Swerve Strickland recently appeared as a guest on Baller Talk for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the former AEW World Champion spoke about the rise of black wrestlers in WWE,
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On the rise of black wrestlers in WWE: “WWE has some guys coming up like Oba Femi, young dude, powerhouse, great dude. I look forward to his growth. Trick Williams, charismatic, can talk anybody into a building. Look forward to his growth. Je Von Evans, young guy, he grew up watching me, he said. Now he’s 21 years old, living his dream on the main roster. Great kid, looking forward to his growth.”
On getting praise from Ric Flair after one of his AEW TV promos: “I will say, after I came back from a promo at AEW, I did it live in the ring and stuff. I came to the back. He was the first one. He was like, ‘that’s how you rip the mic, brother.’ I was like, yo, from Ric? That’s like the highest praise you can get. That’s the highest praise you can get from one of the best to ever do it.”
On his five favorite wrestlers of all-time: “Man, Shingo Takagi is one of them. He’s very underrated for Japanese culture. He’s incredible. Then I will go, honestly, Shawn Michaels is up there. Learning from him in WWE, that put him on a whole other playing field for me. Edge, Adam Copeland. Phenomenal. Like, incredible. Rey Mysterio. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Incredible, and (Chris) Jericho. Jericho is my guy. Yes, sir. Jericho is my guy. We did music together as well. Got to open up for him and his band Fozzy. You know, those guys are, like, yeah. So, like, all these guys are- well, most of them are very much crossover, cross-cultural guys/talents in a lot of ways, like Jericho music and then acting, same (for) Edge.”
On AEW paying better than WWE and the pay disparity between the two companies: “AEW by far. By far. Cause, cause it’s guaranteed, and they got their select few up top that like top, top, top. Like they’re just like untouchables. But a lot of those guys are starting to retire now so that’s starting to like- Cena just retired. AJ Styles just retired. Those are like the top top earners, like Taker can’t go no more So that pyramid is starting to really get really pointy and small at the top. So up here is like, because if I could compare the two, like Tony Khan owns AEW. He’s also a part owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Fulham soccer team in the UK. He treats the roster like talent, like not talent, but like athletes. You know, there’s player coaches, there’s organization, there’s system coaches. He’s a player’s booker. He’s in tune with his talent and his roster and where to put those guys and like, he utilizes us very well, and it’s like a scheme on a football team. So me and him gel very, very, very, very well because he knows my strengths. He knows where I belong. He knows how to utilize all his players in the right way. So, therefore, he knows how to pay them too and motivate them in certain ways. He’s- especially we’re only in year seven of the company. which is a very small, very, very small window and short time of being in a wrestling promotion as big as we are. We did 80,000 seats in Wembley Stadium and we filled it.”