Braun Strowman On If He's Had Talks With AEW, His Pro Wrestling Future
Former WWE Superstar Adam Scherr (fka Braun Strowman) recently spoke with John Maakaron of Sports Illustrated and seemingly confirmed that he's had talks with AEW.
WWE released Strowman back on June 2, and he has been a free agent for some time now. He has been heavily rumored to sign with Impact Wrestling for a debut at Bound For Glory later this month, but nothing is official. Strowman was asked how it's been transitioning away from pro wrestling, and being away from a prominent promotion like WWE.
"You know, the first little bit, it was scary, because that's all I knew for the last eight years of my life. That's all I knew," he said. "But, it's slowly now starting to get where — I'm four months, I guess it is right at four months post-WWE and stuff. It's nice kind of transitioning back into not being so stressed out about stuff. Not having to worry about memorizing scripts, traveling, flying all over. In 2018 or 2019, I wrestled in 198 matches. I flew right at 700,00 miles, and was just gone all the time. A big shout-out to Marriott. I love your hotels. You all don't pay me, but you should. I checked my Marriott app, and in five years, I slept in a Marriott 765 nights.
"So, living out of a suitcase for five years, to now having a chance to kind of step back into normal life. I'm spending time with my family and my loved ones, my girlfriend, my friends, getting to work on my house that I've been building in Wisconsin and just doing day-to-day stuff that I missed out on. I'm having time to take a step back and reflect on how unbelievable that opportunity was and the career that I had with WWE, all the things that I was afforded to do there, the world that I got to see, to travel around the world. I've wrestled on every continent on this Earth. In five years, I stamped four passports full of VISA's. I've won the WWE Universal championship. I was two-time Raw Tag Team champion. I was a Money in the Bank winner, Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal winner, Greatest Royal Rumble winner, Intercontinental Champion."
Strowman continued and talked about how he recently met a fan who made him tear up, and how he has great respect for WWE.
"It's just, doing all that in such a short amount of time and now having the opportunity to take a step back to go, 'Wow, holy cow. That's incredible.' And now, here having an opportunity to sit down, talk and do meet-and-greet with the fans and stuff and sharing experiences — knowing how much people lean on my character and stuff like that," he continued.
"I met a young lady earlier today, and I actually teared up talking to her, because she talked about how I've got her through so many things in life. And, she said seeing my strength, through my character, helped her get through her day-to-day stuff in life. That, at the end of the day, that's what this is all about. I have so much respect for WWE. I can't thank them enough for giving me such an unbelievable opportunity and a slingshot headboard into life, to be able to help so many people around the world. I'm looking to continue doing that heading on out."
Besides Impact, Strowman was at one point rumored to be in talks with AEW. He was asked if he's had the chance to sit back and take a look at the company. Strowman said he doesn't have a lot of time to devote to a full-time wrestling schedule right now, but he's trying to find somewhere he can fit in at.
"Yeah, we've sat down, and discussed stuff like that with my agent and things like that," he said. "We're just trying to find a fit now, where everything kind of will work together, since now, there's so many things that I'm working on in my personal life. I don't have as much time to devote to the full-time schedule to wrestle now.
"So, it's trying to find somewhere where I'll be able to land in there to show up, have fun and entertain the people, but still be able to work on my side projects along the way."