Swerve Strickland managed to get Samoa Joe to cave and accept his AEW World Championship challenge, but Don Callis threw a wrench into those plans by putting up Konosuke Takeshita as the real next contender. That put one more hurdle in front of Swerve to attain that shot at the Title and tonight he would look to clear it and move one major step closer to Championship gold. Takeshita threw everything he had at Swerve, especially early on, but Swerve stayed in the fight and put Takeshita on his heels before ultimately taking the win, and now the match at AEW Dynasty is official, bringing Swerve’s Championship dream closer to reality.
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After the match, Joe was interviewed backstage, saying, “How do I feel? You know what’s baffling to me is how he’s doing right now. This is a man celebrating the biggest fate he’s ever going to catch in his life, and next week, Swerve, when you walk down to that ring and sign on that dotted line, I am gonna make sure that you understand what you are asking for. You think you’re ready…no, no, you’re not that man.”
This is the latest step in quite the journey over the past year for Swerve, who has become one of AEW’s biggest fan-favorite stars. That’s saying something too, as AEW has added quite an influx of star power to the roster, including Will Ospreay, Mercedes Mone, and Kazuchika Okada. In an interview with ComicBook.com’s Liam Crowley, Strickland feels like the perception of AEW has shifted a bit because of those roster additions.
“I really feel like this changes the perception of AEW,” Swerve said. “I feel like when you have an Ospreay, someone I’ve been wrestling since he was 19, Okada, Mercedes, this is the perfect time for the perception and just the momentum shift to happen.”
“It’s almost like I won the NBA Championship, now there’s the new draft of guys coming in the next year that’s about to alter the whole way the next year of the NBA is going to be. That’s what it honestly feels like,” Swerve said. “It’s almost like the new wave of quarterbacks in the NFL. It’s Patrick Mahomes at the top. I want to be the Mahomes. I want to be the dynasty of what AEW is about to be. It’s not like we’re searching for the next guy, who’s it going to be? No, he’s here. We see it, we want it, we need it.”
“For me to be the number one person on top of the company, being the lead of that momentum shift, means the world,” Swerve said. “It means like this is true change to not just AEW but the industry worldwide. I believe I might go down as the youngest African-American world champion in the history of the big industries. That means everything. Like going from 205 Live to the World Heavyweight Championship of this major company, All Elite Wrestling, nobody ever would see something like that happening. I changed that.”
What did you think of tonight’s Dynamite? Let us know in the comments and you can also talk wrestling with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!
