How WWE Can Avoid Letting Braun Strowman Get Lost in WrestleMania 34 Shuffle

WrestleMania is the biggest show of the year and every wrestler wants to be a major focal point for it, as it points to them being someone who is considered valuable and important to the company.

Of course, not everybody gets the opportunity to fill that kind of role—for a variety of reasons.

In most cases, a Superstar isn't high enough on the totem pole to get a decent spot on the card; other times, an injury gets in the way of someone being able to perform, which is always a shame.

However, some men and women fall victim to a curse where the creative team simply doesn't figure out a plan for them that represents what the WWE Universe collectively feels.

This year, it seems Braun Strowman may be one of the casualties of this problem.

Credit: WWE.com

It sounds ridiculous to be saying that, considering his performance at the Elimination Chamber, where he eliminated every single person in the match save for the eventual winner. However, the fact he lost the fight, combined with what happened on Monday Night Raw this week, could be a bad sign for things to come.

On Monday's episode, Strowman fought Elias, who ran off after blasting The Monster Among Men in the face with a fire extinguisher.

At any other point in the year, that would come off as the next step in a feud between the two wrestlers that would culminate at the upcoming pay-per-view.

In this case, with WrestleMania on the horizon, there is little time to abandon this feud and move on to build something else, but there's also too much time to drag this out all the way until April 8 without it seeming like an eternity.

WWE is in a bit of a conundrum with Strowman: Is this program with Elias really going to happen at WrestleMania or is something else going to take place, and how does that story pan out?

Although talented and getting progressively more over with the crowd, Elias is simply not on the same level as Strowman, as indicated by their booking at Elimination Chamber.

Credit: WWE.com

A true mountain of a man, Strowman has been pushed as a nigh-unstoppable force even when up against top-tier names such as John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Kane and Roman Reigns.

In the Elimination Chamber, he was far above and beyond the toughest combatant and for him to be booked to eliminate everybody, only to succumb to Reigns and then make a statement by laying him out afterward, goes to prove WWE sees him as a main event player.

However, a match with Elias doesn't feel like it is on par with what Strowman should be doing, as there is no way it would receive the proper attention on Raw in the coming weeks to reach a fever pitch where fans put it at the same anticipation level as some other matches.

Compared to the Ronda Rousey situation, the Universal Championship match, John Cena's possible encounter with The Undertaker and more, Strowman vs. Elias will seem like a quick squash waiting to fill just a few minutes in the midcard.

Worse still, it would mean absolutely nothing, as it's already been established Strowman is dominant, so we don't need to see it anymore. It would effectively be building up to a guaranteed pointless victory and nothing more.

Credit: WWE.com

So how does WWE counteract this to give Strowman something worth his salt and not find itself in a situation where, come WrestleMania 34, he's gone from someone who should be the top dog of the brand to an afterthought?

If Strowman vs. Elias is the plan, it would need to not only receive a significant upgrade for its push but every single week leading up to the event, things would need to be progressively more interesting on top of that.

It hasn't achieved the level it needs so far, and time is running out.

By the time the go-home show of Raw takes place, fans need to be itching to see Strowman beat Elias to a pulp, but there also needs to be a sense that The Drifter is more credible than he's been.

Somehow, Elias needs to look like a bigger threat against Strowman, but that can't be done at The Monster Among Men's expense since the entire appeal for him is that he's inhuman. Diminishing his credibility to boost The Drifter doesn't help—it only hurts the situation.

Along with this, the match would require some stakes to boost interest and offset the idea it's a meaningless win similar to Strowman beating down Curt Hawkins.

The trouble with this is there are no titles they can put up for grabs, nor would it make sense for them to be fighting for a No. 1 contender's spot.

It's foolish to say WWE can merely flip a switch and turn this into a bout in which fans are heavily invested and would consider a top draw for the card, so it seems like a lost cause to have Strowman vs. Elias be anything but a weak match.

As such, alternative options to the Elias feud would need to be sought, but again there aren't many choices to pick from, based off the way things are going with other storylines.

If Cena and The Undertaker are paired up, every title is accounted for with other feuds and there aren't any big names waiting in the wings to make a return, there isn't much left to play with to give Strowman a top spot on the card.

A gut reaction could be to put him in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal match and make him the supremely dominant winner, wherein he could eliminate every person and stand tall, but even that is problematic.

For starters, that match always goes on the pre-show, so it would seem like a lackluster spot for Strowman for the second year in a row.

In 2017, he was in a similar position to this year, where he was on the rise, but in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania 33, no clear game plan was set for him. At the last minute, he was thrown into the Battle Royal and eliminated fairly early on.

It would sting quite a bit for him to have made even more progress over the past 12 months only to find himself back at square one with the only difference being a win in a match that has historically ended up being pointles—no winner has accomplished anything significant the rest of the year in which he won it.

Credit: WWE.com

Moving him over to the SmackDown Live side of things wouldn't work for now, as he isn't a free agent, nor is the Superstar Shake-up going to happen mot likely until after WrestleMania, which rules out all opponents on that brand.

If it's possible, a returning Samoa Joe could pick a fight with Strowman and spark a brutal No Holds Barred brawl between the two, but that would need to start being in the works immediately for it to build the proper steam.

That is, of course, if Joe is even healed enough from his injury to return.

It seems as though Strowman is in a similar credibility spot as Kane when he faced The Undertaker at WrestleMania 14, yet Strowman's being booked in a way that is reminiscent of Ryback's ascent and fall from grace in 2012 and 2013.

Ryback was pushed to the moon as a monster, defeating three opponents at once, before making it to the main event scene, where he lost every single pay-per-view match.

There was momentum for him to win the Royal Rumble and defeat Big Show for the World Heavyweight Championship a few months down the line at WrestleMania 29, yet instead he found himself losing to Mark Henry and successfully hitting his finisher on him after the match.

Credit: WWE.com

This just happened to Strowman with him losing to Reigns and then making a statement following the loss. It means nothing because, at the end of the day, WWE still didn't give him the ball to run with.

Based on that history, there is a danger Strowman will be given some undercard match at WrestleMania 34 that he might even lose.

The best course of action would have been to insert him in the Universal Championship scene, even despite his loss, but since he lost that Elimination Chamber match and there was no indication or hint at him being added into the Reigns-Lesnar feud, that seems to have passed.

Strowman has proved he deserves a main event role, but it's doubtful he's going to get it. Right now, it's uncertain if he'll even get a decent enough midcard spot at the event.

Perhaps the only way to salvage his Road to WrestleMania would be to go back in time and give the Elimination Chamber victory to him instead, or at least have something substantial enough for him to follow it up with something better than this feud with Elias.

Since that is not going to happen, fans of The Monster Among Men might have to just come to the realization that despite him being exactly the type of person the company wants as a headliner, he may not be doing anything noteworthy at WrestleMania 34.

If that ends up being the case, we can always hope for next year, even though that's what happened last time.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.