Current AEW Star Says WWE Were RIGHT Not To Push Him
A current AEW standout says he has no problems with the way he was handled in WWE.
Swerve Strickland is earning rave reviews for his current work on AEW pay-per-view and TV, but he says WWE were right not to strap a rocket to his back a few years ago.
The All Elite standout told the Notsam Wrestling podcast that he's thankful so many wrestling fans enjoy his work now, but...he's grown as a performer since leaving WWE in November 2021. A rocky start to life under Tony Khan's banner (that tag-team turned rivals stuff with Keith Lee ultimately went nowhere) has been arrested by stellar performances aplenty.
Swerve received a ton of attention for his gritty bout vs. Hangman Page at Full Gear, and has turned in some of AEW's best TV matches on Dynamite since.
The Mogul Embassy leader isn't bitter about the way things transpired in WWE though. Rather definitively, he stated: "It wasn’t my time". Timing is everything in pro wrestling, but many fans out there think Vince McMahon could've done more with Swerve before cutting him loose.
Strickland isn't sure he could've excelled anyway. He couldn't have "handled" lots of WWE success a few years ago; certainly not as well as he's handling AEW's spotlight.