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After weeks of speculation about who Braun Strowman will face at WWE WrestleMania 34, he won a tag team Battle Royal on Raw to become the #1 contender for Sheamus and Cesaro’s tag titles.
As things stand, “The Monster Among Men” doesn’t even have a tag partner, but the early expectation is that he’ll find one to take on The Bar in New Orleans in April.
While it’s great that Strowman will presumably feature in his first main-card match at WrestleMania, the decision to put him in a match for the Raw Tag Team titles at “The Show of Shows” feels somewhat underwhelming considering the year he has had.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at five alternative matches that the former Wyatt Family member could have been involved in instead.
#5 The Miz
The rivalry between Braun Strowman and The Miz goes back to October 2017, when Miz, Kane, Sheamus and Cesaro turned against “The Monster Among Men” at TLC by throwing him in a garbage truck.
Strowman re-emerged a week later and gained some revenge on “The A-Lister”, but he quickly became involved in the Universal Championship picture and he was never granted an opportunity at Miz’s Intercontinental Championship.
Reports throughout January and February suggested that the two would meet at WrestleMania 34, which would have been a good way to give Strowman his first singles title in WWE, but both men have now moved into different storylines.
#4 The Big Show or Kane
Braun Strowman and The Big Show had an unlikely candidate for WWE Rivalry of the Year in 2017, while Kane had plenty of intense confrontations with the former Wyatt Family member in the build-up to their Universal title match with Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble.
With Strowman having met both men before, another singles match with either of the two veterans might not seem the most appealing, but what if a retirement stipulation was added to the match?
Big Show has suggested for the last two years that he is close to retirement and Kane recently revealed that he will quit wrestling if he is elected mayor for Knox County, so it’s likely that the two 7-footers are going to exit the squared circle in the not-too-distant future.
What better way for either of them to bow out than on the WrestleMania stage, passing a torch to the next big giant of the business in the process?
#3 Triple H
Braun Strowman and Triple H were the two remaining survivors on Team Raw at Survivor Series 2017, and the show closed with Strowman attacking his partner for double-crossing him during the match.
Since then, there has hardly been any mention of the incident on WWE programming, despite initial expectations that the two would face off at the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania.
As disappointing as the Survivor Series five-on-five men’s elimination match was, the one positive seemed to be that WWE had perfectly kick-started a rivalry between Strowman and “The Game” that fans would love to have seen.
But, for whatever reason, the storyline never went any further and HHH will now team with Stephanie McMahon to face Kurt Angle and Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania.
#2 Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns
Roman Reigns outlasted six other men to win the Elimination Chamber match in February, booking his ticket to the main event of WrestleMania 34 in the process, but it was Braun Strowman who emerged from the match looking like the biggest star.
“The Monster Among Men” eliminated five Superstars – a new Elimination Chamber record – and his destructive performance led many fans to believe that he could be added to the Brock Lesnar vs. Reigns match for the Universal title.
Strowman launched Reigns through a pod following the match, hinting that their long-running rivalry still isn’t over, while he is also yet to achieve his goal of finally defeating “The Beast”.
However, Monday’s episode of Raw put a stop to the rumours and it’s now clear that Lesnar vs. Reigns will definitely go ahead as planned.
#1 Brock Lesnar
Leaving Roman Reigns out of the equation, Braun Strowman has been chasing Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship for the last eight months but he has been unsuccessful all three times that he has challenged for the title (SummerSlam 2017, No Mercy 2017 and Royal Rumble 2018).
With the exception of No Mercy, Strowman emerged from his encounters with “The Beast” still looking like a legitimate threat to the former UFC champion and, even though they have now had multiple battles, there is definitely some unfinished business between the two men.
The natural conclusion to the storyline would be for “The Monster Among Men” to finally take the title from his long-term rival, who could potentially be heading back to UFC later this year, but WWE has decided to (almost certainly) give that honour to Reigns instead.
