In a recent interview with The Athletic, AEW President Tony Khan discussed the rise of Swerve Strickland following his AEW debut in March 2022.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below::
On Swerve Strickland: “After his first match against Tony Neese on AEW Rampage, Chris Jericho walked back to me and said, ‘This guy is really amazing. Where did you find him?’ I’ve been watching him for years. I wanted to bring him into AEW when we first launched, but he had just been signed by WWE.”
On how Strickland is a wildcard: “Swerve is a wildcard. We saw that Swerve is a breakout star. He won the tag team championship in his first year and went on to have a massive 2023 while being showcased as a singles star. The idea was to showcase Swerve in feature positions with the intent and belief that crowds all over the world would buy into him. I believed he’d become very popular.”
Strickland will battle Samoa Joe and Hangman Page in a Triple Threat Match for the AEW World Championship this Sunday at AEW Revolution 2024.
