Former AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland has discussed the switch to AEW from WWE and identified what held him back in WWE.
Swerve Strickland has been a component of AEW for 3 years, and in that point, he has delivered on the promise that he had shown in WWE and change into a world champion. In a recent interview with “Insight,” he discussed what held him back during his time in “WWE NXT,” and the way things modified once he joined AEW.
“I might say like this — I explained it to anyone — it’s like you possibly can have a talented quarterback drafted primary. If he isn’t in a company that enables him to be a franchise quarterback, he isn’t going to play like a franchise quarterback. So your quarterback is your quarterback, and your talent on a team is just nearly as good as your organization lets you be. In the event that they don’t can help you be as great as you most likely may very well be, then you definately’re not,” he said. “That is how I felt like in NXT. Like, the organization wasn’t surrounding me to position me as a franchise player because they didn’t imagine it. And for certain things, I do not know if I gave them the assumption anyway on the time. I gave them the talent, that is why that they had me there. They’ve talented people there, but the assumption is a distinct thing. They simply knew that they had a prospect.”
Strickland feels that WWE CCO Triple H wanted him to point out more leadership and initiative during his time in Hit Row, which didn’t quite occur. He admitted that after joining AEW, he shifted his mindset, began to steer, and focused on becoming undeniable, helped partially by the proven fact that a few of the AEW audience didn’t know him, giving him a fresh start. In AEW, Strickland has been in and across the AEW world title picture and held the title for 4 months.