AEW Champ Swerve Strickland Says These WWE Hall Of Famers 'Broke The Mold'

AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland is all about making history, especially since he is now the first African-American to hold AEW's top prize. Strickland, who has prided himself on paving the way for young black people all over the world,  has named two WWE Hall of Famers who have been a source of inspiration for him. 

He recently credited Mark Henry and Booker T on the "Bootleg Kev" podcast as two men who broke the mold of what a black man should look like in pro wrestling.

"He [Henry] kind of broke the mold a little bit, he was just an athlete," Strickland said. "He's a strong dude, but like Mark and Booker, as the King Booker image, those two in like the mid-2000s, early 2000s really broke the mold in a sense for just at that window, that time period right there like they were just good, they were just good athletes. Booker was just so over the top, outlandish character that he felt larger than life, he went larger than life with it. When Mark Henry — his in-ring performances made him larger than life. So those guys just kind of found another niche into it, outside of those stereotypical things."

Strickland has proved that the color of someone's skin doesn't matter if you put in the work because you will be rewarded accordingly and presented in a way that is befitting of someone like a world champion. He explained that seeing Booker T being presented as black royalty with his black queen in his wife Sharmell was inspiring to see growing up as it made him feel proud of the color of his skin and that he could potentially become a World Champion, like Henry and Booker T.

Please credit "Bootleg Kev" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.