AEW star Swerve Strickland recently appeared on the Under The Ring podcast. The interview was conducted before the AEW WrestleDream pay-per-view.
Swerve talked about his doubters on social media and proving them wrong (note, this was said before his match at AEW WrestleDream with Hangman Page and he mentions Page in his comments below):
“Man, with his style is so like, it’s almost barbaric if you look back at a lot of historic matches with the deathmatch with Jon Moxley, then like with Lance Archer, which is probably one of the most underrated like brutal matches in the company’s history. You look back at just those two, you can see how barbaric and dangerous this dude can be, and somewhere along the lines, I feel like he hasn’t shown that in such a long time, so leave it to me to be the agitator and bringing that out of them, you know, and that’s kind of what I’m here for in the sense of me, being so aggravating to him. I want to beat him at that level so there’s no question on why Swerve is who he is and who I say I am.”
“You know, there’s still doubters out there in the social media world and the media world, the podcast world and stuff like that, because I listen to everything. I see and hear everything. I don’t always acknowledge everything, but I do see and hear everything that’s out there. That’s kind of what keeps the chip on my shoulder. So now when I go out there, October 1st at WrestleDream in Seattle and I beat the brakes off of him while he’s saying he’s bringing his best, there better not be any more conversation about do I deserve this? Did I live up to the hype or any of this other bull crap that I hear.”
If it was easy for him to do the promo segments with Adam Page leading up to the match:
“It wasn’t easy at all. For me, I feel like the toughest part of this industry is being able to just speak, you know, like speak, like, in a believable way. Speak in a way that’s original. Speak in a way that is not so cliche and formulaic that you’ve heard a million times that you can see a lot of where the conversations are going before they even start, like a mile away. That’s so hard, especially when some of the greatest talkers of all time have already come and gone and are either already out of the industry, or they’re on their way out of the industry. To find your own voice is tough, and for me, this is the most mic time I’ve ever gotten in my career, like on live TV, I would say. You know, like I had like the mic a couple times in WWE and NXT, but that was a lot of shared mic time, but with AEW, this was like, like six minutes straight of talking and telling a story and building this hype and building this energy and like being original, like trying to find my voice and then like present it to someone who’s done this time and time again, there has been some of the greatest has ever stepped foot in this ring from this business. You know, like that’s, that’s a lot of pressure, so it can be a little scary at times, but it’s like that’s where you got to level up. That’s where I had to level up. I had to become something. I had to become someone and make a statement to make a point and then like, oh, man, okay, I got it. Now do it again. Oh, okay, now I gotta find that energy again and really find out who you really are and you gotta do it all over again. You got to make sure not only to top it, but make sure you still keep who you were the first time.”
On how it felt to wrestle at Wembley Stadium:
“It felt like we were in a small city inside of a city. That’s how big Wembley was. It was like, Oh, my God, oh, my God. Like, you don’t even see people anymore. You just see lights. That experience was like I wanted to walk out there like I was a prizefighter and I felt like we accomplished that, you know, with the performance on Flash Garments with DJ Hookie by my side and Nana doing his dance in the middle, and the fire blowing up from behind, coming up to my own song as well. That’s a huge accomplishment, you know, then grabbing the mic. I was like, I’m gonna take this moment. This is for me and doing the whose house, and 80,000 people screaming back, Swerves House. I was like, okay, so y’all know me. Y’all all know my legacy. Y’all know what I’ve been doing and y’all are here for it because y’all know me. You’re not just here to see Sting. It’s easy to get lost in that. You’re not here to just be Christian. Y’all know me and you’re here to see me too.”
On his upcoming releases:
“This weekend. I’m dropping like two music videos on the 30th. September 30 is my birthday actually, I’m dropping the workout video, and October 1st, I’m dropping These Dreams on the day of WrestleDream, so kind of poetic how that worked out.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Under the Ring with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
