News and Rumor Roundup: Update on Braun Strowman's discussions with AEW higher-ups, Current AEW star was supposed to beat Brock Lesnar

Welcome to another edition of the AEW News and Rumor Roundup. With Dynamite on Saturday again this week, there hasn't been a whole lot of news, but we do have a couple of interesting stories including Paul Heyman wanting a current All Elite Wrestling star to beat Brock Lesnar.

We also look at an update from Braun Strowman about conversations with higher-ups in Tony Khan's promotion.

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#5 Paul Heyman wanted Malakai Black to beat Brock Lesnar

It's no secret that Paul Heyman is a big fan of current AEW star Malakai Black. He tried to elevate Black for the short period he was in charge of WWE RAW last year.

In fact, according to a recent report from Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Heyman pitched for Malakai Black to be the man to beat Brock Lesnar. However, the idea was shot down by Vince McMahon.

Black ended up being released by WWE earlier this year and signed with All Elite Wrestling as soon as his non-compete clause expired.

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#4 Brown Strowman had meetings with AEW higher-ups

Braun Strowman recently spoke to John Maakaron of Sports Illustrated and was asked if he had spoken to higher-ups from AEW about a potential move. He revealed that he has indeed sat down and had discussions with All Elite Wrestling higher-ups but did not divulge too many other details:

“Yeah, we’ve sat down and discussed stuff like that with my agent and things like that." Strowman continued, "We’re just trying to find a fit now, where everything kind of will work together since now, there’s so many things that I’m working on in my personal life. I don’t have as much time to devote to the full-time schedule to wrestle now."

There has also been a lot of talk about Braun Strowman potentially signing with IMPACT Wrestling.

#3 Malakai Black praised Cody ahead of their match on AEW Dynamite

Malakai Black and Cody Rhodes are set to face off for the third time on this week's AEW Dynamite. Black spoke to the Orlando Sentinel ahead of tonight's match and took some time to praise his opponent, calling Rhodes the "biggest diamond" in the promotion:

"If I’m going to do something, I might as well do it with the biggest diamond of the company. As a wrestler, I can’t say I have anything but respect for him. But to get ahead, you have to cut off the head of the dragon, and he was one of the biggest dragons," Black said.

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#2 Chris Jericho hit back at Eric Bischoff's comments

Chris Jericho chimed in on Eric Bischoff and Tony Khan's back and forth, commenting on Twitter, and hitting back at the former WCW executive's "cosplay competition" comments.

Jericho explained that AEW has already decreased WWE's market share before adding that SmackDown lost the demo in the half an hour that the two shows went head to head last Friday:

"Not sure what a 'cosplay competition' is Eric, but WWE market share has definitely been decreased by AEW. To the point whenever they forced themselves into “real head to head competition” [with] us (most recently last [Friday]) they lost. I’m gonna shut up now & keep wrestling," Chris Jericho tweeted.

Do you agree with Eric Bischoff or with Tony Khan? Sound off in the comments section.

#1 Jim Cornette gave his take on AEW teasing dissension between MJF and Wardlow

On the latest edition of Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru, the legendary manager gave his take on the ongoing dissension AEW has been teasing between MJF and Wardlow.

MJF has been berating Wardlow for months now, including blaming him for losing matches as well as general verbal dressing downs. Cornette felt that All Elite Wrestling needs to act quickly and pay off the storyline if they intend to have Wardlow coming out of this looking like a monster babyface:

"They've been trying to tease dissension amongst MJF and Wardlow for some time with MJF bullying him, saying nasty things about him."

"Usually the big dumb guy gets tired of being pushed around and prodded etc and breaks his bonds of servitude and switches babyface and kicks the stuffing out of the heel, what the people want to see but if you tease it too long by constantly having MJF do things like this or make remarks about Wardlow and Wardlow does nothing and says nothing... after a period of time, instead of having a hot new babyface what you've got is a ******** guy who's taking a browbeating and not doing anything about it," said Jim Cornette.

MJF looks set to face Darby Allin next, with the former TNT Champion being attacked and laid out backstage a couple of weeks ago by members of The Pinnacle.