been WWE’s biggest breakthrough star in 2017, and has become a main event star on Monday Night Raw.

The former strongman has competed against the likes of Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns in significant matches this year, and also features in WWE 2K18.

Strowman spoke to Metro.co.uk about his incredible year in WWE, his relationship with Roman Reigns, and just how big his hands are…

Hi Braun. It’s been a huge 2017 for you in WWE. How do you feel looking back at the year you’ve had?


Everything is so fresh in WWE it’s hard to take it all in sometimes. I get moments when I’m riding the road late at night and I get to reflect on my thoughts a little bit. Man, it really is crazy to see how far I’ve come in literally two years.



It blew my mind thinking about Summerslam this year, being part of the main event there almost two years to the day I debuted on Raw in the same building. When I made that debut it was only the eighth time I’d wrestled in front of people.

Two years later, main eventing Summerslam with three of the greatest talents on the face of the earth in front of a sold out crowd in New York. It’s crazy to think about still.

Many people were sceptical of you when you first started in WWE, believing you to be nothing more than a flash in the pan. Did that motivate you?

Oh, without a doubt. I am a firm fan of shutting naysayers up, I’ve done it my whole life. People have doubted my abilities through different phases, and time after time I’ve made them put their feet in their mouth.

I’m going to continue to do that, and all the people that doubted me and hated me for coming in with no experience and who called me a flop, all those same people are now praising me and loving me.

It’s great, I’m happy that I was able to turn those heads and open their eyes. Sometimes it doesn’t take spending 15 years wrestling all over in little venues, sometimes it just takes listening and working hard and having a good mindset. Everything I do in life, I try to be the best at.

What’s the point of competing for second place in anything? If you can’t be the best, then why do it?

Do you have any preference between wrestling as a fan favourite or as a villain?

I like working as a bad guy, and I don’t plan on changing the way that I work if they want me to be a good guy.

I’m Braun Strowman, you can’t put me in a category with anyone. I’m my own entity, there’s nobody else like me, so I’m going to continue going out there to be Braun. I’m no good guy or bad guy, I’m Braun.



You’ve wrestled a number of people since you made your WWE debut. Has anyone really helped you learn inside the ring?

I can say that about every single person I’ve stepped in the ring with since I debuted on Raw. I’m the least experienced wrestler on the roster, so to be able to go out and work with these guys that have traveled around the world and been doing it for a long time is great.

Just picking little things here and there that I need to critique in my game, listening to them has been rewarding. I don’t listen to everything though, everything isn’t for everybody. There’s different flavours of ice cream, but at the end of the day, we’re all eating ice cream.

If I had to pick who I’ve learnt the most from, it’d be Big Show and Roman Reigns.

How is your relationship with Roman Reigns?

Roman and I are very similar in a lot of aspects regarding our work ethic and outlook on life. That’s been one of the reasons why we have such great chemistry and been able to go and do the things that we do.

I fully trust Roman, he’s never once steered me astray or suggested anything stupid for me to do that would make himself look better. He’s a team player, he’s here to make the product better. A lot of guys get caught up in what everyone thinks about them instead of what everyone thinks about the match.

Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman (Picture: WWE)

At the end of the day, the match is what the people come to see. People have their favourite characters, but the characters are just characters until the match happens.


Roman has been a big help in steering me the right way, and when I do something that isn’t good, he’s right there to let me know that I did something that sucks.

That’s the cool thing about the locker room right now, everyone is trying to make the product better.

Do you have a preference between wrestling bigger or smaller guys?

I like getting in the ring and being Braun, and I like to think that there’s not anybody on the roster that I can’t go out and have a good match with at this point.

Maybe on their end, but I know what I do well, and I know what I don’t do well. I try to stick to doing things that I know how to do, and things that people are accustomed to seeing me do.

Every once in a while I’ll throw that curveball in there, and make people go holy crap, how did he just do that?

It’s meat and potatoes, I don’t have a huge moveset, I’m not going to come out and do a Spanish Fly and all this flipping and flying around. Can I? Yes, but I’m not gonna. It doesn’t make any sense.

I do clobbering, and I think I do a pretty good job of it.

Is there anyone in WWE you’d really like to have a match with?

AJ Styles is definitely someone I’d like to get in and have a singles match with. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot of guys I haven’t worked with yet.


How do you feel your interviews are progressing? Are you confident on the microphone?

They’ve done a really good job with keeping everything kinda short and sweet. I’m not nervous about having to go out there and do lengthy promos, but my character is more of a less talk more action kinda guy.

The shorter promos they have me do are effective because I back everything up that I say. I don’t say much, so it doesn’t take much to back it up. That’s been the whole thing, less talking and more action with Braun, and it’s seeming to work.

You’ve been involved in some crazy stunts this year, from flipping ambulances to all sorts of destruction. What’s the process for coming up with these moments?

Some of the big crazy spots happen when I get there and they tell me this is what we’re going to do tonight. But a lot of it is a team effort. We sit down with the producers, my opponent, Vince comes out, there’s a lot of minds involved in doing these kind of things.

That’s why they’ve come off so well this year, because it’s not just a one sided idea that someone has, it’s a collaboration of great minds that have been doing this stuff for a long time.

We have an unbelievable stunts and special effects crew. Everyone has their input. At the end of the day, a lot of it is Vince, he is very hands on with me and has taken me on as his project.

He has some crazy ideas and I’ve never once questioned anything that Vince has wanted me to do, because I know he wouldn’t ask me to do something he wouldn’t do himself.

You must be a dream for someone like Vince McMahon? Tall, strong, agile and with a distinct look?

Vince is very keen on the larger than life human beings, especially because of the shock and awe value. Even before I was a WWE Superstar, when I walk into a room I don’t care who is in there, I take focal point. People stop what they’re doing to look at me when I walk in, and now they can put a name to it.

That’s been a huge factor in WWE since the beginning of the company. It’s a huge favour for me that I’m larger than life and having these genetics and the look that Vince likes.

But it’s more than a look, there’s a lot of guys that look big and tough but being able to put that into play in WWE is difficult.

Being able to go out there night after night and work with people and not injuring and hurting people, that was a big thing when I first came in that I had beat into my head from developmental.

Vince McMahon (Picture: WWE)

I have to be one big strong rough and tough guy, but at the same time, I have to be safe. If I’m not safe no-one is going to want to work for me.

Vince has seen how hard I want to be good at this, and how much I want to succeed. I’m going to be a WWE Hall of Famer when it’s all said and done, in my mind that’s what I want to do.

I want to main event Wrestlemania, and I think that shows through to Vince, and is why he’s been in my corner, because he knows I want to be the best I can be.

I’m not a fly by night guy, I want to be remembered forever as Braun Strowman, the monster among men.

You feature in WWE 2K18. Are you much of a gamer yourself?

I do a little bit of gaming here and there. It’s really tough with the schedule to get super involved in it, but I just picked up a Nintendo Switch before we went on tour to Europe.

I’m trying to learn how to play that, but it’s a little tough with my hands being the size of frying pans with bananas taped to it.

I’ve only got to play WWE 2K18 in the locker room, so I’m looking forward to playing it on the Switch. I get mad when I get beat, and you’ve all seen what happens when I get angry, no-one likes it!

Braun Strowman in WWE 2K18

How does it feel to be in such a popular video game?

It’s such a surreal thing to take a step back and look at. I am a simple country boy that grew out in the sticks in North Carolina. There was only 100 people in my High School graduating class, and now my friends call me and tell me that their kids want 2K18 for Christmas so they can play as Braun Strowman.

We get caught up in flying around the world, wrestling four or five nights a week, and you forget about the little things like that.

What’s it been like having Finn Balor on the main roster?

Finn and I are good friends behind the scenes, but I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to work with him. We worked a couple of times recently at some live events, but I really haven’t had a lot of time to be in a programme with him to pick his brains.

He’s suggested stuff here and there, and they’ve helped me out. Everyone in the locker room is here to help one another, there’s no toxicity going around where people are trying to stab each other in the back. We’re all here to make the product better, and continue to show the world that we are the best at this.

Finally, tell us why you should be on the front cover of WWE 2K19…

I’m the man that has done things that aren’t feasibly possible because I am not a human being, I am an entity. I am something that WWE has never seen before, much less anyone else on the face of this earth.

I’ll argue this time and time again. There is no-one else like me who can do what I can do because if there was, they’d be here working and I wouldn’t be.

I’m gonna be the best at this, and it’s just a matter of time before I have the entire WWE Universe behind me. I think I’ve got most of them so far, but I won’t be satisfied until I have every WWE fan supporting me.

If that’s not good enough to get on the cover of WWE 2K19, then I guess I’m going to have to drive to 2K and smash some skulls in!

Be Like No One this Christmas with WWE 2K18 – available from £41.80 on Amazon.

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