Swerve Strickland says political moves are why things didn’t work out for him in WWE.
Strickland previously had a run in WWE, and he held the NXT North American Championship. Alongside his Hit Row stable, he was called up to SmackDown in 2021, but the group was released weeks later. Strickland then signed with AEW in March 2022. He went on to win the AEW World Championship.
Speaking on The Rich Eisen Show ahead of AEW All In, Swerve Strickland was asked to comment on why things “didn’t work out” in WWE.
“Political moves. Just political moves, I can say,” he said. “I’ll just leave it at political moves. It was political.”
Swerve Strickland On Joining AEW
Strickland was then asked to discuss his mindset and what he was expecting when he joined SEW in 2022.
“Opportunity and time,” Swerve Strickland said. “Once again, it was one of those things, all the possibilities that could go on here. I’m rewarded that, I’m forwarded the opportunity, and that’s all I’ve ever needed. That’s all I’ve ever been given, just an opportunity. I work my way up from the bottom. I don’t care, you can put me in battle royals. I’ll lose them all, I don’t care, just give me the opportunity to show out. Give me the opportunity, like, hey, can I get a minute of TV time right here in this spot? Absolutely. Okay. I’m gonna make something matter.
“That’s something that you just can’t ask for anywhere else else. You can’t just ask for a minute and get it. That’s really tough. I don’t care if it’s Dynamite, Rampage, or Collision or Ring of Honor. Getting television time forwarded to you. It’s valuable. It’s up to you what you do with it. I don’t care what nobody says or how social media wants to downplay how much time someone gets, it’s about opportunity. There’s a lot of people out there that I know are very talented that could dream of getting a minute’s worth of television opportunity.
The video can be seen here:
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