How WWE Can Save Braun Strowman

If you want to jump off the Braun Strowman Braunwagon now, I won’t hold it against you.

This past Sunday at No Mercy, WWE had a chance to capitalize on their red hot Monster Among Men. Instead of doing so, they stayed the course with Brock Lesnar.

It wasn’t surprising that Lesnar won. I think they should have called an audible and cashed in on Strowman while they still have a chance, but I’m just a guy behind a computer. So, I wasn’t shocked when Lesnar won. But I was shocked at how Lesnar won.

People fell in love with Braun because he rearranged furniture and faces. There was none of that on Sunday. He failed to put the Beast away with three powerslams, needed the ropes to escape a submission and laid flat after one F5. The match was too long and the finish came off flat and disappointing.

The next night on RAW, Braun was back to his set destroying ways before defeating Dean Ambrose. Next week, he’ll probably defeat Seth Rollins.

What’s the endgame?

Maybe they’re building towards a rematch with Lesnar at Survivor Series, but that match looks far less attractive following Sunday’s bout. Samoa Joe looked like a badass who just got caught in his one-on-one bout with Lesnar at Great Balls of Fire. Braun hit Lesnar with everything he had and lost to Lesnar’s one good shot.

If there’s no rematch with Lesnar, and the Universal title isn’t the ultimate goal, where does Braun go from here?

He can keep destroying things and asking for competition, but sooner or later fans will stop caring. We’ve seen Braun destroy everything in his path, and it’s fun, but they can only go to that well so often.

WWE needs to figure out what they’re going to do with Braun. They’ve made his motivation clear. He wants to hurt people and he wants to show that he’s the best at hurting people. The way to show that is by hurting the best guy in the company (the champion), winning the Universal title and then hurting anyone who dares to step up.

He failed to achieve his goal on Sunday. Not a huge deal. He can continue to hurt people, prove he’s still the Monster on RAW, clean out the roster, and leave Lesnar with no choice but to give him a rematch. At that point, he should probably win the belt. Otherwise, Braun turns into Daniel Cormier. A guy we all know is great, but we simply don’t care about him because there’s someone much better.

My fear now is that the shipped has sailed with Braun. That the No Mercy match undid everything they’ve built this past year and that they can’t capture that lightning again. That will probably be the case. Braun isn’t going to be hotter than he was heading into Sunday unless he empathically destroys Roman Reigns and John Cena in the coming months.

That’s probably not going to happen. Instead, he’ll likely be sacrificed to Roman and the re-formed Shield. A 3-on-1 situation would typically make the three guys the bad guys, but let’s not let logic get in the way of boosting Roman Reigns for his title match at WrestleMania.

The best use of Braun might be to send him to SmackDown. Braun runs through the competition on RAW, Kurt Angle gets fed up with him taking out all his superstar, and tells Daniel Bryan that Braun is his problem now.

There are fresh faces and fresh sets for Braun to demolish over on SmackDown. More importantly, there’s no Brock Lesnar or Roman Reigns, two guys way above Braun in the WWE pecking order.

If nothing else, the initial re-meeting between Braun and James Ellsworth should be a funny moment in WWE history. As long as WWE doesn’t actually write it to be funny.

WWE can still salvage Braun. Sunday looked to be his Ryback at Hell in a Cell 2012 moment, but all hope is not lost. Whether he runs through the competition again or heads over to SmackDown, WWE has a small window to rebuild Braun that they can’t afford to miss.

I’m on twitter @jeremylambert88