AEW Star Swerve Strickland Explains How Psychology Has Changed In Pro Wrestling
Pro wrestling psychology is one of the most often discussed, and debated, aspects of the industry, with many at times disagreeing on what psychology actually entails, and how it's evolved over the years. When it comes to AEW's Swerve Strickland, however, it's all pretty simple. In an interview with "Black Couch Booking," Strickland gave his point of view on psychology, which he credited fellow AEW star AR Fox and long-time rival for helping him learn. In Strickland's mind, psychology has morphed a ton from the early days into a more collective form in the 2020s. The former AEW World Champion did note though that everyone, including himself, tend to use a different form of psychology, depending on the situation.
"The thing about psychology, everybody has their significant psychology," Strickland said. "I think that something that has changed and differentiated from older ways and forms of, like, structure of wrestling...when a new wrestler comes onto the scene, yada yada yada, there was a blanket psychology that just weighed over everybody. Now, everybody has a different psychology.
"Like, I sell differently against 'Hangman' compared to how I sell differently against a Ricochet, you know what I mean? My psychology of my character is going to be different. There's no way we can have the same psychology, because there's different levels of this, like, hatred and feud and energy that two different wrestlers possess."
Strickland will look to deploy a different form of psychology this Wednesday on "AEW Dynamite," where he will defend the AEW World Trios Championships alongside Austin Creed and Kofi of New Level against former champions Kyle O'Reilly, Orange Cassidy, and Roderick Strong. This will be the second defense for Strickland and New Level, who won the titles at AEW All In, and had an exciting first defense last week against Dezmond Xavier, Myron Reed, and Zachary Wentz of The Rascalz.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Black Couch Wrestling" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription