It’s Swerve Strickland’s Time, but Is the Timing All Wrong for AEW?

If you watch wrestling, and specifically All Elite Wrestling (AEW), you know that it’s Swerve Strickland’s time. The 15-year-veteran has put every piece of the puzzle together, establishing himself not just as a world-class wrestler but also perhaps the most popular person on the roster. His rise is undeniable. And it might be coming at the worst time possible.

Timing is everything in wrestling. If a wrestler’s timing is off during a match it can lead to serious injury. If a match’s finish isn’t timed right it risks losing the crowd’s interest; if a match runs too long it can derail other matches on the card or even the whole show. And if a wrestler’s push is mistimed, cut short, or stretched too long, it can hurt their entire career. Wrestling history is littered with performers who were on the verge of becoming top stars only to be seen as “what ifs” and chokers due to poor booking or bad timing. 

Heading into last month’s AEW Revolution PPV, it seemed like Swerve Strickland might finally get his defining victory. He was one-third of a World title match against the current champion, Samoa Joe, and Swerve’s main AEW rival, former World champ Hangman Adam Page. Easily the most popular wrestler in the match, Swerve came up short when Hangman quickly tapped out to Joe’s Coquina Crush, seemingly more intent on depriving Swerve of the title than winning it himself. Swerve’s getting a one-on-one rematch with Joe in April, and if he loses there it could shut the window on his main event push, as the top of AEW’s roster has gotten awfully crowded of late.

Over the last month AEW has seen the high-profile arrivals of Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada, two of the greatest in-ring performers in wrestling history. Tonight, on the special Big Business episode of AEW Dynamite, Mercedes Mone—formerly known as Sasha Banks in WWE—is expected to debut. Mone’s star power will rightfully get the lion’s share of attention for the next few weeks, whereas popular, best-in-the-world contenders like Ospreay and Okada will no doubt jump right to the top of the card. Meanwhile Samoa Joe has been a peerless champion since winning the World title in December, proving that he’s at least as great today as he was during his iconic Ring of Honor title reign 20 years ago. There should be no rush to move the belt off of Joe, but Ospreay and Okada reigns would be a great boon for both them and the title. Meanwhile, Swerve is right in the middle of things, challenging Joe for the belt at the AEW Dynasty pay-per-view in April, and still just one major victory away from solidifying himself as a fixture of AEW’s main event scene. Given the trajectory of AEW’s storylines at the moment, Swerve could easily be the odd man out of the title picture, but he’s come too far and too close to fade out of that scene without potentially damaging his long-term prospects. 

To his credit, Swerve Strickland isn’t cowed by AEW’s big name acquisitions. He remains the current title contender and knows there’s still big business to be had between him and Joe. “There’s a lot of meat on the bone,” he recently told Paste. “[Joe] has not picked me off. He has not beaten me. He hasn’t submitted me. He hasn’t pinned me. There’s a lot of money on the table between me and Samoa Joe.” 

Swerve describes AEW as a place where talent rises to the top—something that, weirdly enough, isn’t always common in the world of pro wrestling. (History is full of wrestlers getting pushes based more on a promoter’s preferences than their actual talent or popularity.) When asked about what kind of pressure he feels going on after a match as phenomenal as Will Ospreay and Konosuke Takeshita’s battle at Revolution, Swerve pointed out that everybody in AEW feels pressure to perform at the highest level, and that the deep roster regularly rises to the occasion. “That [depth] is what makes our roster so special,” he said. “If you can’t bang, if you can’t hang, being in AEW, and you think you’re just going to coast, it’s going to be a tough time for you. You’ve got to compete at all times.”

Swerve made his AEW debut at Revolution in 2022, after being released by WWE late the previous year. He’s used the annual show as a kind of benchmark for his career, judging his success over the past year by where he stands on Revolution’s card. And since he was wrestling for the company’s biggest title at Revolution just two years after his debut, it’s clear the last two years have been very good for him. He also calls this season of big debuts a “new chapter of AEW,” and like the company as a whole has embraced the idea of its annual spring pay-per-view representing a kind of season finale. Last week’s post-Revolution episodes of Dynamite and Collision were billed as season premieres, and featured Okada’s surprise debut and Ospreay’s first TV match as a member of the full-time roster. Tonight AEW is expected to add Mone, who will instantly become one of the company’s biggest stars. It’s an exciting time for AEW—and exactly the kind of significant roster shuffling that has typically seen some stars deemphasized and reduced in stature. There’s no reason to think that’ll happen to Swerve Strickland, given his popularity, his continued prominence on last week’s Dynamite, and his upcoming pay-per-view main event. What will happen after April, though?

AEW clearly believes greatly in Swerve’s star potential; he’s become one of the company’s go-to press ambassadors, doing a day-long media blitz in Atlanta two days after Revolution and before last week’s TV tapings. Becoming a true top star in wrestling is a hard and inexact science; it requires a wrestler with outsized talent, personality, and ambition who knows just what to do and when, but also depends on booking that’s smart and strong but delicate enough to not feel forced. So far AEW has done a great job of facilitating Swerve’s organic popularity without undermining it or overreaching. Will his momentum last if he doesn’t win the big one in April, though? Can AEW continue to stretch out his title hunt without kneecapping his popularity, or will Dynasty deliver what so many fans want, a Swerve championship reign? Hopefully the timing works out right for Swerve Strickland and AEW’s fans.

Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, comedy, travel, theme parks, wrestling, and anything else that gets in his way. He’s also on Twitter @grmartin.