10 Quick WWE Fixes To Save Braun Strowman
The Monster Within
As entertaining as it was due to his victim's game selling and WWE's typically excellent production, Braun Strowman's complete destruction of poor Curt Hawkins on Monday Night Raw wasn't going to wave a magic wand over a problem WWE created for themselves at No Mercy. Nor was his pedestrian victory over Dean Ambrose shortly after the carnage.
In having the 'Monster Among Men' stumble so listlessly against Universal Champion Brock Lesnar, the company may have inadvertently let the genie out of the bottle with their newest project. Strowman has been 2017's most pleasant surprise, making good on early promise in his post-Brand Extension push with almost weekly improvements to his game on the microphone and between the ropes.
Furthermore, he became a safe haven for maniacal scriptwriting, handily stealing countless editions of the often-draining flagship broadcast with chaotic stunts and dramatic set-pieces that dodged farce simply through the courage of his conviction in the role.
The Lesnar defeat did untold damage to the aura he'd carefully helped craft around himself though. A breathy and laboured affair, Strowman was normalised falling victim to the same bland beatdown most suffer at the hands of 'The Beast', far removed from the threat he'd looked even one week prior to the match itself.
In Braun, WWE had themselves the first organic potential babyface WrestleMania main eventer since Daniel Bryan. He lost a lot at this time of year too, but it took several forks in his road to the 'Show of Shows' to actually get him there.
10. Family Values
Vince McMahon may want the 'Eater Of Worlds' to have his last supper so he can look a bit more like a WWE Superstar in the traditional sense, but Bray Wyatt's gentle kite has nothing to do with his abject failure as a character in the last several years.
Yet again a total loser in the match he requested at the tail-end of a feud he instigated, Bray Wyatt remains the most fundamentally flawed wrestler on Monday Night Raw thanks to relentlessly undermining booking and a raft of battles that failed to live up to even low expectations.
Judged strictly on bout quality (or lack thereof) in 2017, he's a justifiable nominee for the year's very worst wrestler considering the spot still offered to him despite persistent failures. His February WWE Title run seems more than lifetime ago - it's as if it happened in an entirely separate timeline altogether.
Coincidentally, it's a zombie-themed TV show Bray most resembles after years of haphazardly appropriating film and television clichés with little thought for context or relevance. Wyatt is The Walking Dead, doomed to drift aimlessly until somebody shoots his head clean off. Strowman is that man.
Oblivion is all that awaits the Wyatt character, and his former family member could be the one to emphatically do it. Destroying the character forever not only affords Braun a badge of honour, but also gives Windham Rotunda the opportunity to have a vital refresh.