Swerve Strickland considers why The Hurt Syndicate came after him.
Upon MVP and the rest of The Hurt Syndicate's arrival in All Elite Wrestling, the faction have targeted Swerve Strickland, with Bobby Lashley defeating the former AEW World Heavyweight Champion at Full Gear.
While speaking to Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp at the AEW All In 2025 Tickets On Sale event, Swerve spoke about crowds getting into his story with The Hurt Syndicate and explains why he feels they targeted him.
"I think America and people who view and watch any sport is all based on match ups. Whoever's in the right or the wrong, they want to see two dueling quarterbacks go at it head to head and they will go back and forth with chanting. That's war. Both men are wrong and both men are right and that's truly what war is. But you're gonna side with either the hometown guy or the guy who does the things that you like. You're gonna decide you're gonna take your picks. I kind of want the arenas to never shut up, ‘We hurt people.’ I kind of want them to never shut up when you hear, ‘Who's house? Swerve's house.’ It's always going to just be roaring, roaring, roaring. ‘Cowboy shit,’ ‘Who's house?’ and ‘We hurt people.’ We want that. We never want like just silence. There's performances, the matches that you see, I'm like just like, ‘They're just enthralled and watching,’ but I don't want you to enthrall to watch how we perform. We're gonna perform well. I want you to care who's hurting who. I want you to like have concern who somebody actually might get hurt. Like, the worry. That's where people are standing at minute three for the next 15 minutes. That's how you get that. Right now—once again very short history with me and Lashley—we have them already. I think right now we have him already and we knew that like Lashley coming in was going to get that attention. He demands it. MVP demands it when he speaks. He demands the room. Shelton demands it with his presence and when he gets in the ring and performs. Those guys just demand attention and that's why they came for me because I demand the same respect as well. They want that, they want that, they want the main event of All In, to be a part of that. Why wouldn't you?"
Swerve is currently scheduled to face off with Ricochet in a heated singles match on tonight's edition of AEW Dynamite in Atlanta.
Since his defeat at Full Gear, Swerve has responded by defeating Max Caster on a recent episode of AEW Dynamite in dominating fashion.
For the full interview with Strickland, you can find it on our YouTube channel.
If you wish to purchase tickets for AEW All In 2025, you can do so here.
