Swerve Strickland Recalls Frustration With NXT and Triple H

Swerve Strickland is one of AEW's newest recruits, having made his debut at Revolution earlier this month.

Speaking in an interview with Getting Over: Wrestling Podcast, Swerve spoke about his frustration with his NXT run.

“Oh yeah. Absolutely. I had four good, strong conversations with Triple H about it personally. I was like ‘hey, I want to be one of your top guys. What do I have to do?’ Straight up and I wasn’t like bullsh-tting and getting around anything, I was like ‘what do I have to do? Because I know I can do it.’ And every time I had a conversation, he boosted me up a little bit with my position. And that’s why I got into the Santos Escobar thing. Because it’s like ‘okay, I want more.’ Okay, then he puts us on Takeover for the Cruiserweight Title. I was like ‘okay, I still want more. What’s the hesitation to put me with these top dudes?’ It was just like placement and all this other stuff.”

On his relationship with Triple H:

“I feel like he liked me and he respects my talent and my ability. But I don’t feel like he ever truly bought in and invested until I made him have to with Hit Row. He’s one of those guys like, he has those talents on the show that he knows and he’s well-acquainted with and it’s hard for him to deviate from those guys. When he’s set on someone, he’s set on them. Anybody who says that he doesn’t, like, I wouldn’t call it picking favorites, but if somebody says he doesn’t have his core guys, you’re one of the core guys. You know what I mean? They’re like ‘what do you mean, he’s great’. I’m like ‘no sh-t.’ But there’s a lot of like, to this day I feel like he missed out on Matt Riddle being a world champion because he was focused on core guys. I feel like there was times he missed out on a Bianca Belair because he was focused on his core girls. You know, there’s a lot of missed opportunities with certain areas because he was so focused on certain people and you kind of have to because he’s running a product that, on a weekly product, you kind of want to go to your go-getters. You know, your guaranteed guys.”