Swerve Strickland Doesn’t Feel An Crossover Between WWE And AEW Will Ever Happen
Swerve Strickland doesn’t think a crossover with WWE will ever occur.
Right now in the wrestling industry, especially in North America, the two top brands by most metrics are WWE and AEW. The former has been around for generations, while the latter is currently in its seventh full year and doing very well. Undoubtedly, many fans of both sides have wondered if a crossover event could ever happen between the two, but a former AEW World Champion has now suggested a show of that nature wouldn’t be possible.
During a chat with Billboard, the topic was brought up to Swerve Strickland, and he was blunt with his answer.
“No. Not in my lifetime at least. It’s control. It’s all about marketing. It’s like the NFL, WWE has to protect their shield. There’s no way they’d allow any of our wrestlers to look better and be better [than them]. Oba Femi is a world beater. You gotta protect that and make sure he keeps looking good. Gunther, have to protect that. Roman [Reigns], have to protect that. Cody [Rhodes], have to protect, even more so because of AEW. There’s a lot of that happening. When it gets to the women, then that’s even tougher. Rhea [Ripley], Liv [Morgan], Chelsea [Green] all have to be protected. You wanna see Seth [Rollins] and Ospreay. That’s the generational thing, but who do you protect? Who has the leverage? Us in the locker room, we just wanna have these matches. I’m good friends with Carmelo [Hayes], Jevon [Evans] and Oba. Those are my boys. I love those guys. I don’t care who wins. Double DQs. I don’t care.”
-Swerve Strickland
The question of who to protect is a fair one when it comes to a crossover like this. In an ideal world for both, they would likely do a 50-50 split of who wins and loses, but companies are often quite tactical about their partnerships, as proven by recent WWE’s crossovers with brands TNA and AAA, the latter of which they outright own. Furthermore, over the last seven years, WWE has hardly acknowledged its main competitor in AEW’s seven-year lifespan.
One instance when AEW were referenced on a WWE broadcast, though, was when Triple H made an indirect reference to the company during D-Generation X’s Hall Of Fame induction. At the time, Billy Gunn was a member of All Elite Wrestling, while “The Game” joked Vince McMahon would buy the upstart promotion. To read Gunn’s recent comments on the incident, you can click here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Swerve Strickland as soon as we hear more.
