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For those who have written us, no, Vince McMahon is not mad at Braun Strowman.
No, Braun Strowman does not have “heat” backstage with WWE management.
Nor did PWInsider report that.
I would have addressed this sooner, but I was off and away for the weekend and wasn't fully aware of how much that story, allegedly reported by yours truly, has spread in the last 24 hours. I was made aware this evening by a friend and sat down as soon as I could at a computer to publicly respond.
Here is what did happen:
This past week on the We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Name Show, our weekly Wednesday audio for PWInsider Elite subscribers, Dave Scherer and I discussed Brock Lesnar’s Universal title win at Crown Jewel and the company going back to Lesnar as opposed to going with Braun Strowman.
While discussing Strowman and why WWE has yet to go with him as Universal Champion, I discussed several things that had happened in the past with him as examples of why the company has, at times, backed off on him during periods where it appeared he was destined to be the top tier babyface. These were issues that were discussed as background details, not anything that was presented as “breaking news” or as issues that led into the WWE’s current booking direction.
It was not even a story, period.
This was a comment I made discussing some background information as part of a much larger conversation about Lesnar getting the belt, things that have happened in the past and a comparison of Lesnar vs. Braun as well as WWE from a behind the scenes perspective. It was a few sentences lifted from a two hour plus audio that covered a litany of topics, WWE and beyond, nothing more.
TO BE CLEAR: In our original audio, there was zero discussion of Vince McMahon being upset with Braun Strowman, Vince McMahon being down on Braun Strowman or Vince McMahon having “heat” with Braun Strowman. There was zero discussion of Strowman currently being in trouble with the company - something he obviously is not, given he’s in the top tier of the Raw roster.
Unfortunately, since a quote from the discussion was lifted and reprinted elsewhere - by someone we have no association with - and that reprinting completely removed the context of the conversation and implied that these were current (as in November 2018) issues, it starts to get spread around online. Since my name and PWInsider’s name were each attached (and we have a pretty damn good track record on breaking WWE stories), this leads to larger, mainstream outlets picking up the quote and the story with larger, more outrageous headlines attached to drive their own traffic - something that happened without any of these outlets reaching out to ask whether the quote was legitimate, much less the context of the comments.
So, now somehow Vince McMahon is "upset" with Braun Strowman, except, there's no truth to any of that. Braun Strowman has "heat", except he doesn't. I've broken a lot of big stories over the years, but that Strowman "story", no, I didn't. Yet, all of that is out there, blatantly untrue - and I am up at 1 AM on a rare day off addressing this entire waste of everyone's time.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
So, again, Braun is not dealing with any heat. He’s not being booked to be punished for anything and like everyone else who goes out and performs in a wrestling ring, he deserves better than to have stories that aren’t rooted in reality reported about him. The company deserves better than to see those stories out there - and I would feel the same thing no matter who the talent or promotion involved was.
While PWInsider.com is not responsible for the story that has spread over the last several days, I personally felt it important enough to clear the air. In doing so, hopefully this sucks the oxygen out of the room in order to stamp out the false story that has been spreading at Strowman’s expense.
I normally try to make it a policy to ignore incorrect material credited to myself or PWInsider.com, but given that this false story arose out of an incorrect framing of my actual comments, I am making an exception. Thank you for reading and your support of PWInsider.com.
Mike Johnson
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