With AEW & NJPW’s first ever joint pay-per view “Forbidden Door” coming up on June 26th, one AEW star that has his sights set on a potentially huge bout is Swerve Strickland.
Strickland made waves on social media on April 30th, putting forward the idea of him facing United Empire leader Will Ospreay on the cross-promotional supershow.
Speaking to Josh Nason of the Wrestling Observer, Swerve elaborated on his suggestion, recalling the pair’s shared history.
“I’ve been wrestling Will Ospreay since 2014. I wrestled him when he was a 19-year-old kid. he tells the story often, he never did a Spanish fly until he met me. I did a Spanish fly in our four-way match in 2014 in the UK. Now he starts doing the Spanish fly. He was my first PROGRESS match too when I came over to PROGRESS. He put in a word and I debuted in PROGRESS against Will, and I beat him. This was fresh off his (Best of the) Super Juniors win, the first one. We have a long history together. The last time we were in the ring was New Orleans, WrestleMania weekend. It was me, Adam Brooks, Will Ospreay, and Sammy Guevara. That was the last time we were in the ring together and he’s grown exponentially since then.”
-Swerve Strickland
As well as recalling the lengthy history the pair share, Swerve also had high praise for UE’s ‘Kingpin’, even going as far as to claim he is the best wrestler in the world today.
“In my opinion, he’s the best wrestler in the world, easily. It’s not even close. The type of explosion he has in the ring is crazy. He’s an adult now, not a kid like when I first started breaking in with him. I feel that match would be insane, no matter what platform. For me, I would try to make it as unique as possible where it’s not just ‘this is a Will Ospreay match with insert wrestler here.’ No, this is Will Ospreay vs. Swerve Strickland and the type of things they are doing, no one else can do and the story they are telling, nobody else can tell. It’s specific for these two,”
-Swerve Strickland
As of writing, no matches have been officially announced for the show, although we do know what the immediate future holds for Ospreay.
The former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion was scheduled to face Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestling Dontaku for the vacant US Championship, although a short bout of Covid prevented Ospreay from taking part in the event, and thus Tomohiro Ishii replaced him. Tanahashi captured the title at the show, and now Ospreay looks set to finally get his opportunity, as he will feature in a four-way bout involving Tanahashi, Juice Robinson & Jon Moxley at NJPW Capital Collision for the title.
Swerve most recently competed on the April 29th edition of AEW Rampage, losing out to Darby Allin in a qualifier for the upcoming Owen Hart Foundation Tournament.
A match between the pair at the joint event would certainly be one with the potential to steal the show, and we hope that even if the match doesn’t happen at Forbidden Door, the two get the chance to share the ring once again down the line.
H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
