Lang
9/13/21
Two days after winning the CyHawk trophy, the Iowa football program can now lay claim to another piece of hardware: The WWE championship belt.
Ettore Ewen, known to WWE fans as “Big E”, defeated WWE champion Bobby Lashley on Monday Night Raw to win the company’s biggest title for the first time in his career. In the storyline, Ewen cashed in the “Money in the Bank” briefcase he originally won in an eight-man match last July. The winner earns a contract for a WWE championship match that can be “cashed in” at any time on either the WWE Champion on Raw or the WWE Universal Champion on SmackDown. While Ewen is a member of the SmackDown roster, the company chose to have him cash in on Raw.
Ewen was a defensive lineman for the Hawkeye football team from 2004-2006, but his career was plagued by injuries and he turned to professional powerlifting before joining WWE.
Ewen is not the first WWE Champion with Iowa ties. Buffalo, IA native Seth Rollins, billed by the company as being from Davenport, has had four championship runs that began with a Money in the Bank Cash-in at WrestleMania 31 in 2015.
Ewen remains an ardent Hawkeye fan who often tweets his support for his old team. WWE even bills him as a former Hawkeye football player in his intro graphics.