Swerve Strickland Addresses First AEW Dynamite After Winning World Title

AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland has been very active since dethroning Samoa Joe at Dynasty on April 21. He has defeated Claudio Castagnoli, Brian Cage, and all three members of The Patriarchy in recent weeks, and kicked off his run as champion with a victory over Kyle Fletcher on the April 24 "AEW Dynamite." Appearing on "Busted Open Radio," WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray asked Strickland if he was happy wrestling in a match on his first televised appearance since winning the AEW World Championship, with Bully mentioning that he and a few others believed he should have cut a promo instead. Strickland explained that he would have liked to have done something different, but that's not to say he had a problem with wrestling Fletcher. 

"That's the element of being now and getting back the next show, getting back the following week," Strickland said. "You've got to constantly grow, you grow and get more opportunities. For me, this championship reign is always going to keep ascending and going up. Next week is always going to be better than the week before, and then the next week's going to be better than the week before, it's going to keep going up. I'd rather keep going up than going down, and the people are growing with me as a champion."

Strickland is set to have one of the busiest months of his career so far in June. To start, he will defend his AEW World Championship against Roderick Strong on the June 5 "Dynamite." If he wins that match, he has a date with International Champion Will Ospreay at Forbidden Door on June 30, after Ospreay became the number one contender to the title on the May 29 "Dynamite."

Please credit "Busted Open Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.