welcome back to TMZ sports Mike Babcock here we are very lucky to have this man right here aew world champion swerve Strickland swerve first whose house is this sv's house man you know the deal deal this is TMZ swerve Edition today um let let's just start right here because yes AB you you you can't not talk about this being on uh on the table here I first I want to ask you after what it means to be the first black world champion in aw but just just first of all as a wrestler one of the biggest promotions in the world to be Champion
period what's that mean to man well on top of the fact that like we have literally the best roster assembled in wrestling yeah to be at the top of the mountain that's huge honor it also shows like all the hard work that I had to do how much I had to work to stand out that much more to really bring something different and unique to the table to be like even considered than like the higher tier CU like when I came in I was like I didn't even debut on uh Dynamite on the you know the premier show I came
in a rampage yeah you know I was like humbl with the opportunity I took every opportunity I could whether it's like a minute Backstage on a promo or like a Battle Royal and or just like something like was just like to honestly just create took an opportunity every minute of TV time was precious and there was an opportunity to to really showcase who I am create something create a library then use that library to bring it back to the Forefront to build something for the future right and that's something I
learned like over the last what 10 15 years of my career and all all those lessons all those opportunities led to getting me here just just to even compete for it right then to actually win it is like another several lessons and everything to build on and to just be the first of anything is like difficult because there's always going to be the criticisms behind it you know blocking out all that stuff to focus on just what's what's what's what's more important what matters the most and that's like creating a legacy because if
we all get into whatever type of Industry whatever business we want to do to make a stamp and make a imprint on it on our own way I feel like that was mine for the wrestling business and for all elite wrestling it it sounds like you always you always had a plan and I could see people saying hey I'm I'm not on Dynamite I'm not on the Big Show uh you know for get this and but but it sounds like you you knew it was an opportunity to be seen and and and you were going to make the best of it I I have to you know
um I was I was told by uh Shawn Michaels a long time ago he's like we don't get the easy Road we're built like this because we don't get the easy Road you know some guys aren't built like us and they get it like boom like right away yeah but we are built the way we are because we have the durability to go the long way right you know like literally are we talking stature wise um stature wise just as people our souls our souls our energy our grind just the people we are we're there's like those people that
like man this guy is girl they can they can handle that so they kind of get put in that position because they know that they can and that's where I feel like I was positioned in the wrestling world was like I don't mind the long road because I shown that that's kind of where I always been you know all aspects of life you know uh just going through life personally I had to take the long road to get to here you know um um but I feel like Tony Khan saw that he understood that and he and also was building trust with them too to know
that I can be here at a TMZ I can be there on time with work I can show out I can perform it's like it's not just like the in ring yeah like because when it gets to this like the tier and the responsibilities go even higher you can't just be settled you can't settle with just doing enough you have to kind of do go the extra mile and do even more to show that not just best in the ring but you're the best like Superstar you're the best employee you're the most you're the best like at everything you
want how does life change once you have the belt you're doing more media I'm sure definitely more Med yeah how how does it change more media more responsibility um a lot of the things that a lot of people can get away with I don't get away with anymore you know I can't just respond to everybody on online I can't call out people like that cuz um now there's um um I'm representing all eat wrestling you know to the fullest extent um I'm not just representing myself I'm it's
bigger than myself now you know Allie wrestling is like in in like not only just that my culture I got to represent in a certain different way and I got to understand it's bigger than me so I got like a lot of those selfish like responses those emotions they kind of got to go to the side and understand what's the bigger picture also um performing in ring I got to set the example I got to set the pace I got to set the standard now and you and that's tough when you have like guys like Adam Copeland setting the standard as well
with the TNT title and then you got like Osprey setting the example as like big time match 30 minute Banger on pay-per-views you know and then you know you got like um Rody rodri strong in international title and like it's just all these guys all over the place that can just like kill it at every single moment it's like where do I set the standard for myself and the wrestling business with this aw World Championship What Separates Me from everybody else how about the part being the first black world champion in aw and and I
mean you're a role model I'm sure you were a role model uh to a bunch of people before you got this belt but but being champion and you know representation and what that might mean to young kids out there how how about that part of it you ever think about that stuff I think about it every day um every single day um just knowing for me my story is like I'm I'm always getting knocked down you see that on television I get knocked down but I don't get back up and I don't get pushed around for long y I always get
back and I'll always come right back at the same person or the same obstacle that knocked me down in the first place and I feel like that's just a life lesson like have I done wrong to Warrant those knockdowns yeah absolutely if you watch the show right you know you know it but that's life we've we've all done wrong things we've all done bad things but that doesn't mean we wallow in them and we like sit with that like those things do come around and knock us back on down on our ass a little bit but it's
like okay how do I Define myself at the end of that yeah how do I make do make good with that on the other end and you get back up you go back to work and you fight back and you fight back and you showcase and you show the show yourself show the world show whatever that's knocking you down in the first place like um you can't you can't keep me down you know and that's the definition of what swerve is at this stage of my career at this stage of the television show and as this stage as um a face of
the company he understands like he has responsibilities he understands he did a lot of bad things to get here and he understands those things are going to come back around but that is not going to Define his future all right you talk about fighting Christian Cage double or nothing May 26th live on pay-per-view it's an absolutely massive match yeah preview it for me talk to me about it man me and uh Christian we go we our history together dates all the way back to August of 2023 at Wembley Stadium we tagged together uh I was the one that
get got put in the coffin by Sting and Darby Allen and lost he has not forgotten about that he has not forgiven me for that um I thought those things like could have just like part of ways and we would just good move on from it right but he's also fostered Nick Wayne and we all know what I've done to Nick Wayne that breaking into his um his father's wrestling school and beating him down bling him and so if if anything the patriarchy the people that follow Christian that's kind of created by me
if all the bad things I done in 2023 created my enemies now you know so now it's like that's that ghost of my past coming back to haunt me and Christian is not someone you want to like take lightly that's a former multi-time world champion that's a legend in the industry you know don't let his age fool you the man's still in Peak like Peak physique still absolutely he looks phenomenal he's smarter than he's ever have been before as well like daggers on the microphone people believe him and he's
main evented aw pay-per-views before so that's someone I'm learning a lot from but that's also someone I got to be also more calculated a lot smarter then and once again he's multi-time world champion he has the tenure I'm new yeah um but so there the disadvantage there is like wavering as far as like the intelligence but my physical is like stronger than it's ever been before I literally gained 30 pounds in the last eight months I would say so um and just my relentlessness like I I literally can inflict a lot of pain and
I've p i put down Samo Joe the same way so I feel like I'm going to do the same thing with Christian and I have a lot more tricks up my sleeve as well so continue watching aw Dynamite every Wednesday nights how we're like What are we like we're two weeks out now how less then how how excited are you are you nervous at this point how do you feel as as youve got this massive event in dou nothing coming up um more excitement more anxious I'm ready to get to it I don't really get the nervousness anymore
I'm just I'm excited to just get um literally my first pay-per-view title defense I'm ready to get to it I'm ready to Showcase of the world what I have to offer as a the new all eat wrestling world champion um I'm one of the very few to like literally start from the straight bottom to climb all the way up to becoming a world heavyweight champion and to be a main eventer and I feel like I have one of the most unique stories yeah in not just allite wrestling but just wrestling industry period um we've
been filming a documentary about it behind the scenes with the the Lucas Brothers you know they've been behind that so there's a lot more Nuance to the story as well that's going to be told on the other side of the thing so that'll be coming out in like sometime so that's amazing so you you got a bunch going on so you've got that music right talk to me about music because it's like not fair that you're having success in so many things you're absolutely killing it and it's awesome
uh talk to me about the music and just how successful that's been um I was uh I've been taught to rap by montey my co-host of the podcast which our podcast just jumped from like the 200 slots all the way to top 20 no way on iTunes what is it um Swerve City Podcast so on Apple podcast we're now like ranked top 20 in the US that's amazing and um music there a lot of podcasts out there too a lot we're like competing with like Ryan CR and stuff a lot came a long way from just sitting on bean bags s be sitting
on bean bags doing IG live so we came a long way awesome but that man taught me how to rap and then that uh we developed about three albums in the Swerve City um catalog and there's some notable like features and stuff in there like music Soul Child Is With Us on there like Flatbush Zombies are on there with us we have like we like John Conor Mickey fax we accumulated a lot of great relationship and that but that was the joint podcast as well wow so that led me all the way to like getting my reps in to working with like flash garments who
did my entrance music with profet who produced the entrance music who has two Grammys with working with d on d project in Kanye West you know and so like getting in the studio with those guys that's developed the big pressure song and we have a a joint album coming out soon big pressure got like millions of millions millions millions right I looked on Spotify before like remix I mean and we have another one coming a Trill remix with Bun B featured which that's that's just been Fe just been recorded a music video will be coming to
that soon so we're gonna remix that again and do a Down South Houston version of that so um flash garments um him and mosh came up with a new signature shoe so every match that the pay-per-view Dynasty yeah I wore my first signature shoe and I'm continuing wearing that every week so there's a lot going on but the music has just been unreal I got a feature with a B uh with um Benny The Butcher wow on my solo project swerve the realist you couldn't be me are you just reaching out to these people or um yeah it's like I I have
good connections like that just find a way to like you know there's a lot of great wrestling fans in the music industry Rick Ross being one of them oh yeah and you've got all those a lot of the guys involved too yeah yeah just integration um really finding out like man like there's a lot of there's a big open spot that's kind of like here for the Tak so I just figured I'd just slide in and take it right yeah and I have a big love and passion for music I learned it I'm still learning it um I'm
developing I'm building relationships bu like Bridging the Gap a little bit too to make it not feel like so much like um uh pro wrestler playing Music musician but like no these are two separate things but I find ways to who also wrestles yeah and vice versa what uh I know you got to run in the second what is there a dream collab either that you you would make music with somebody oh man there's so ring that's that's a musician oh man um uh to me the the real cool unique thing is finding art like artists
rappers any of any typ type that haven't really been seen in the wrestling space that you wouldn't expect to connect the dots with so for me like a Tyler Creator would be like one of those guys that would just look like they just jump on have a lot of fun a lot of energy but also one of my favorite artists ever ASAP is another one I just was down in Miami with there Puma yeah um release and I got a lot of free stuff from ASAP and them so shout out puma and ASAP and concepts for hooking that up and shirt
King fade for the link there so there's a lot going on so much that's amazing um we you real quick you were in the military right yes sir right did did that do anything how did that prepare you for what you're now doing was there anything to tape from take from that uh a lot um I jumped in at like 17 years old I was already on a bus down to Fort Jackson South Carolina I could not believe that when I read that yeah like two weeks after I graduated high school I was going to the going to basic training and that was uh
that got me ready to like do stuff on my own it's not going to get done if if you don't do it you don't take the initiative to get up and just grind and go um I you know I was like um I grew up um with my mom and sisters and my dad was like um in Buffalo New York at the time I was in Pennsylvania so I only saw him in summers and stuff so most of the time I was with my mom and my sisters and stuff so as a man like I'm glad I was able to go into my adulthood through the military rather than like cuz I
didn't really have my dad there in the household with me so it was really cool to just be able to just like get up and learn to be a man on my own around other men of other different walks of life in the hard way the original like military old school get up in 400 a.m. we're doing this and then like also learning how to be on part of a schedule you know 4 a.m.
this you got to six o'clock U uh chow hall right and then like getting in the uniform here having this learning organization learning like simple things that um I feel like a lot of uh people a lot of men in today's society miss those things but I kind of got those early on so and it literally I know is really preparing me for pro wrestling to be able to just figure out and just create things and be like disciplined being like you know having urgency moving with a sense of purpose right and like having Integrity all those things like ethos
and the soldiers Creeds and all those things like man these things Rel late a lot in life you know and then applying those things and putting into pro wrestling like like without that without that um early upbringing I don't think I would ever get to this point wow yeah who would think right US Army aw world champion but there's it's not even about just the military it just teaches you about life how to be an adult and how to be a what a a responsible man should be you know that that's that's awesome uh
Before I Let You Go anything else you want to say about double or nothing any any message to Christian anything for the fans um Christian has based off with a lot of great that this industry has to offer icons but he's never faced off against somebody like me he's tagged with somebody like me he's never faced off against someone like me I'm I truly believe I'm one of the most unique performers in wrestling and I'm only like just really scratching the surface of that and just really slipping my foot
into a comfortable shoe I'm just getting there that's scary so that's that's why I'm telling Christian like you there's a lot to be worried about with facing off with someone like me uh Texas death match was last time I was here on the West Coast in Los Angeles I've done some things that a lot of people have never seen before you know that scared a lot of people and put a a different viewpoint on who I am as a performer as a man and as a like competitor and that's something that Christians should
always be concerned about worried about and literally watch out for because I don't I don't stop coming at you I'm I call myself the boogeyman of pro wrestling because I literally have like no remorse for certain things don't let this professional look right conversation you're a nice guy you know but I know I've done some of the most dangerous I've been in some of the most dangerous matches of like US history so that's a fact uh you can't miss it aww nothing May 26 thank you s i I appreciate it brother than for coming
0 Comments