James Gunn has said that one of the inspirations behind why Superman is going to be wearing his signature red trunks in the upcoming film is actually inspired by professional wrestlers.

“He dresses like a professional wrestler. He dresses in a way that makes people unafraid of him. That shows that. That really clicked in for me. And I think trying to pretend that Superman’s costume doesn’t have some frivolity to it, at its base, trying to make it look serious is silly because he is a superhero. He’s the first one, brightly colored, and that’s who he is. So that’s where we landed, and eventually, we all came to a place where almost all of us agreed on the trunks.”

This does actually date back to some of the original inspirations for how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster conceived of the character, as wrestler Karol Krauser was used as a rotoscope model for the Fleischer animated short films.

While yours truly is actually not the biggest fan of the red trunks on Superman’s costume and thinks that they should change that for modern times in the same way the shield logo is updated (and for the record, I love the use of the Kingdom Come version of the Superman emblem being used in this film), it is still pretty cool to see two of my big fandoms merging together like this.

And as such, I’d like to merge this as well with my eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!

My question for you today is “If you had to cast someone from the current WWE or AEW rosters as Superman, who would you pick?”

Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.

As far as my answer…

Of course, let me flat out answer my own question with a rejection that I wouldn’t cast a pro wrestler in this role, as there aren’t any that would fit it well enough and as much as I love wrestling, I love the superhero genre even more, and preserving that legacy takes priority. Let’s just nip any of that in the bud from the onset in case anyone thinks I would actually consider this a good idea. This is just a fun “what if” exercise.

With that out of the way, you have to narrow this down to tall, handsome, Caucasian, dark-haired (or willing to dye their hair and cut it short) types that are in their 20s-30s. That means no Erick Rowan with his giant red beard or Otis or anyone of that sort for obvious reasons. I don’t think anyone’s going to champion a fan cast of Brock Lesnar playing this part. Clearly, if he were in a Superman film, he’d have to be Doomsday or Mongul or something of that ilk. So unfortunately, unless we’re going with some Elseworlds story, Rey Mysterio’s not making the cut.

At a quick glance on the WWE and AEW rosters, I think we’re working with just a few names even worth momentary consideration, like Austin Theory, Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo, Johnny TV if we could go back in time and also make this the 90s mullet version of Superman, etc. But I would have to narrow my top 3 choices to Cutler James, Josh Briggs, and the one that I would probably pick above all others, Ethan Page. Throw Ludwig Kaiser in there as Lex Luthor and I guess Fallon Henley as Lois Lane and we’ve got…well, a pretty awful Superman movie, most likely, but hey, nobody’s actually making this thing!

Toss out some Superman Punch puns in the comments below and tell us what you think about this story!