In this WrestleTalk News, Braun Strowman ironically loses control of his own narrative, Tony Khan
accused of having thin skin, Cain Velasquez’s first statement since his arrest and more.
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We’re over a week out from WrestleMania now, but the wrestling world is still fixated
on the weekend’s biggest appearance: Elias’ younger brother Ezekiel debuting on Raw.
There have been some accusations, though, that Ezekiel isn’t actually who he says
he is. Some have speculated he’s actually NXT call up LA Knight, while other, more outlandish
theories reckon he’s actually his older brother Elias. Whatever, Alex Jones, it’s
quite clearly not. Elias has a beard. It’s annoying that people like Ekeziel,
when they should be enjoying their WWE debut, feel the need to defend themselves against
such ridiculous claims like ‘I’m actually my brother’ or ‘WWE is paying loads of
bots to be mean about my promotion’. But defend himself he has, posting a picture to
his Instagram (handle IamnotEliasWWE), of the two brothers standing side-by-side with
the caption ‘Haters will say it’s photoshopped, but we all know the truth.’
Haters like Kevin Owens, who’s tweeted his conspiracy loving frenemy forever Sami Zayn
‘HELP ME’ To which Sami replied: “They will try to
minimize you because you speak the truth! Keep fighting the good fight!! ...I must say
that picture is pretty convincing though.” Some people will just continue to believe
what they believe no matter the overwhelming evidence, and Owens replied to that: “There’s
leaves growing out of his GD arm! Think!!!” It’s exactly the sort of comedy storyline
you’d want for the number two heel on your show.
A new report from PWInsider has revealed the internal listings for the top three babyfaces
and heels on Raw - which is the document the creative team are given to prioritize stories.
On the heels side we have: At number 3 - The House of Purple, with Edge
and his incredible disappearing Damien Priest. Number two is the aforementioned Kevin Owens.
And the number one heel on Raw, as determined by WWE themselves, is Seth Rollins.
On the babyface side, the third biggest good guy on Raw is AJ Styles.
With the freshly returned Cody Rhodes in at number two.
Leaving the biggest babyface on Raw to be… Bobby Lashley. Somehow.
Over on SmackDown, Roman Reigns is listed as the number one heel, while Drew McIntyre
is the top babyface. Cody will likely be moved up to be Raw’s
top babyface in the next month, but it shows just how thin WWE’s main event scene has
become in the immediate wake of WrestleMania, when the celebrities return to their other
jobs, and Stone Cold and Vince McMahon recover from that stunner.
Speaking of that Stunner, was it the worst one of all time? Watch our Top 10 worst and
best stunners countdown over on partsFUNknown! Before we get on with the rest of the episode,
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Kevin Owens isn’t the only one slowly losing his mind on Twitter. Braun Strowman has managed
to botch social media posting three times in just a few days.
Former WCW and WWE star Buff Bagwell posted about EC3’s new wrestling promotion Control
Your Narrative - CYN for short - which Strowman, now called Titan or his real name Adam Scherr,
is a part of: “I just joined CYN. Wait, never mind, it
was just gas.” Which is either Buff making a joke that CYN
with its attempt at having edgy rules is a load of hot air. Or it is literally a fart.
So Strowman decided not just control his narrative, but also Buff’s by bringing up Bagwell’s
recent trouble with the law. “Funny you gonna try and throw shade casue
what you think it’s the cool thing to do. You wanna look edgy?? Cause you sure were
a mark asking to take a picture with me. You should probably worry about your narrative.”
- with a picture of a report showing Buff being arrested on more than 10 charges related
to speeding last May. Strowman continued to rage: “Don’t come
at me or my company unless you want it back. Everyone thinks it’s funny to talk crap
then I roast them and they cry victim. No a surprise on this app though”
And “It’s sad isn’t it. Also imagine being someone defending those actions like
they are ok.” So Buff retaliated by trying to control Braun’s
narrative, tweeting: “@Adamscherr99 something about glass houses.
I’m open about my past mistakes, and tend not to bring others up against them. You got
offended because I made a joke about something I didn’t even know you were part of because
I didn’t know you.” with a picture of a report that Braun was arrested for operating
a boat while intoxicated in 2013. And “My agent wanted me to get a picture
with you, it was no different than any other fan I took a picture with that weekend.”
Strowman then said while he did get a ticket for the boat, he wasn’t with WWE when it
happened, and he definitely didn’t spend the night in jail.
And he started to backtrack on his initial outburst:
“And I’ll man up right now and admit I came at you to hard. I went for the kill.
And shouldn’t have. I understand you didn’t know I was apart of CYN. But imagine you being
one of the boys taking shots at a place giving work to other wrestlers.”
“We should be sticking together to better the industry. It’s toxic enough with the
iwc. We shouldn’t be going at each other of social. Best wishes”
Which Buff accepted, replying: “I agree we should be sticking together, but we also
need to listen to the fans, even the ones we don’t like because they pay our bills.
Let’s all be better 💪🏼 much love brother.” But just as Braun almost had control of one
narrative, another flared up! Many started to point out Strowman’s whole
‘sticking together’ ethos rings a bit hollow after his post two years ago - as wrestler
Jordan Oliver tweeted: “TF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? Remember when
your clown ass was s****** on Indy wrestling ??? “Imagine you being one of the boys taking
shots at a place giving work to other wrestlers” 🤡🤡🤡
This is in relation to Braun’s Instagram posts at the start of the pandemic, criticizing
indie wrestlers who had fallen on hard times for asking others to pay their bills via GoFundMes
or Patreons. Over the last week, Braun has also taken aim
at AEW and Tony Khan, tweeting that watching Dynamite would be a far worse punishment than
watching Raw. He also posted a parody version of Khan’s
own odd tweet over the weekend, where the AEW President accused WWE of creating an army
of bots to say bad things about his promotion on Twitter.
“An independent study has confirmed that much of the staunch antiCYN online community
arent real individuals its a staff running thousands of accounts an army of bots to signal
boost them. Look closely these arent real people. Whod pay for such a wildly expensive
thing? #whatamark” Buff Bagwell’s a bot?
Then Strowman went one further, and posted the old conspiracy theory that Khan pays wrestling
websites and YouTube channels like ours money to say nice things about AEW. Which totally
isn’t true. (Did I do good Tony?) “Why is there no face to palm emoji. This
is the same guy that pays the dirt sheets and says his wrestlers are free to do what
ever but black balled them from CYN shows. Why???? Cause we’re a f****** threat.”
CYN isn’t just controversial for its seemingly anti-indie style vision for wrestling, but
also for the wrestlers on its roster like Austin Aries and Flip Gordon, both of whom
have seemingly fallen out of favour with the major companies because of their personal
views on topics like the pandemic and how round the earth actually is.
But while Strowman claims Khan has banned his wrestlers from appearing on CYN shows,
he also says “so many people want to work with us and both our shows have had tons of
aew talent back stage watching. We are the new option. You’ve been warned.”
There is a part of me that suspects CYN could all be some weird kind of meta joke. Focus
on the TROLL part of ConTROLL Your Narrative. But that trolling could also be ideologically
sincere for those wrestlers and fans who feel excluded by the increasingly left-leaning
pro wrestling industry - where studies suggest pro wrestling fans are more politically to
the left than any other sport. The proof will be in CYN’s success. If there
really is an audience for their branding, they’ll make money. If not, they’ll stay
at a small oddity level, relying on Twitter outbursts and outrage stunts online to remain
relevant. What’s your thoughts on CYN? I’d love
to hear your thoughts below either way, because I can’t figure out if they’re actually
connecting with fans in the way they want to.
Now go watch the 10 best and 10 worst stunner sells in WWE history
with Adam Blampied…