Swerve Strickland Reflects On Leaving WWE For AEW

Former AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland has discussed the switch to AEW from WWE and pointed out what held him back in WWE.

Swerve Strickland has been a part of AEW for three years, and in that time, he has delivered on the promise that he had shown in WWE and become a world champion. In a recent interview with "Insight," he discussed what held him back during his time in "WWE NXT," and how things changed once he joined AEW.

"I would say like this — I explained it to somebody — it's like you can have a talented quarterback drafted number one. If he's not in an organization that allows him to be a franchise quarterback, he's not going to play like a franchise quarterback. So your quarterback is your quarterback, and your talent on a team is only as good as your organization allows you to be. If they don't allow you to be as great as you possibly could be, then you're not," he said. "That's how I felt like in NXT. Like, the organization wasn't surrounding me to position me as a franchise player because they didn't believe it. And for certain things, I don't know if I gave them the belief anyway at the time. I gave them the talent, that's why they had me there. They have talented people there, but the belief is a different thing. They just knew they had a prospect."

Strickland feels that WWE CCO Triple H wanted him to show more leadership and initiative during his time in Hit Row, which didn't quite happen. He admitted that after joining AEW, he shifted his mindset, began to lead, and focused on becoming undeniable, helped in part by the fact that some of the AEW audience didn't know him, giving him a fresh start. In AEW, Strickland has been in and around the AEW world title picture and held the title for four months.