Swerve Strickland believes that this AEW star has made a name for themselves as of late.
All Elite Wrestling‘s Swerve Strickland was a recent guest on The Bootleg Kev Podcast. When asked how cool it’s been to work with Ricochet in recent months, Strickland put over the importance Ricochet has had on this generation of performers.
“I don’t think people really understand how important he was to wrestling in our generation,” Swerve Strickland said. “Like how serious and how big of an impact he had. In 2010 and 2011 over in Dragon Gate in Japan, him and PAC were changing the business. Because we thought the athleticism couldn’t reach a certain height anymore after we seen Rey Mysterio do what he did in WCW in the early 2000s.
“Then we didn’t think there was anywhere you can go higher than Matt Sydal’s Shooting Star Press, even though we were seeing Billy Kidman do it. But the athleticism, just like Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate when they were doing those collabs together. You go into Japan, you’re seeing like this 23-year-old kid do a double moonsault off the top rope. And before that on the Indies, he was doing it on little IWA Mid South shows in the middle of Louisville, Kentucky, off a ladder to the outside on people, a double moonsault.
“And then he goes to PAC and everything, they changed wrestling with 630s they’re just popping off springboards like Dragon Kid and Yoshino and Masato. It was just so much, I’ve never seen anything like that. So he just went globally viral and then took that to the US with PWG, and doing all the stuff that he was doing. Then Ospreay comes in from the UK. They merge, and then they do what they did in 2017 with the Best of the Super Juniors when they do the infamous super international junior spot.
“It was just like, man, that’s how big he was, and he still is to this day. But now it was like, through all those times, if you’re a fan, watching and following his career since then, you never understood who he was and what he was about. You never understood the identity about that. I always wanted to like, okay, I gotta take away that’s the guy. I want you to be like, that’s Ricochet doing that. That’s how you become a name.”
The Kurt Angle effect…
Swerve Strickland believes Ricochet will find more success now that he’s part of AEW and his character transformation has allowed him to take on the Kurt Angle effect.
“So Ricochet is probably, in my opinion, going to find more success with AEW,” Swerve Strickland said. “Because his talents are going to be utilized, and he’s going to be heard. I feel like once you find your voice and you are heard we know how to tap into an emotion, and people know how to feel about what you’re saying.
“Now, every time he comes out, instant boo. We know, oh that’s Ricochet. God damn it, he’s coming out. Oh, somebody come out and beat Ricochet. So now you know his name. Now you can do all the athleticism if you want to, if you choose to, but you have it. And everybody knows he doesn’t suck. We hate him, but he doesn’t suck. It’s the Kurt Angle effect. We hate him, but we know he can beat your ass.”
READ MORE: Swerve Strickland Goes In-Depth On His Psychological Warfare With Ricochet
What do you make of Swerve Strickland’s comments? Have you enjoyed Ricochet’s run in AEW so far? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of these quotes, please credit Bootleg Kev with a link to this article for the transcription.
