10 Things You Might Not Know About Braun Strowman

I like the way WWE are humanising Braun Strowman. I like the way he's just like one of us, only if we were born with genes the size of something really, really big. Despite starting life on WWE's main roster as the most stereotypical monster this side of Kurrgan, over time Braun has let us in. He's opened up. He's turned into a chocolate lava cake - hard on the outside, yet soft on the inside. He's not the lumbering neanderthal we all thought we knew for the first year-and-a-bit of his main roster run, he's big, friendly, and cuddly - like a giant Slow Loris (despite the cuteness in their eyes, they can kill you, you know? I'm serious).

I'm sure we're all aware of how Braun started off his adult life in the strongman game, how he's proficient with a firearm in hand, that fact he was a Rosebud, and how he has his SHOOT last name tattooed down the back of his arm - if you don't, hey, you've just learned some new things. Go and impress your friends. At the end of the day, however, there's certainly more to The Monster Among Men than initially meets the eye. He truly is a fascinating specimen.

Here are 10 things you might not know about that man who I believe will usurp Roman Reigns as the face of WWE heading into WrestleMania 35 next year - a massive claim, I know.

10. Mark Henry Got Him Through WWE's Doors

And just look at the way Braun paid him back... what an ingrate!

It seems that much like in football (soccer to you Americans out there) where you have a goalkeepers' union, strongmen have a similar bond - no matter what goes on, they will always have each others' backs. We all know Mark Henry's background in lifting and pulling very heavy things, the bloke called himself the World's Strongest Man for decades after all, with Strowman forging himself a similar path for years before heading to Titan Towers.

It's said that Henry kept in touch with his strongman roots, acting as a scout for Vince McMahon in that field - as we all know, Vince does have a penchant for the big and sweaty. Being impressed by what he saw, Mark allegedly went to WWE executives and said they should check out a fellow named Adam Scherr - a lifter of heavy things who clearly had an entertainer buried deep inside of him.

Normally - and this is going off a couple of YouTube clips I've just watched - in strongman, the fellas simply lift the weights and get on with their day. Strowman, however, would engage with the crowd, telling them the louder they cheered, the stronger he got. Braun displayed a natural charisma that can't be taught to some, impressing WWE in the process.

“I think that was one of the big things that drew WWE to me, is seeing the fact that I enjoy going out and entertaining, that I am basically an attention whore,” Braun told Stone Cold on the Texas Rattlesnake's podcast.

9. His Grades Stopped A Potential Football Career

And I reckon he doesn't mind one bit, with the benefit of hindsight of course.

Life was all about sports for Braun in his younger years. Growing up in the village of Sherrills Ford, North Carolina, Strowman was a three-sport athlete at Bandys High School, showing prowess in American football, wrestling and track.

The story goes that Braun simply didn't put enough effort into his education to make it onto the football field in college - his grades meant that he didn't end up going through higher education. Being a country boy through and through, you can imagine how sitting in class would be boring for him - we've all been there, I'm sure. In high school, coaches apparently formed defensive tactics revolving around The Moster Among Men simply throwing people into touch. While these tactics weren't transferred to the college field, Braun certainly tried to get them there. Apparently, he was sent to night classes in an effort to up his grades but it was all to no avail. By going to these night classes, Braun allegedly missed out on a lot of high school wrestling - a doubly rough deal for the poor bloke indeed.

Despite playing semi-pro football in North Carolina for four years, Braun's lack of college playing time sealed his fate when he attended the NFL Scouting Combine. Their loss was our gain, I guess...

8. He Was The Fastest Strongman In History To Turn Professional

Braun Strowman was born to do strongman. The story goes that a number of strongman competitors in North Carolina saw the former Wyatt Family man working out and urged him to give it a go. Something clicked immediately for Braun, as he rose up the ranks in double-quick speed.

Braun's first strongman meet happened in September 2009, and by November 2011 he was handed a professional card making him (then) the fastest competitor to do so. With only a handful of spots open each year, it's one hell of an achievement to accomplish in such a short space of time.

As I'm sure you're all aware, Braun would become a champion in the strongman world, with his peak arriving in 2012 where he recorded a deadlift of 905 pounds.

7. From Ninth To Twelfth Grade, He Grew Almost A Foot

Strowman was a normal sized child, allegedly, and this is a concept I just can't get my head around. I've heard Big Show talk about how he was the size of an adult giraffe by the time he reached the age of two or something, so in my mind at least, all massive people are massive from a very early age.

Imagine Braun being the same height as you most of the way through school. You can't, can you?

Over the course of three years, Braun Shot up a foot and somehow gained over 100 pounds. I'm sure we all had that lad in school who went away for the summer holidays looking like one of the pack, only to arrive back for the new school year looking like an unadulterated dad. Braun was that guy, and then some.

I guess this growth spurt wouldn't have been too much of a surprise to the people who know the Scherr family, as Braun's dad quite literally looks like an older version of the one-time Raw Tag Team Champion, beard and all. 

6. He's Already Starred In A Movie

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And it's available for free on YouTube. It's only 50 minutes long, so have at it! Braun is, of course, credited as ‘Strongman’ for his role - how apt.

In the midst of recovering from a torn bicep, Braun appeared in an independent movie called Three Count. Don't worry, you're not missing out on too much as the movie was a strictly independent release that bypassed most. Plus, it doesn't even have a score on sites like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes, so can it even be credited as a real movie in the first place?

"Two brothers come to terms with the death of their father while moonlighting as a luchador tag team in the independent wrestling circuit," the synopsis states. If only they knew. If only they knew...

5. His Body Is Already Beat Up From Strongman

As you could imagine, lifting and pulling really heavy things doesn't half leave its mark on the human anatomy. Even though Braun Strowman is cut from some kind of cloth of mythological proportions, that doesn't mean he's immune to an injury or three.

Back in 2013, he ended up finishing last in the Arnold Classic after tearing his bicep in the very first event. This was the latest in a long line of knocks for Strowman, with the pièce de résistance coming in the form of a pinched nerve that left his left leg completely immobile, requiring emergency surgery after allegedly being rushed to hospital at 5am in a wheelchair.

News of these kinds of injuries just makes his ascension to the top of WWE all the more remarkable.

4. He Never Wrestled A Match Before Signing With WWE

Braun was signed to a WWE deal in May 2013, but would have to wait until the backend of 2014 to make his in-ring debut. Having never wrestled a match for any independent promotion, it's easy to see why the company would want to take their time with a specimen brimmed with so much potential.

On 19 December 2014, Braun defeated Chad Gable in his debut match for NXT before doing the same the following night to set him off on quite a long winning streak, toppling the likes of Steve Cutler, The Revival's Dash Wilder and Tye Dillinger along the way.

On 2 June 2015, with only a handful of matches under his belt, Stowman (as he was known at the time) won a dark match on Main Event against an unnamed opponent and that was that. One more match against Tye Dillinger on NXT is all that followed before Braun was on the main roster with the world thinking 'ugh, this guy is terrible!'

Oh, how naive we were...

It's easy to forget just how inexperienced Braun was before he made it to the big time. WWE didn't really give the guy a chance to make a great first impression when you really think about it. Talk about learning on the job or what? A hearty well bloody done to the big man for coming so far in such a short space of time.

3. He Started Life In WWE As 'Braun Stowman'

This is a little factoid that I completely forgot about until I started researching this piece. I have no idea why it happened, but Braun Stowman became Braun Strowman just after his promotion to the main roster as part of The Wyatt Family.

Answers on a postcard, please, on this one. I don't have anything else to give other than Strowman rolls off the tongue a lot nicer than Stowman does. Maybe Vince McMahon was merely thinking of his commentary teams when making the decision to switch the name up? I'm clutching at serious straws here. Help!

2. He Was Heartbroken When The Wyatt Family Came To An End

Anyone who follows Braun on Instagram knows that he and Bray Wyatt have a special bond outside of the ring. He's forever posting pictures of himself and his former leader eating BARE meat and working out together - they appear to have a right good laugh with each other while out on the open road.

Strowman actually described his initial split from The Wyatt Family as 'heartbreaking' simply due to the fact he couldn't work so closely with Bray any more. Despite being three years older than the Eater of Worlds, Braun placed himself firmly under the learning tree of Wyatt. Bray not only taught Braun about working in the ring, but how to conduct himself behind the scenes too. Wyatt referred to Braun as 'Evil Windham', stating that Strowman was able to do all the things that Bray could not.

1. His Father Was One Hell Of A Softball Player

Rick 'The Crusher' Scherr is recognised as one of the greatest slow pitch softball players of all time and my goodness could he hit a ball a very long way indeed.

A report from the Los Angeles Times on 13 July 1986 started with: "Up drives the supposed Hell's Angel: 6-5 and 300 pounds of long-haired, bearded Crusher jammed under the wheel of a little red Toyota with an infant's safety chair in the back seat." First of all, it's shocking the hear that Braun could potentially fit inside a child seat once upon a time, and secondly, upon reading that description you realise that if you took Braun Strowman, give him a bat and then have him play softball, that's Rick Scherr.

The Crusher is USSSA Player of the Decade for the 1980s, holds single-season home run records, career home run records, most home runs in a single game, most home run in a World Series, and he's in the top two for the longest home run ever hit - Braun claimed all of this to be true in an interview on WWE's YouTube channel and I'm not going to be the one to dispute any of it.

And the best thing about Rick is, of course, the fact he's the absolute double of his son - he looked exactly like Braun back in his heyday. Seeing old Braun cheering on young Braun at WrestleMania this year couldn't help but warm the cockles of your heart!

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