AEW’s Swerve Strickland says he told Oba Femi that if he had been booking WWE, Femi would have won a world championship in his debut.
Strickland made the comments during an appearance on Bootleg Kev, where he was asked about what fans have been calling a golden age for young Black talent across the industry. He recently posted an Instagram story spotlighting the group, which included Oba Femi, Je’Von Evans, Trick Williams, Carmelo Hayes, and AEW TNT Champion Kevin Knight.
Asked about the run of rising stars, Strickland leaned on the fact that none of them are interchangeable.
“What I love, nobody’s like the other. They’re all different. Everyone is their own entity, their own genre, nobody’s following the same stereotype as the other. That’s the ice cream flavors, you’re getting blends of different guys.”
“I’m just happy and fortunate that I have integration of like maybe two of those guys, because I dropped the North American Title to Carmelo Hayes, and then Kevin Knight, his first real singles main event was with me on Dynamite this year. Now you see the perception of him a little differently, now we can put him in main events, and that’s how it starts.”
He singled out Je’Von Evans for a different reason.
“Je’von’s different from Kevin in a sense too in that he’s the young lion type energy. People are mistaking ‘smiley’ to just ‘happy.’ He should be happy, that’s the kind of energy you want to see from a 21 year old athletic kid, living out his dream vicariously through other 21 year olds. He’s doing all this at 21, it inspires the next 17/18 year old to be like ‘I wanna be like that.’ Remember Bow Wow when he was hot at 13? Bow Wow was on top of the rap game at 13, 14, 15, that made other 15 year old kids want to start rapping at 12, it’s the same thing I see with Je’von.”
The Oba Femi conversation came up next. Strickland said he ran into Femi at a gym and laid out exactly how he would have booked him.
“I met Oba at the gym, and I said if I had the pen, your debut would be winning that belt. I was close because his debut was against Cody for the belt. He’s like ‘how did you do this man?’ I was like, I just call it how I see it, it’s you bro.”
“Perception is everything, put him in main events. People will buy it, but they’ve gotta see it. Same as Bron Breakker, perception is everything. Put ’em in the main events, people will buy into it. The more you do it, they’ll perceive it and buy into it.”
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Bootleg Kev and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
