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On-screen, the biggest storylines in WWE right now revolve around Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman on Raw and Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan on SmackDown Live.
Off-screen, meanwhile, regular followers of the WWE product will know that the real-life stories involving the company’s top Superstars can sometimes be just as interesting as what we see on Raw, SmackDown Live and NXT on a weekly basis.
This week, for example, we have learned that Vince McMahon kicked staff out of a meeting in February 2019 to reassure one of his top stars about their future, while it also emerged that John Cena came up with the idea for a WrestleMania match that happened over a decade ago.
In this article, let’s take a look at the full details behind those stories, plus three others, as we count down five backstage revelations that have been made over the last seven days.
#5 Vince McMahon’s 45-minute talk with Braun Strowman
Between the summer of 2015 and the summer of 2018, Braun Strowman had a dominant three-year run where his monstrous character gained enough momentum to warrant him finally receiving a reign with the Universal Championship.
However, after failing to win Raw’s top prize on another two occasions in late 2018 against Roman Reigns at Hell In A Cell and Brock Lesnar at Crown Jewel, “The Monster Among Men” lost a lot of credibility as a title contender and, for the first time in his WWE career, it felt like his character had become stale.
Speaking on Notsam Wrestling this week, the former Wyatt Family member revealed that he was “miserable” about his on-screen role in WWE shortly after the 2019 Royal Rumble, so he interrupted a meeting with the company’s decision-makers two hours before an episode of Raw in February.
Instead of reprimanding Strowman, Vince McMahon kicked everybody out of the meeting and had a 45-minute conversation with the two-time Raw Tag Team Champion to reassure him that he is one of his top guys.
Strowman described McMahon as his friend, as well as his boss, and said he stopped worrying about his storylines after the meeting with the WWE Chairman.
#4 John Cena pitched major storyline for The Big Show
The most famous match between John Cena and The Big Show came in 2004 at WrestleMania XX when an up-and-coming Cena hit two F-Us and struck his opponent in the face with brass knuckles to win the United States Championship.
Five years later, Cena had established himself as a WrestleMania main-eventer and multi-time WWE Champion as he prepared to challenge Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship in one of the featured matches at WrestleMania XXV.
In the on-screen build-up to ‘Mania, the match was originally supposed to be between Edge and The Big Show, but Cena revived his rivalry with “The Rated-R Superstar” shortly before the event and it became a Triple Threat.
In reality, Show revealed on this week’s episode of ‘Photo Shoot’ on the WWE Network that he joked to Cena in early 2009 about potentially facing him at ‘Mania, even though he knew that WWE was building towards a Cena vs. Edge match.
“Big Match John” then took it upon himself to pitch an idea to WWE’s creative team about also having Show in the match, which they agreed to.
#3 The origin of Darren Young’s WWE name
Fred Rosser, aka WWE’s Darren Young, was the latest guest on Dropkick DiSKussions with Sportskeeda’s Gary Cassidy this week.
The first conversation topic involved the former Nexus member’s early days in WWE and how he received ‘Darren Young’ as his Superstar name.
“It was Dusty Rhodes who was helping all the guys with promos and character development, so Dusty was the one that helped me come up with Darren Young, so I liked to call myself, when I was with WWE, D Young because it sounds more hip and stuff like that, but Darren Young was worked out with Dusty Rhodes.”
Nowadays, WWE is allowing a lot of new Superstars to keep their names from the independent scene when they debut in NXT, but that was not common when the one-time Tag Team Champion arrived on the WWE radar in 2009.
You can hear the full 29-minute interview above and read all about Darren Young’s thoughts on Vince McMahon here.
#2 Braun Strowman pitched an incredible Battle Royal idea
A former strongman, Braun Strowman has been known to produce epic feats of strength throughout his action-packed four years as a member of WWE’s main roster.
One of the most memorable Raw moments in recent years came in April 2017 when the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal winner hit a middle-rope suplex on The Big Show, causing the ring to implode under the weight of the two giants.
This week, speaking to GameSpot, “The Monster Among Men” revealed that he has suggested in the past that he should essentially hijack a Battle Royal by lifting up the ring and forcing all of the competitors to be eliminated.
"I've pitched a couple of times in Battle Royales where I come out of nowhere and lift up the ring and dump everybody out of the ring before, so that I think would be a fun one."
#1 Vince McMahon prompted Sheamus to lose weight
During his absence from WWE television over the last four months, Sheamus has kept busy by filming workouts with fellow Superstars and other names from the fitness industry for his ‘Celtic Warrior Workouts’ YouTube channel.
The Irishman decided to set up the channel in November 2017 because he lacked the motivation to work out and found himself “stuck in a rut” after putting his body through so much during his career.
With the help of his new workouts and nutrition plan, the four-time World Champion has transformed his physique by losing over 40 pounds in recent months.
Speaking to Edge and Christian on the E&C Pod of Awesomeness this week, Sheamus said the catalyst for his health change came following a joke that Vince McMahon made about him.
“I came back from holiday in Ireland and me and Cesaro were walking by Vince. Vince goes, ‘Hey Sheamus! Enjoy the holidays, huh?’ and he was looking at me and my gut. I said, ‘That’s it, that’s it, I need to do something about it.’ That was the change in gear. Cesaro knew it – Cesaro knew right away when that comment was made.”
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