Swerve Strickland reflects on his time in NXT and how Shawn Michaels helped him during that period.
While Strickland is currently the talk of the wrestling world thanks to his recent streak of compelling matchups and storylines, he has got his licks across promotions.
Between 2019 and 2021, Strickland worked for WWE and in particular, NXT. During his time on WWE's third brand, he would capture the NXT North American Championship and was one of the key members of Hit Row before he was released from his WWE deal on November 18th, 2021.
While speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Strickland reflected on how Shawn Michaels helped him during his stint in WWE NXT, including how Shawn would study tapes with the young star to help Swerve reach his full potential as a performer.
"I would have like hour long tape studies with him. Close the door boom. Its me and him watching old indie stuff. He wanted to see like, 'Okay, what got you here?' You're doing well right now, but I want to know what got you here. He was like really paying attention to my pacing and how I move. And then he was like I see what kind of performer you are. We're not really putting you in the position to be the true performer you are and that's where he started like having creative meetings with Triple H when they were writing TV for the next week or so. Then they would be texting me on the side like alright, Trips wants to see this out of you. Then comes a match with Bronson Reed. Have the match come to the back, Shawn's like taking me to the side, 'that's what I'm talking about.'"
Following his release from WWE, Strickland would go on to sign with AEW back at Revolution 2022, where he would sign his contract live on the pay-pew-view.
Strickland recently stated that he and Hangman Page would be bound by scars for the remainder of their careers. You can read more here.
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