Report: Former WWE Universal Champion Has Signed New Contract to Return to the Company

Former WWE Universal Champion Braun Strowman has signed a new deal that will see him return to WWE, according to a new report from PWInsider. Strowman was released by the company in July 2021 and has since worked eight matches on the independent scene, most notably in the Control Your Narrative promotion. PWI’s Mike Johnson notes that Strowman is expected to be at next week’s Monday Night Raw in Kansas City. 

Strowman initially signed with WWE in 2013, but instead of working his way up on the NXT brand he was immediately moved to the main roster in 2015 to work as the newest member of The Wyatt Family. A repackaging in 2016 resulted in him becoming one of the bigger stars in the company, periodically feuding with Roman Reigns while also winning Money in the Bank in 2018. He finally won his first world championship in 2020 at WrestleMania 36, replacing Reigns at the event in a Universal Championship bout against Goldberg. “The Monster Among Men” would hold the title until that year’s SummerSlam. 

“Everything happens for a reason. One door closes and it’s unbelievable how many other doors have opened. So may different opportunities,” Strowman said in an interview last October while reflecting on his release. “I turned down a lot of money, like an astronomical amount of money to do this. There’s days where I friggin think about it and I’m like ‘holy s—.’ Every three letter word corporation out there has made me an offer, talked to me about what I want to do moving forward. And I said ‘first and foremost, I have something that I want to do.’ One was this. Two was just having a chance to breathe and live. Like I said, I was unbelievably blessed for my time with WWE, but it was very time consuming. I went, in five years, I saw my parents eight times. I missed people’s funerals, I missed weddings, I missed births, I missed Christmas’, I missed Thanksgivings.

“The time was amazing, don’t get me wrong. But I’m still a human being, and I have needs when it comes to comfort. I’m very close with my parents, I’m very close with my family and my friends,” he continued. “So it’s not only being able to work with my friends on a project, being able to work on an app, being able to do all the other stuff that I have coming out very soon that I’ll be able to talk about more. But just being able to live and going back to my grassroots. And this was one of the biggest things to come out of the Narrative, was remembering who the f— I was.”

h/t PWInsider