Braun Strowman announced before his WrestleMania 34 match with Cesaro and Sheamus that his mystery tag partner would not be another wrestler, but rather a WWE fan. After searching through the crowd, “The Monster Among Men” picked a child fan who went by the name Nicholas and brought him into a ring for the match.
After handling both men by himself, Strowman and Nicholas won the Raw Tag Team Championships.
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This marks the first time a child has won a championship in the WWE. A fan had previously won a championship when Santino Marella was pulled out of a crowd to take on Umaga for the Intercontinental Championship in the mid-2000s, but Marella was a trained wrestler.
To the shock of the crowd in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Nicholas actually amde the hot tag when Strowman looked to be in trouble, but Strowman quickly tagged himself back in and hit a Running Powerslam for the win.
Strowman has been hungry for a championship ever since he broke out as a singles star on Monday Night Raw in 2016. He got his first shot in a fatal four-way at SummerSlam 2017 against Universal Champion Brock Lesnar, Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns.
After failing to secure a win, Strowman got his one-on-one match with Lesnar at No Mercy, but was unable to kick out after being hit with Lesnar’s F-5 finisher. He then went on to have a lengthy feud with The Miz, but returned to the world championship picture by taking on Lesnar and Kane in a triple threat match at the Royal Rumble only to come up short again.
“The Monster Among Men” took part in the seven-man No.1 contender’s match at Elimination Chamber and eliminated a record five men in the match, but lost a shot at Lesnar’s title at WrestleMania to Reigns.
But Strowman wasn’t satisfied with not having a match at WrestleMania, so on the March 12 episode of Monday Night Raw he inserted himself into a tag team battle royal for a shot at The Bar at WrestleMania and won despite not having a tag team partner. Angle made the decision the following week that Strowman had to find one.
It was later revealed by Ryan Satin over at Pro Wrestling Sheet that Nicholas was actually not a random fan selected by Strowman. The 10-year-old champion is the son of WWE referee John Cone, who has been working in the WWE since 2006.
