Swerve Strickland discusses his release from WWE.
Known then as Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott, Swerve Strickland was signed to WWE between 2019 and 2021. During his time with the company, the star would become a one-time NXT North American Champion and debut on the main roster as part of ‘Hit Row’. However, around a month after being drafted to SmackDown, B-Fab was released from the company, with the rest of the group also being let go shortly afterwards. Now, Strickland has looked back on the end of his time with WWE.
Speaking to VladTV, Swerve Strickland recalled finding out about B-Fab’s WWE release.
“Coming up, I think there was a contract dispute with the girl of the group, Brianna [B-Fab]. That’s speculative, I’m not sure that’s 100% true. Shoutout Bri, she’s still dope, she’s still up there now. They brought her back. Something happened with that. As soon as we got drafted, the following week, we did a promo, and then she wasn’t getting flight information to be at SmackDown. It just kind of disappeared. It was like, ‘We all got ours. Where’s yours?’ ‘I didn’t get mine yet.’ So we were all talking amongst each other, like, no, we didn’t get it. It’s getting closer and closer to the flight time. Where’s Bri at? ‘I still have no flight, I still don’t have anything.’ It’s literally just got taken off, she got the flight, and then it just went away, it disappeared. I was like, yo, what’s going on? We’re on the flight, we’re coming down, and we start getting our notifications, and we’re seeing all these releases happening. Ricochet is right next to me on the other aisle, he just looks at his phone and looks at me like, ‘Yo.’ All the talent is just looking at all their friends just getting fired. It’s like a group of eight people just got fired that day. That whole year, I think they let go of 150 talent and staff. This was coming straight out of COVID, too, and during that COVID year, WWE had to keep running. They worked something out with Florida, the governor of Florida, that it’s like it could keep running through COVID, like grocery stores, hospitals, police officers, WWE. [Laughs] I don’t know how, but that’s a necessity for survival in Florida. So we were able to run through, but they lost a lot of money, just to keep production running and not touring, and not able to go overseas. We lost a lot of money, so had to get it back somehow. So a lot of talent, staff just got let go. So something happened there. She was on the list. My girlfriend at the time, she was on the list, she got let go,”
-Swerve Strickland
Expanding further on the situation regarding B-Fab’s travel, Strickland talked about how a member of the group had been calling the office to chase information about her flight. He’d note that this led to a meeting between them and Vince McMahon.
“Then we meet with Vince [McMahon] or whatever. Apparently, one of the members of the group was just, they complained at the office because he was calling, asking her for her flight, what’s going on. They’re like, ‘We can’t disclose that information to you.’ He’s like, ‘What?’ He started getting aggressive on the phone apparently at Titan Towers. So we’re meeting with Vince. We have to talk to Vince about this because he was apparently upset with it. He was like, ‘First off, that’s none of your business. You’re a talent, you do this. You worry about what you do. Don’t worry about anybody else, even if it’s in your group. You worry about what you do. That’s how we do here. That’s a respect thing.’ We’re just sitting there in the hallway of this arena, Bruce Prichard behind him, [John] Laurinaitis behind him, and Vince is right here, and they’re just sitting there, standing like puppy dogs, watching Vince just bark at us [laughs]. I was just like, wow. I think that heat got on us right there. He’s just like, ‘Nobody just asks for a meeting with me. There’s people that work for me 15 years that’s never had a meeting with me.’ I was like, ‘Oh, cool. I feel honored now’ [laughs]. We got the little bit of scolding, but it was just the one member of the group that made that call, and apparently who he was talking to in the office complained about he was ‘aggressive’ on the phone or whatever. Who’s to say how that conversation actually went. Probably a recorded phone call somewhere, I don’t know. But real quick, Vince was talking about that, and then he switched it like, ‘But we’re gonna have a lot of fun tonight, guys. We’re gonna have a lot of fun. We got some good stuff for you coming up.’ I was like okay, cool. We did a segment with Sami Zayn on SmackDown. Came in the back, shook Vince’s hand, [he’s] like, ‘That was great. You gotta smile. Make sure you put that smile on out there, whatever.’ Cool, cool. Go to the back of the locker room. We were like, ‘Okay, I think that went well.’ Then Sami Zayn comes back, he’s like, Apparently, Vince didn’t like it. Vince hated it.’ We’re like, we just saw him five minutes ago. He’s like, ‘Yup, apparently, he just didn’t like it.’ Okay,”
-Swerve Strickland
Finally, Swerve detailed how he was pulled aside by Bruce Pritchard and asked to ‘take control’ after a member of the group was believed to have upset somebody in the back.
“Next thing you know, one of the group members gets appendicitis, he can’t wrestle. So now it’s just left [to] me and the big guy to have these tag matches. Apparently, he upset somebody in the back somewhere, somehow. I’ll never forget to this day, it was before the show, rehearsal and everything. We go over the segment. I come through the back, and Bruce Prichard’s just sitting by himself in the Gorilla Position. He’s like, ‘Hey, Swerve.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah?’ He’s like, ‘You know you’re the veteran of this group, right? You’ve been doing this the longest. You have the most experience.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I do.’ He’s like, ‘Alright, take control.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ Two weeks later, we all get let go. That was the last time…then all these reports coming out about what happened, what possibly happened, and it was like speculative heat, major heat on one individual that caused everybody to get released and all that, which might have been true. Then I’m hearing from talents I’m close with, they’re like, ‘Yeah, it was him. Yeah, it was him.’ I’m like, damn. Then, 90 days until I can get hired and get a new job,”
-Swerve Strickland
After getting let go from WWE, Swerve joined AEW on March 6, 2022, at the Revolution pay-per-view. He’s gone on to become a former AEW World Champion, as well as having a stint with the World Tag Team Titles alongside Keith Lee, and is arguably one of the most impactful signings in company history.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Swerve Strickland as soon as we hear more.
H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
