Swerve Strickland on Why He Trusts Organic Creative Process in AEW, Him Never Having A Spot For A Match Being Turned Down By Tony Khan, His Will Ospreay Feud & Ospreay’s Growth in AEW, His Singles Match with Kenny Omega, & Why He Underwent Meniscus Surgery After All In Texas

A recent episode of the Battleground Podcast featured Swerve Strickland as the guest. One of the topics discussed included his evolution throughout his wrestling career and why he trusts the organic creative process in AEW for him.

“I don’t even know that. Even I don’t know. It’s something that I’m always creating. It’s an ever-flowing, ever-evolving feeling and progression. You never know what the progression is until you’re in it. Once again, that’s still that knowing feeling like, ‘all right, I know the move here.’ But at the same time, you don’t plan too much ahead. If you over plan things, that’s where you start doubting. You have to constantly tweak things and constantly mess with something that’s an organic feel. You don’t want that too much.

A lot of things, I have to let Swerve just be Swerve. I let things play out. Let things organically feel how they feel, and the fans feel that. The fans understand and they understand and speak on it. They speak on when- ‘like, man, I felt that. Like, I don’t know. There’s something special about this moment that I can’t put my finger on. There’s something special about this match, this person, this interaction, these two, or these three, these four in the ring together. I feel like we’re witnessing something.’

But as a performer, you just got to live in it. You got to make sure you just sit in that moment and take, like, the time has to take a little bit slower then everybody else does because everybody’s like kind of rushed and get to the next thing. You got to sit in that moment and understand, and like you literally weave and play with all those elements and things and really understand them and use them, make that organic, and then it becomes you in a way.”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about if there were any spots he wanted to do in a match that got turned down in AEW.

“No, no. Everything was (good). We never we never got told no. We’ve also, there’s been times we haven’t asked permission for those things that kind of just happened Once again, we talk about those in the moment feels like we never had those like, ‘Oh no, no, bring it back.’”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about the syringe and drinking blood spots he did with Hangman Adam Page during their matches were cleared with AEW management beforehand.

“Um, no, that was, they, they knew that was coming.”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about if he feels AEW programming has been revolving around him and Will Ospreay and Ospreay’s big star growth in AEW in the past year.

“I wouldn’t say it’s much about AEW revolving around us. It’s literally about them. Like, I’m the one thing he can’t conquer in AEW, hasn’t been able to figure out, and I think that’s what makes this matchup even more special because we’re friends. Like, you know, we’ve been friends for over 10 years. Like, he’s grown as a man in the past year. Our characters have not been, like, on screen together in a year. So all these things have happened. Our bodies went through all these changes, surgeries and everything, his neck and him coming back to AEW like understanding, trusting his body. Is he going to be, is he going to be the same Will Ospreay as he was before? Like all these different things, challenges and things he can’t do anymore. He’s going through all these challenges, him becoming a married man now, you know, like his life is changing. So all these elements are just in the play as people before we become elements of like the competitors and all those things are going to come into play in the match. They’re going to come into play. Every time we interact and speak and talk to each other. There’s a lot of pent-up resentment to each other because of everything that happened. It’s more of a battle of ‘I’m the hump you just can’t get over. You can’t get past Swerve. You’ve beaten everybody in this roster. You’ve soared to the top, but you can’t beat me and you haven’t been able to beat the guy that’s backing you now in Jon Moxley.’ That’s another element to everything that’s going on, which is why I pointed out, I’m like, ‘dude, like, you have changed.’ Like, the competitive swerve in Will Ospreay would have went out of Jon Moxley. You know, we did that last year, and now you’re kind of just letting him just, like, have his way, have his Continental Title, and just, like, be whatever in the existing figure behind you. It’s like, okay. We’re not fighting for the same things anymore. Now we’re fighting for something bigger and for different reasons.”

In a separate recent interview with Forbes, Strickland also gave his thoughts about his AEW World Championship #1 Contender match against Kenny Omega this past March being all the validation he needed for his AEW and wrestling career.

“It was all the validation I needed. Kenny is not just one of the top guys in AEW. He’s one of the top benchmarks in pro wrestling, period. You want to match skill for skill. You want people to see it. I always say people seeing it changes their perception of a lot of things. It’s all about seeing is believing in the wrestling industry. I truly believe that.”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about how Omega is dangerous when he is motivated.

“When you have both of these guys on the roster at the same time, and you know they’re healthy and there’s no issues between them, you’ve got to put them together. You don’t want to miss out on those matchups. So I was like, “We’ve got to get to that.” He was very excited and very motivated. A motivated Kenny Omega is a dangerous Kenny Omega in the industry, man.”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about his reason for his decision to undergo meniscus surgery after AEW’s All In Texas event.

“It was nagging pain that, at the time, I was just like, “No, I don’t have to deal with this pain anymore. I don’t have to fight through something that’s irritating me and bothering me. Even in the ring, it wasn’t as bad. It was always post-match. Post-match was limping through airports or having to ice it for so long when I arrived home and stuff. It was like, I’m in this stage of my life and career where I can actually take care of these things.

“I’m in a position after the world championship and after All In Texas where it was like, “No, I’m in a good spot. Let me take care of that so I can come back better and come back 100 percent.”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about how he wants to make sure that he preserves his body as he gets older.

“Also, you want to know what’s going on with that. You kind of want to take those sneak peeks into your body to understand it more. Now I’m at the age, 36 going on 37 this year, where I’ve got to know what’s going on in my body to preserve it, keep it going, make it look as good as I can, perform as good as I can and feel as good as I can. You want to be here as long as you can on this Earth. That was a good time to take a look and scan everything that’s going on so you don’t miss anything and don’t have any mishaps. You don’t want to be surprised with, “Oh, we found this in you,” and have that take you away from the ring even longer and totally derail your career. We’ve seen it happen to a lot of greats time and time again, and I’m in a great position to be granted the opportunity to be able to do that.”

Strickland also gave his thoughts about if his surgery has changed how he operates in the ring.

“Absolutely not. They looked at it and saw there was a little bit of arthritis developing. So I’m on the medication, the peptides, and everything to make sure there’s no pain. Not just to mask the pain, but remove the pain and actually improve things, grow the necessary ligaments, get the joint back to where it should be, make it stronger and develop brand-new cells. It was a lot of great research that I wasn’t aware of. Now that I know more about it, it got me back to performing at a top level again.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com 1 & 2