As PWMania.com previously reported, it’s believed that Braun Strowman’s hefty WWE contract was a factor in his release from the company.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com discussed Strowman’s release:
“They made a list and these were guys that Vince decided he’s got nothing for them and so that’s who he decided to cut. I think a lot of people were surprised by Strowman…There’s a couple of things that hurt Strowman. Number 1 was his salary. It’s one thing when you’re paying $250,000 for somebody that you do very little with but you can always have them run around and do 24/7 gimmick stuff but you can’t put Strowman in that thing…The big problem is he [had] a big contract.”
“All of a sudden Braun Strowman at a legitimate 6 foot 6 when you got Omos, who is the new toy who is 7 foot 3…Braun Strowman’s big thing was that he had size and power and now they are going with a new giant. He can’t be the giant anymore when you got this guy who is legitimately 9 inches taller than him. Granted, Strowman’s got the big body and everything like that but you can only do the giant thing when you’re the giant of the company on the brand but he isn’t that guy anymore. Like with Big Show. If you remember with Big Show, when Strowman came, Big Show was obsolete. They put Big Show in there Strowman to get Strowman over because Big Show was a good enough worker and had pretty good matches with Strowman. The problem is Omos is not as good as Strowman and Strowman is not close to as good as Big Show and so the big thing, under other circumstances, if they were gonna make this cut they would book Strowman in there with Omos and then have Omos beat him and they would cut Strowman. The problem is if you think about that…is because [the matches would] absolutely totally suck. They got big guys there, you can’t be the giant and he’s not versatile enough to be something but the giant monster. He had that big contract and basically, it was expressed to me that he was two years passed his peak and he was getting high salary and that was the issue with Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy.”
