On a recent edition of the “Not Sam Wrestling” podcast, Swerve Strickland recalled paying tribute to the late Bray Wyatt with his Wyatt-inspired gear at AEW Full Gear 2023.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On paying tribute to Bray Wyatt: “I didn’t know Bray as close as a lot of people like Brodie Lee, there were people influenced by him from his time there, but some people have known him since FCW or NXT and they have that personal connection. To me, I remember when The Fiend was really going, there was a lot of chatter that it wasn’t for them, as a fan. I was like, ‘No, this is brilliant work.’ I don’t think people really appreciated the brilliance he was bringing to the screen and a lot of risks he was taking, week by week, which is not easy to do. Weekly television on two shows. It wasn’t just RAW or SmackDown, he was doing both shows with his material. Bringing that to the real world. I really appreciated that and I think he was ahead of his time.”
On wanting to show appreciation for Wyatt’s influence: “I just wanted to show appreciation that the love and influence wasn’t lost. I put that as part of my gear, and I was in the locker room with him during my time at 205 [205 Live], he always gave me hugs. He was awesome. At one point, I had to help him with a Fiend mask. It was COVID and we were all in that box together. There were times I had to help him with that. There were times I would see him in Gorilla coming back when they were testing the red lighting after the show and getting that going. I’ve seen a lot of those processes with him.”
On how Bray Wyatt was a good person in a locker room: “He was always a good brother in the locker room. He was fun, really cool. That was one of those things of, ‘you’ve always influenced me through all of this.’ No matter what, if it was their taste or wasn’t, I’m a horror person, and I was really happy to see a new age of horror brought to the screen in an industry that I love and I was like, ‘Man, that was a revolutionary.’ I wanted to take a little piece of that into what I was doing that night. If anything, I feel like his spirit powered that match.”
Strickland defeated Hangman Page in a Texas Death Match at AEW Full Gear 2023.
