During his first run with the company, Braun Strowman said he would never lace his boots for anyone but WWE, which was easy to say at the time, considering he had a seven-figure multi-year deal. Yet, he was deemed dispensable when budget cuts were being made and went on to work on indie shows where the promoter could meet his $20,000 asking price. Now though, he seems to have forgotten about his appearance for Ring of Honor and matches for Great Lakes Championship Wrestling, Northeast Wrestling, and International Wrestling Cartel as he told Corey Graves on his podcast that “I stuck to my word,” seemingly wanting to control his narrative.
We talked to everybody. People reached out about stuff, and you know, I kind of played around with the ideas, and I always said in interviews, and people thought I was stupid for it, I said I would never put on a pair of boots for anybody besides WWE, and I stuck to my word. I never put on another pair of boots. I went out, started my own thing, worked for myself, gave young talent a place to come and work and make a living, hone their craft inside CYN, and like I said, I stuck to my guns. I will never wrestle for anyone other than myself or WWE, and here we are.
Braun StrowmanOf course, with this being the internet, fans would call out Strowman, with some who paid to watch him on these independent shows joking about him perhaps wearing a different type of footwear. And while in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t matter, it does seem bizarre that he’d mislead fans when it is so easy to check, especially as many of the fans who attended the shows he was on were there solely for him. However, considering he recently claimed his startup promotion Control Your Narrative would outlive AEW and then subsequently canceled all their upcoming shows, it doesn’t appear anything he says should be taken seriously.
