Swerve Strickland has come a long way in terms of his character since his debut in All Elite Wrestling.
AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland recently sat down with Josh Martinez of Z100. When asked how he’s changed and evolved his character since joining All Elite Wrestling, Strickland believes his character has matured.
“I think I just matured it. All I did was just like — going to before even WWE; it was just on the independents and stuff. I was experimenting with a lot of things. Especially music, Travis Scott was a huge influence on me. Tyler The Creator, ASAP Rocky, a lot of these visual artists that take a lot of visuals and psychedelic type stuff and put in their visuals and stuff.
“I took a lot of influence on that, and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s the sound. How would that look on an individual? How would that look on a wrestler?’ And that’s where the glasses and the hair, the look, the colors started really coming in. And then when I went over to NXT, it’s like, okay, how do I bring that on to weekly television? How do I tell that story of the character of who I was? And for a while, I was just like me just being myself. And then I was like, I gotta turn it up louder. “
Strickland would go on to talk about his inspiration from Wesley Snipes and how he decided to channel his character from New Jack City when it came to his boss-like character as the leader of the Mogul Embassy.
“Then coming to AEW was like, okay, now I’m going into a darker realm of things,” Swerve Strickland continued. “And we’re merging the groups of Mogul Affiliates and The Embassy. So I’m like how do I mature it to a boss level? So I went back to Wes. Wesley [Snipes] never failed me before, right? So I took New Jack City and matured that to, like, what would New Jack City’s Nino Brown be in the music industry? And that’s where the Mogul moniker kind of came from. And then here we are.”
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What do you make of Swerve Strickland’s comments? Have you enjoyed watching his character develop in All Elite Wrestling? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of these quotes, please credit Z100 with a link to this article for the transcription.
