WWE RAW Revisited: A Look At If Braun Strowman Should Need Allies

On this week's edition of the Wrestling Inc. Podcast, which airs live every Monday after RAW, former WWE / TNA star Matt Morgan, Wrestling Inc. President Raj Giri and Glenn Rubenstein reviewed last night's RAW and discussed Braun Strowman aligning himself with Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre. You can check out that part of the discussion below:

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Morgan: "Good. I like it. This is going to give more legs, obviously. I don't know about you guys, but I thought Braun [Strowman] was going to win the championship fairly quickly. Maybe, not in the first month, but maybe the first few months, you know? I think with this whole three on three gang warfare that it needed to be done, what two better guys to do it with [than Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre]?"

Giri: "It has been a while since you have had a good heel faction in WWE. Braun [Strowman] and Drew [McIntyre] are two killers and Dolph [Ziggler] is someone who works his a** off. It's a cool little faction. Again, I am not a fan of turning Braun heel because he was so over and it is hard to get someone that over, so to just piss that away to get Roman Reigns more over, but that being said, with the way they are going I do like this faction. There is something about Braun being by himself that I like better rather than being in a group."

Morgan: "That's the thing. That is why big guys don't need to be in a group, normally. If you go back and watch the opening of Raw he is out there talking about his plotting, about his master plan and how he put together these guys to even the score. No, no, no, no. Get Dolph [Ziggler] on the mic and play to his strengths, which is to explain what happened where he can say something along the lines of—he was backstage and was talking to his boy and say to him, "Hey, do you want to win the title? This is how you do it, and you need to be with us." Or, he could say whatever. It doesn't make Braun look stupid for doing it, but this whole thing with Braun walking around and being a mastermind? Do you know what I mean? Like, he is sitting there backstage and plotting stuff? Come on man! What pisses me off about it is that they did the hardest thing possible by taking a giant of a man and did the impossible by getting him over as a babyface. He got himself over and they just throw it down the drain because of Roman Reigns. That gets me a little agitated. Look, the guy has the title. He is there. When are you going to let him do the work finally and stop taking away from other guys that should be at that level that you cut their legs off everytime they get a whiff at the main event to being 'the guy.' They did it to AJ [Styles] early. They did it to Samoa Joe. They did it to a lot of people and now they are doing it to the biggest babyface they have had in the past five years?"

Giri: "When you are done with Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman, where do you go to next? Who do you got?"

Morgan: "You're talking about pushing people down to scraps, technically, we are saying two guys, this was done to Braun Strowman too. Braun was part of this formula as well to cheer Roman Reigns. He was pushed down for this dude."

Giri: "They buried a lot of guys for Braun Strowman too. They made [Kevin] Owens to look like nothing to build up Braun. Kevin Owens has been relegated to being a scrub basically right now. They are going to have to do some work to rebuild him because he got nothing on Braun, and that whole feud. Again, who knows, maybe Braun does win because I think that you just don't have anyone else. I don't think you have it where Roman beats Braun and then that is it. I think that this will be the feud heading into the Royal Rumble. I think it will be Roman and Braun all fall."

Morgan: "There is literally nothing they can do at this point as a babyface for Roman to garner a legitimate babyface reaction for 100% of that audience. It is not going to happen. I was listening to Jim Cornette on a different show. He himself had said the same thing where he said that he literally has no choice – he has to go turn heel, feel himself out and see who the hell he is and then when the time is right come back to being a babyface, whenever that is. It will not be done on this term. It cannot be done on this term."

Giri: "You know what Matt, you are right, but the problem is that Vince McMahon doesn't care. He knows Roman isn't going to get 100% babyface reaction and he doesn't care. He sees John Cena, and the business they had done with him where the crowd boos him. He sees Roman at that same level, so he doesn't care about what the fans think about his top star, so I think he feels justified because Roman gets such loud reactions, even though it is the opposite of what it should be, but he is pushing merchandise. The house shows he is on they draw better than the ones he is not on so, you know, I think he sees that as it is working, even though I agree with you that it would work a lot better if you take a look at him as a heel and then eventually bring him back as a babyface. You turn him heel, that doesn't mean he has to be a heel forever, and then when you turn him back you got him to where he needs to be, but they are not taking this route."

You can watch the full podcast in the video above, or listen to it in the audio player below.

The Wrestling Inc. Podcast airs every Monday immediately following RAW, Wednesdays at noon ET and post-WWE PPV Sundays immediately after the event with Matt Morgan, Glenn Rubenstein and Raj Giri. You can subscribe to the Wrestling Inc. Podcast on iTunes and on YouTube. Please rate us and leave a comment.