When Swerve Strickland debuted for AEW a few months after his exit from WWE, few expected to eventually see the former cruiserweight Hit Row leader bulk up to become a legit heavyweight contender, officially securing the AEW World Championship in a win over Samoa Joe in the main event of Dynasty.
From the ups of his World Tag Team Championship program with Keith Lee to the downs of his Moguel Affiliates, which lasted about a month and only really generated deadlines when Rick Ross showed up in Baltimore, Strickland has had a time in AEW working all over the card and through it all has found a way to get over in a major way, effectively forcing Tony Khan to put the top title around his waist in St. Louis.
Discussing his unique journey to the top of the AEW card in a special interview with TMZ, Strickland revealed that he's actually making a documentary about his experience, as he believes fans would love to have a behind-the-scenes look at this chapter of his career.
“More excitement, more anxious. I'm ready to get to it. I don't really get the nervousness anymore. I'm excited to get my first Pay-Per-View title defense, I'm ready to get to it, I'm ready to showcase to the world what I have to offer as the new All Elite Wrestling World Champion,” Swerve Strickland told TMZ via WrestleZone.
“I'm one of the very few to literally start from the straight bottom to climb all the way up to becoming a world heavyweight champion and to be a main-eventer. I feel like I have one of the most unique stories in not just All Elite Wrestling, but just [the] wrestling industry period. We've been filming a documentary about it behind the scenes. There's a lot more nuance to the story that's gonna be told on the other side of the thing. That's gonna be coming out sometime.”
Whoa, a Swerve documentary, something WWE has borderline mastered by AEW, hasn't even tried yet? Well, if Strickland wants to get himself super over, allowing fans to see his vulnerability behind the scenes is a good way to do it.
Swerve Strickland is ready for Christian Cage at Double or Nothing.
In the main event of Double or Nothing, Swerve Strickland will wrestle Christian Cage, a man he has an intiment knowledge of from their tag team match together at last year's AEW All In.
While some fans have questioned this booking decision, Strickland believes it's right on the money, as not only does he have history with Cage and the entire Patriarchy but the former TNT Champion is a darn-good performer who has already main- evented PPVs for AEW in the past.
“Our history together dates all the way back to August 2023 at Wembley Stadium, we tagged together. I was the one that got put in the coffin by Sting & Darby Allin and lost. He has not forgotten about that, he has not forgiven me for that. I thought those things could've just parted ways and we would've just been good, but he's also fostered Nick Wayne, we all know what I've done to Nick Wayne, I've broke into his father's wrestling school and beat him down and bloodied him. If anything, The Patriarchy, the people that follow Christian, that's kind of created by me. All of the bad things I did in 2023 created my enemies now,” Swerve Strickland told TMZ via Fightful.
“That's my ghost of my past coming back to haunt me and Christian is not someone you want to take lightly, that's a former world champion. That's a legend in this industry. Don't let his age fool you, the man still has a peak physique. He looks phenomenal, he's smarter than he ever has been before. Daggers on the microphone, people believe him, and he's main-evented AEW Pay-Per-Views before. So, that's someone I'm learning a lot from, but it's also someone I gotta be more calculated and a lot smarter than. Once again, he's a multi-time world champion, he has a tenure. I'm new, so this disadvantage is wavering there as far as intelligence. But, my physical is stronger than it's ever been before. I've literally gained 30 pounds in that last eight months. My relentlessness, I can inflict a lot of pain. I put down Samoa Joe the same way, so I feel like I'm gonna do the same with Christian. I have a lot more tricks up my sleeve as well.”
You know, when you put it the way Strickland put it, that the bad things he did in 2023 have created his new enemies in 2024, it really does heighten the intrigue around his story, as he now has to right the wrongs he created while focusing on his selfish pursuits in the past. If that's the route AEW decides to take things in moving forward, then there are plenty of interesting twists and turns this story could take moving forward, as Strickland did a lot of bad things in his past to get him where hs is today.