Former AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland talks PNW roots, historic three-year run

Since Swerve Strickland signed with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and made his debut at AEW Revolution, a pay-per-view on March 6, 2022, he’s quickly climbed the ranks of the promotion and become one of the top professional wrestlers in the world.

Throughout his time with AEW, the Tacoma native has held numerous championships — including an AEW World Tag Team Championship run with Keith Lee under the team name “Swerve in our Glory,” which lasted 70 days.

Most notably, Strickland defeated hard-hitting pro wrestling veteran Samoa Joe at AEW’s pay-per-view Dynasty on April 21, 2024, in St. Louis, Missouri, to win his first AEW World Heavyweight Championship.

The former AEW World Heavyweight Champion, alongside his manager Prince Nana, sat down with the Nisqually Valley News just one day ahead of the live taping of AEW’s weekly Collision show on Saturday, June 21, at the ShoWare Center in Kent, and just five days before the live taping of another AEW weekly show, Dynamite, on Wednesday, June 25, in the same venue. Fans can watch AEW Collision every Saturday night on TNT. AEW Dynamite can be viewed every Wednesday night on TBS.

Strickland previously competed under the AEW branch in Washington state three times, first defeating AR Fox on Jan. 4, 2023, during a live taping of AEW Dynamite. His second AEW match in his home state occurred on Oct. 1, 2023, when he defeated “Hangman” Adam Page at AEW WrestleDream, a pay-per-view in Seattle at Climate Pledge Arena. Most recently, Strickland, who at the time was AEW World Heavyweight Champion, defeated Brian Cage on a live episode of AEW Dynamite at Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett.
Ahead of his return to the Evergreen State, Strickland, 34, said he feels an added sense of pride each time he gets to compete in his home state of Washington.

“Always coming back to where everything started for you is good for anybody,” he said. “It’s good for the community as well. For them to be relatable and see someone who started where they were, it’s relative. You want to always reach back out to your roots and make them feel like I’m coming back for you. That’s always a chance to tell a story. I came from where you are. There’s a chance for you to honestly do something, too. I like to tell a story with everything I do — every time I come back, every time I perform. There’s always a sense of a story to be told.

“I always want people to try to relate to something that we do in the ring, and I’m the conduit to do that. I’ll be the person to do that for Washington. Darby (Allin) does it in his own way. Bryan Danielson does it in his own way, and pretty soon, Kevin Knight will be the one, in the future or the now, doing it in his own way. We all find our own ways to tell our different unique stories about the Pacific Northwest.”

Prior to debuting in AEW three years ago, Strickland was one of the top independent wrestlers in the United States as he frequented the Seattle-based pro wrestling promotion DEFY Wrestling.

Numerous professional wrestling stars have wrestled in Seattle for DEFY Wrestling and gone on to wrestle for AEW, including Strickland, Cody Rhodes, Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF), Lio Rush, John Morrison, Brody King, Matt Sydal and Brian Cage. Strickland believes the influence from the early stages of DEFY help inspire the next generation of professional wrestlers in the Pacific Northwest, as they see DEFY alumni who have succeeded in years past and it helps make them believe in the process.

Strickland wrestled Rhodes inside Seattle’s Washington Hall on Jan. 13, 2017, in the main event at DEFY1 Legacy, the promotion’s first event.

“I helped start DEFY wrestling,” Strickland said. “I was in the first main event with Cody Rhodes in DEFY wrestling, and to see the first main event and how impactful DEFY is now, looking back, it was like we were just trying to start something in that area and once again tell that story about the Pacific Northwest and what we have to offer with DEFY. Seeing that first main event, myself and Cody, and what came from that — me being the AEW World Champion and him going on to become the WWE World Champion — that’s pretty big. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.”

After Strickland’s debut in AEW in 2022, he’s been one of the most frequently featured professional wrestlers on the company’s televised product. Just one year into his AEW run, Strickland was paired with his current manager, Prince Nana, after Strickland’s group “Mogul Affiliates” merged with Prince Nana’s stable “The Embassy.”

Since the pairing of the two began on April 7, 2023, during an episode of AEW’s television show Rampage, the duo has built a genuine and sincere connection with the live audience. Strickland believes the reason he and Prince Nana have been able to connect with the audience so well is because everything they present to the fans is genuine.

“The secret sauce to everything Nana and I touch turning to gold is because everything that Nana and I do is genuine,” he said.

“It starts with that. That’s the attachment. That’s the connection we have with the people. It’s up to the people to turn it into gold. The more people connect to us, the more people wear what we wear, post what we post, show up to where we’re at, like, retweet and share the things that we do, do the dances — that’s connection. That’s just us being ourselves. That wasn’t really anybody controlling, playing or navigating us. It was just putting us in the place and giving us the opportunity, the time to do it. Getting the platform is the first thing. Landing on the platform is the first thing, and what you do with that turns it into more over time.”

Prince Nana added, “We go by a saying, ‘everything we do is with a passion.’ That’s what our secret sauce is. We have passion. We have desire. This is what we do. We want to relay that to the fans each and every week.”

Last year was huge for the careers of Strickland and Prince Nana, as the Tacoma native captured the AEW World Heavyweight Championship on April 21, becoming the eighth wrestler in AEW history to hold the championship, and the first African American to accomplish the feat. His reign as champion lasted 126 days, until he was defeated by the Aberdeen, Washington, native Danielson on Aug. 25, 2024, at AEW: All In London at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Over 50,000 tickets were distributed for the event, AEW President and CEO Tony Khan claimed last year.

The stakes were high in the championship matchup, as Strickland was wrestling to retain his AEW World Heavyweight Championship, while Danielson was wrestling for his career. If Strickland would’ve beaten Danielson in London, the Aberdeen native would’ve been forced to retire.

“I wanted to do the honor and justice for Bryan (Danielson),” Strickland said. “He set such a high bar. Him and Kenny (Omega). Him and Hangman (Adam Page). Him and (Will) Ospreay. The bar was already raised so high for Bryan. Even MJF, they had an hour long iron man match. The bar is set so high. It wasn’t a matter of me trying to top it, but it was me trying to make it something genuine and something different — something unique to myself and him. The fans were on the edge because it could’ve gone any which way. Props to Bryan for helping build me up to be a competitor who was worthy enough to be put in that position to retire him and people believe it. You want to set your opponent up to be believable, and Bryan did that in one of the best ways.”

Strickland added that he wanted to take the moment in Wembley Stadium and transform it into something “different and unique” for him and Danielson. The atmosphere was electric in Wembley Stadium last summer as Strickland made his entrance to a live performance of “Big Pressure” by rappers Bun B and Flash Garments, and Danielson made his triumphant entrance to the tune of Europe’s “Final Countdown.” Danielson’s wife, Brie Bella, was also ringside for the event with their two children, making the stakes even higher.

“That’s how you make another magic moment,” Strickland said. “All of the elements. Don’t just watch for one part — you have to watch the entire thing.”

Prince Nana, who always enthusiastically and dramatically plays his role during Strickland’s matches, said Strickland and Danielson’s match at AEW: All In London last summer was a night he’d never forget.

“That night was unbelievable,” Prince Nana said. “Bryan Danielson, before we went out, just gave me this look. It was like, ‘we’re here.’ This was almost 20 years later of being in the wrestling business, and going up this mountain of obstacles and early retirement, it was like new versus old. It was everything it needed to be, and Wembley Stadium was the perfect setting for that.”

Strickland added, “I feel like you can’t swap me out with any other wrestler and have the same results, just like you can’t swap out Bryan Danielson and have the same results. It was unique to every person.”