Swerve Strickland Came To AEW To Prove He Was 'One Of The Worst Mistakes' WWE Made

Before joining AEW, Swerve Strickland performed in WWE as Isaiah "Swerve" Scott. He was primarily featured on "WWE NXT" and "WWE 205 Live" in the cruiserweight division before he turned heel in 2021 and led Hit Row with Top Dolla, Ashante "Thee" Adonis, and B-Fab. The faction was brought up to "SmackDown" in the draft that fall, but then a month later, they were all released. Strickland recently spoke to 95.7 The Game about how he set out to prove WWE was wrong for letting him go.

"As many things as WWE does right, there's a lot of things that WWE does wrong, and I was one of those," Strickland said. "I wanted to make sure I proved that. I was one of the worst decisions you could make. Because I also sat in that for a little bit of being disappointed, like I didn't want to tell my family for a couple days at first. Then I was like, 'How about I turn this energy and emotion into something positive? How do I use this as fuel to power this locomotive?' I just went balls to the wall."

Strickland explained that he wanted to start "doing stuff that nobody in the industry can do." He reached out to several contacts and went to Los Angeles for two weeks to "make moves." It all worked out as his first match back on the indies was against Jay White. Strickland also recalled advice he received from Tommaso Ciampa, and that was to "get over." As a result, he pursued opportunities in the entertainment space as well to expand his reach.

This weekend will mark one year since Strickland made his AEW debut at Revolution. Since then, he captured the AEW World Tag Team Championship alongside Keith Lee, but now the two are engaged in a rivalry.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit 95.7 The Game with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.