AEW's Swerve Strickland Looks Back At His Growth

Lee South/AEW

Amidst his in-ring meeting with MVP at AEW WrestleDream, former AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland name-dropped the promotion in which he and MVP previously wrestled, DEFY Wrestling. As Strickland noted on the WrestleDream post-show media scrum, DEFY also helped lay the groundwork for his current success in AEW.

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"I love DEFY. That's a flag I'll always plant and every time I get a chance to shout them out, especially in the state [of Washington], I'm gonna do it," Strickland said. "DEFY really was the birthplace for a lot of us to really get to the next level, especially on the independent level. That was really where elite wrestling came from. Especially for this area, Pacific Northwest, there's only a handful of guys that have really made a name for themselves out of this area. DEFY kind of introduced a whole new crop, a whole new wave, like myself, Darby [Allin], Nick Wayne." 

Earlier this year, Strickland returned to DEFY to celebrate his preceding victory at AEW Dynasty, which simultaneously crowned him as the new AEW World Champion. In doing this, Strickland also looked back on his early career days in DEFY, including his GFW NEXGEN Championship match against Cody Rhodes at the promotion's inaugural show in 2017. Since then, Strickland continued to soar through the rankings of the independent circuit, signed with WWE, and later AEW.

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"[DEFY] really taught me how to truly be a star," Strickland said. "You always want to go to places where you want to learn how to wrestle, but there's very few places that teach you how to be a star; DEFY did that for me."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit AEW with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.