AEW’s Swerve Strickland Recalls Conversation With WWE’s Oba Femi: ‘If I Had The Pen, Your Debut Would Be Winning The Title’

WWE/AEW

AEW’s Swerve Strickland has commented on wrestling’s ‘golden age’ of young black talent, and a conversation he had with WWE’s Oba Femi.

In recent years, a new crop of rising stars across the wrestling world have taken fans by storm, each carving out their own identity and legacy in the industry.

Among those names are WWE’s Oba Femi, Je’von Evans, Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes, as well as AEW TNT Champion Kevin Knight, all of who were featured in a recent Instagram story by Swerve Strickland, spotlighting the future of rising black talent in the industry.

Swerve Strickland Heaps Praise On Rising Talent

Speaking to Bootleg Kev, Swerve was asked about fans believing this to be a ‘golden age’ for black talent in the industry, with him praising each of them for all being different.

He said:

“What I love, nobody’s like the other. They’re all different. Everyone is their own entity, their own genre, nobody’s following the same stereotype as the other. That’s the ice cream flavors, you’re getting blends of different guys.

“I’m just happy and fortunate that, I have integration of like maybe two of those guys, because I dropped the North American Title to Carmelo Hayes, and then Kevin Knight, his first real singles main event was with me on Dynamite this year. Now you see the perception of him a little differently, now we can put him in main events, and that’s how it starts.

“Je’von’s different from Kevin in a sense too in that he’s the young lion type energy. People are mistaking ‘smiley’ to just ‘happy’. He should be happy, that’s the kind of energy you want to see from a 21 year old athletic kid, living out his dream vicariously through other 21 year olds. He’s doing all this at 21, it inspires the next 17/18 year old to be like ‘I wanna be like that’. Remember Bow Wow when he was hot at 13? Bow Wow was on top of the rap game at 13, 14, 15, that made other 15 year old kids want to start rapping at 12, it’s the same thing I see with Je’von.

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Swerve Strickland Told Oba Femi He Would Have Had Him Win WWE Championship In Debut

Speaking on Oba Femi, Swerve recalled a conversation he had with him in a gym, where he told Oba that he would have had him become WWE Champion in his debut if he was booking the show.

He added:

“I met Oba at the gym, and I said if I had the pen, your debut would be winning that belt. I was close because his debut was against Cody for the belt. He’s like ‘how did you do this man?’ I was like, I just call it how I see it, it’s you bro.

“Perception is everything, put him in main events. People will buy it, but they’ve gotta see it. Same as Bron Breakker, perception is everything. Put ’em in the main events, people will buy into it. The more you do it, they’ll perceive it and buy into it.”

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• Oba Femi
• AEW
• wwe
• Swerve Strickland

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