Swerve in NXT.
Swerve Strickland Looks Back
Swerve Strickland is one of the top wrestlers in the world right now after coming to AEW in 2022. Before that, though, he was in WWE from 2019-2022, where he spent most of his time in WWE NXT. In a new interview with VladTV, Swerve Strickland took a look back at his WWE run and said it was a 205 Live Match with Drew Gulak that made him feel like he was “bullshitted around.” He also made mention that he and Triple H didn’t quite gel.
The one day I knew I was getting bullshitted around the PC was when I was there for three or four months, and I got called to do 205 Live against Drew Gulak, who had the Cruiserweight Championship. 205 Live is a show that takes place after SmackDown. So after SmackDown, you see the Roman Reigns, you see all those big names. They close off SmackDown, then they do another show for the extra content on the WWE Network at the time. It was three matches, and we were the last one. It was me and Drew Gulak, we went 18 minutes in the ring, straight, for the Cruiserweight Championship. Everybody’s on their feet, going crazy. I have Swerve’s House signs, going after Roman, I have Swerve’s House signs. They’re not chanting, ‘This is awesome.’ They’re chanting, ‘Let’s go Swerve.’ They’re actually rooting for me to win this title. I end up losing to Drew Gulak. Got great praise in the back afterwards. Charlotte [Flair], Bayley, Kofi [Kingston], Samoa Joe, everybody’s giving me crazy praise. I come back to the PC, and they’re trying to teach you arm drags again. I’m like, get the fuck out of here with that [laughs]. They’re trying to tell me how to entertain 400 people in NXT when I just entertained 6,000 in a stadium. I’m like, why are you trying to backtrack me? I already showcased what I can do in front of 6,000. Mind you, that’s the end game to all this. The end game is to get me there, of what this product is. That’s like, you don’t bring the guy from the G League, he drops 30 in the NBA, and come back to practice back at the G League, and it’s like, ‘Let’s put him on the bench. He needs more development.’ I’m like, I just dropped 30 on Giannis. What are we doing? So that was the mindset I had. It was kind of too brash, it was too over-thinking, and there’s where I kind of clashed with Triple H, as far as we didn’t gel. I really gelled with Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michaels was the one, because he didn’t have the full power, he was just an advocate, and he as a partner to Triple H because he was more hands on with the talent. Out of all the coaches and all the people and the staff there, Triple H still had to go to the main roster and SmackDown and Raw and do a lot of these public appearances. He still had to do the shareholder meetings and all that, so he couldn’t be there every day, but he was there pretty often. Shawn is the only one out of all those coaches that could really teach you how to be a top main event star. That’s the only one there. So I’m like, that’s who I need to get with. Why can’t I get with him?
Strickland continued to reveal how he met with Performance Center coaches Matt Bloom and Canyon Ceman where he made it clear that he wanted to work with Shawn Michaels.
I was like, ‘I want to get in Shawn Michaels’ class.’ ‘Well, Shawn, he’s not really doing classes right now. He’s not really holding classes because he’s so busy with the show.’ I was like, ‘Well, can I get a meeting with him.’ He was like, ‘I mean, his office is right over there.’ Bet. Went over there, found Shawn. I was like, ‘Hey Shawn, do you mind if I do tape studies with you?’ He’s like, ‘Absolutely.’ I’m like, it’s that fucking easy? I’ve been here a year and a half, and I could have just walked up to his office? But that’s those things, they don’t give you those curriculums. That’s not part of it. That’s the game. They want that run-around until you earn the ‘sweat equity’ to be able to go over there, to be like, oh, now you’re worthy of talking to Shawn because you put in all this stuff,
Swerve also spoke about being let go by WWE, which you can see here. You can find the full interview through a membership to DJ Vlad’s YouTube channel.
H/T Fightful
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