AEW’s Swerve Strickland Addresses His Mistake With WWE’s Hit Row

WWE

AEW star Swerve Strickland has recalled his WWE run, naming a mistake he made during his time with the Hit Row faction.

When Strickland (fka Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott), Ashante Adonis, AJ Francis (Top Dolla) and B-Fab came together as Hit Row in May 2021, fans predicted big things for the group.

While the stable did join the main roster that October, it was only a month later that B-Fab was released. Strickland, Francis and Adonis were also let go by WWE two weeks later.

While Hit Row returned to WWE for another run in 2022, Strickland wasn’t part of this iteration of the group, with the former NXT North American Champion signed to AEW.

Speaking with McKenzie Mitchell, Strickland noted that he feels it was a mistake for him to not assert himself as the leader of Hit Row.

Strickland explained:

“If there’s one mistake I’d say I made in the past with like Hit Row and NXT and WWE, I should’ve stepped up and been, just, I’m the leader of this instead of trying to be a team player.

“Team player, I wanted everybody to be happy and I wanted everybody to get their piece of the pie and I wanted everybody to enjoy the good time and everybody shine and now in AEW, you’re seeing me, like, nope, I’m the star of the team, give me the ball, I wanna score. But pass it to me. Not your time. I need to score first because we need to win.

“It is a selfish thing but it’s not an ego thing, and that’s the difference what people really get lost with and it’s easy for the fan base to get so loud that you start listening to it instead of, they’re not playing, you’re on the field playing.

“You’re on the court scoring. Brett Favre and Tom Brady aren’t listening to fans when they gotta throw a touchdown.”

Strickland is currently in the AEW main event picture, notably becoming the #1 contender to the AEW World Championship after defeating Konosuke Takeshita on Wednesday’s (March 27) edition of Dynamite.

He previously challenged for Samoa Joe’s AEW World Title along with Hangman Page in a three-way match at the March 3 Revolution pay-per-view.

Transcription via POST Wrestling. 

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• Swerve Strickland
• Hit Row
• AEW
• wwe

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