MLW officials recently had talks with former WWE Universal Champion Braun Strowman (Adam Scherr), but were unable to come to a deal.
MLW Founder/CEO Court Bauer hosted a media call today to promote Thursday’s Fightland special on Vice TV. Wrestling Inc’s Nick Hausman asked Bauer if the company has talked to Strowman or Bray Wyatt (Windham Rotunda), and what he thinks about them being free agents in the wrestling world.
Bauer also revealed that MLW had talks with Bo Dallas (Taylor Rotunda), who was released from WWE on April 15 after 13 years with the company. Bauer noted that Dallas is currently focused on farming, which we’ve noted before as he and Liv Morgan own a farm together.
“So, we had conversations with Bray’s brother, and I think he seems more interested in farming,” Bauer said. “I understand having to re-charge, you gotta re-charge for another run, but right now it seems like he’s more interested in doing some farming. And I don’t knock him for it.
“And we did talk with Braun Strowman for a little bit, and didn’t come to terms on a deal. I can’t say where they’re gonna be headed or not, I don’t really know.”
Bauer continued and talked about how MLW is always looking to add to the roster, and how some wrestlers come to the company ready to prove that another promotion slept on them, or they come in broken by another promotion and it just doesn’t work out.
“We’re looking and evaluating talent all the time and seeing if it’s a good fit from a product point of view with our fans,” Bauer said. “Will it mesh? And what we’ve noticed is, there are some names that are big stars, high profile guys, and they come in, they’re embraced by our fans, and there are others that are like, ‘Yeah, we know they’re buzzing, they’re coming from a big company but this isn’t their jam.’ So it’s a really delicate thing. It’s like you’re a chef, and certain ingredients will work, and certain ones won’t, and every scenario is different.
“So we look at our roster, we have about 90% of our roster signed, but I’d like to have 5 or 10% that’s open for payroll for budget, that we can then have flexibility creating match-ups, sometimes it’s just a fresh 2-3 month commitment, and it’s a handshake deal, and at the end of that they go off and go to another company, maybe we help them enrich their negotiating position, and they can do something else somewhere else, and that’s fine. Sometimes we present them with a contract and sign them. So, it’s nice having that flexibility just to try things out. Sometimes guys will come in very motivated to show the world that the other company slept on them, sometimes they’ll come in kind of broken by the other company, and it doesn’t work out because they’re just not in a good head-space. So, it gives us some time to kind of test the waters.”
Strowman is expected to sign with Impact Wrestling in the near future, but that has not been confirmed. Dallas recently launched his own YouTube channel.
Stay tuned for more and be sure to join us for live Fightland coverage at 10pm ET on Thursday night.
Follow Marc on Twitter at @this_is_marc. Send any news, tips or corrections to us by clicking here.
