WWE star Braun Strowman recently appeared on WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves in an interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, Strowman was asked what it felt like to make his return to Monday Night RAW:
“You know in all honesty, as much as I don’t want to admit it because I’m supposed to be this big, giant, tough monster, I had to swallow back the emotions. It was really hard to stay in character. I heard that roar. I heard the place come unglued. Look, I’ve given myself goosebumps thinking about it.”
“I’m home. A year and a half away from the business watching my friends go out and entertain. We came back through the pandemic of being able to be in front of the WWE Universe and I wasn’t able to be a part of that made me kind of jealous. But you know that same feeling walking out there in Kansas City on Monday night after a year and a half of the WWE Universe not seeing the monster among men. My God, the pop, that’s what we all work for. That’s what everybody does this for. I mean, there’s no feeling that can mimic that energy, that excitement, when you walk out and the entire building loses their minds because you’re there. You can see when I was walking out, like it was everything I could do to keep that emotion inside of me. I cried when I came back through the curtain. Once I got away from everybody, I finally was able to absorb it and let it in because I love this. I miss it. I’m home. It’s good to be back.”
Strowman also commented on returning in better shape than when he left WWE:
“It’s nose to the grindstone everyday. You know, all this stuff doesn’t happen overnight. It’s day in and day out consistency. It isn’t just the last year that I’ve been working. I’ve totally revamped the way I train, eat, sleep, everything in life all leading up to this moment. It’s just constantly every day finding a way to better myself. I’m working with some of the top nutritionists in the world, top coaches, top trainers. You only get better by working with people that are better than you. So I reached out. I went out and used all my resources to find the best people in the world to help me achieve some of these goals that I wanted outside of the wrestling industry.”
“Now leading it back to full circle, here we are. I bought the best package that I could absolutely possibly bring back to the WWE and to the fans, to the powers that be in the office, to myself and my family, and dammit, I’m proud of myself.”
“You know, for a little fat kid from Sherrills Ford, North Carolina that was told he was never going to amount to anything, to proving people wrong, and then having that rug yanked out from underneath your feet and slipping back into that doubt of not knowing if you’re good enough. Well, there was a little bit of a time where I was, you know, beating on myself mentally. Why did this happen? What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? All that did was, you know, I did everything in my power that I could and you know, sometimes it’s not good enough and that’s business. So what did I do? I went out and did everything I could to get better. I refused to take no as an answer. I stepped into places that I was uncomfortable being and put myself out there being vulnerable to get better, you know, listening, adapting, absorbing everything that I could. I’m just going to keep continuing to do that. You think I look good now? Wait until you see what I look like in six months from now when I walk out on that stage at WrestleMania, the biggest, baddest, son of a bitch this business has ever seen.”
Additionally, he spoke about offers he had from other wrestling companies:
“We talked to everybody. People reached out about stuff and you know, I kind of played around with the ideas and I always said in interviews, and people thought I was stupid for it, I said I would never put on a pair of boots for anybody besides WWE and I stuck to my word. I never put on another pair of boots. I went out, started my own thing, worked for myself, gave young talent a place to come and work and make a living, hone their craft inside CYN and like I said, I stuck to my guns. I will never wrestle for anyone other than myself or WWE, and here we are. The monster is home.”
You can listen to the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
