The Big Picture
Braun Strowman recently broke his silence on WWE's creative process during his peak run. He did not mince words. Reports surfaced today that Strowman admitted the scripts he was handed simply "sucked." It is hard to argue with the man when you look back at the tape. He was a generational big man forced to navigate some of the most unhinged booking in modern wrestling history.
"Sometimes the script sucked, but I had to make the best of it," Strowman confessed in recent interviews.
He certainly tried. Strowman spent years playing a cartoon villain in a reality-based product. To celebrate his candid admission, we are ranking the most ridiculous scripts creative forced him to execute.
10. The Shane McMahon "Stupid" Feud (WrestleMania 37)
WWE literally booked a WrestleMania program around a middle-aged executive calling a 300-pound monster "stupid." Shane McMahon dumped green slime on him during Monday Night Raw. They ran a grade-school bullying angle on national television for weeks leading into the biggest show of the year.
Strowman had to pretend he was deeply offended by basic name-calling instead of just crushing his boss. He finally ended the misery by throwing McMahon off the top of a steel cage at Raymond James Stadium. It was a spectacular bump that barely erased a month of horrific television.
9. The Strowman Express Sound Effects
Vince McMahon loved watching Strowman run around the ring destroying enhancement talent with his shoulder tackles. Eventually, creative decided this needed forced audio enhancement. They pumped actual cartoon train sound effects into the ThunderDome speakers during the pandemic.
It sounded like a children's television show interrupting a combat sports broadcast. Opponents had to stand there and wait to get tackled while a literal "choo-choo" echoed through the arena. You cannot sell a guy as a monster when he has the soundboard of a morning radio show following his every move.
8. The Greatest Royal Rumble Green Belt
WWE went to Saudi Arabia in April 2018 for a bloated 50-man Royal Rumble. Strowman entered the match and eliminated 13 different men to win the whole thing. His grand prize was a giant green championship belt and an oversized trophy.
The belt was never defended. It was rarely mentioned again on domestic television and quietly retired to a Stamford warehouse. He broke Roman Reigns' elimination record, yet the booking gave him absolutely zero long-term momentum.
7. Surviving the Garbage Truck Compactor (TLC 2017)
At TLC 2017, The Miz, Kane, and Cesaro turned on Strowman during a chaotic 5-on-3 handicap match. They literally tossed him into the back of a garbage truck and signaled the driver to turn on the compactor. WWE presented a storyline where a superstar was supposedly crushed to death on a live pay-per-view.
He returned weeks later by bursting out of a completely different garbage truck on Raw. No explanation was given for how he survived being flattened into a cube of trash. The commentary team just acted like it was a normal Tuesday.
6. Winning the Tag Titles with a 10-Year-Old (WrestleMania 34)
Sheamus and Cesaro needed challengers for WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans. Strowman promised management a mystery partner for the massive event. He walked into the crowd and picked a random child named Nicholas out of the front row.
They pinned seasoned professionals to win the tag team championship. It was a cute viral moment that instantly buried the entire Raw tag team division. Dropping the titles the next night due to the kid having a scheduling conflict with the fourth grade was funny, but it proved creative viewed the tag belts as completely worthless props.
5. Flipping the Production Truck
Strowman's gimmick briefly shifted into a superhuman strongman who routinely defied the laws of physics. During a backstage segment, he flipped a massive production semi-truck in the arena parking lot. The camera cuts desperately tried to hide the mechanical hydraulics doing the actual heavy lifting.
It looked completely ridiculous and immediately broke the immersion of the broadcast. It crossed the line from professional wrestling into a bad Marvel movie. You cannot book a guy to flip an 18-wheeler and then have him struggle to break out of a standard chin-lock in the main event.
4. The Swamp Fight (Extreme Rules 2020)
The pandemic era forced WWE into cinematic matches to cover for the lack of live crowds. Strowman's Universal Championship feud with Bray Wyatt peaked at Extreme Rules with the Swamp Fight. It was a meandering, over-edited horror movie spoof shot in the pitch dark.
We watched Strowman get attacked by fake snakes, chained to a wooden chair, and drowned in a murky Florida lake. As WrestlingNews reported regarding his creative frustrations, this match stands out as the ultimate example of overproduced nonsense. He "drowned" and immediately returned weeks later as a heel bald version of himself.
3. Pulling Down the Stage Trussing (Raw 2018)
WWE needed a chaotic ending for a January Raw segment involving Kane and Brock Lesnar. Strowman used a makeshift grappling hook to pull an entire lighting rig down onto his main event opponents. The massive metal scaffolding magically landed perfectly to trap Kane and Lesnar without crushing their skulls.
Medical personnel rushed out to sell this attempted double homicide to the television audience. It was entirely unbelievable and required massive suspension of disbelief. It made the actual wrestling matches later in the night feel completely inadequate by comparison.
2. Losing to Brock Lesnar at Crown Jewel (2018)
This is where the bad scripts actively damaged his main event career. Roman Reigns relinquished the Universal Title due to a tragic leukemia diagnosis. Strowman was the hottest act in the company and ready to carry the banner for the promotion.
Instead, acting General Manager Baron Corbin hit him with the title belt before the opening bell rang. Lesnar hit him with five consecutive F-5s and pinned him in exactly three minutes. Creative took their most over babyface and fed him to a part-timer in a squash match.
1. Flipping the Ambulance on Roman Reigns
This was the absolute peak of the absurd, yet it actually worked perfectly. Roman Reigns was strapped onto a stretcher and locked in the back of a standard hospital ambulance. Strowman screamed, grabbed the metal undercarriage, and somehow flipped the entire emergency vehicle on its side.
It was pure B-movie camp broadcast live on the USA Network. The fans in the arena completely ate it up and popped huge for the stunt. It cemented Strowman as the top monster in the industry despite the logistical impossibility of the feat.
Honorable Mentions
WWE creative rarely knew when to stop pushing the envelope. Aside from the top ten, Strowman was also booked to tip over a portable toilet with Kevin Owens trapped inside. He was once blinded by a flaming fireball thrown by Alexa Bliss. Most embarrassingly, he was booked into a lumberjack match where the ring was surrounded by actors dressed as actual zombies at WrestleMania Backlash. We can only hope his current run features scripts that rely more on professional wrestling and less on bad cinematic special effects.
