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A former AEW World Champion revealed he had to wrestle without pay early in his career. The early life of a wrestler is always a huge struggle. They go through various hardships before they make it big. Recently, Swerve Strickland shared some harsh experiences that he had been through.
Many feel Strickland had a mediocre run in WWE but since arriving in AEW, he has reached great heights. He gradually climbed the ladder and is currently thriving in the main event scene. He is accompanied by Prince Nana, who serves as his manager. The latter is one of the popular stars in the company too.
While speaking on AEW Represents, Swerve opened up about his early career when he had to overcome stereotypes.
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"There would be times I showed up to a show but I don't know who I am wrestling. But I am booked on a show and they were like, 'Oh, one black wrestler, you gonna wrestle this other black wrestler on the show and we are gonna call it the dark match.' Being assumed that you're ok not taking a pay for your matches and risking your body and what we do. We eat a lot of cr*p to make sure that you just don't stir the pie before you really get any motion," he said. (05:33 - 05:55)
Is this man the funniest man in wrestling?
Prince Nana also made a shocking revelation that the former AEW World Champion was forced to take free paydays during his initial years.
"You know there's always these limitations that were kind of like thrown out there but at the same time, the limitations weren't there and it was all in your mind (...) You proved them wrong. You went from all the way on the bottom from being forced to take free paydays to being the world champion of the greatest wrestling company in the world," he said. (05:58 - 06:34)
Ricochet refuses to wrestle Swerve Strickland
The One and Only defeated The Realest earlier this month with the help of some dirty tactics.
On X/Twitter, Ricochet claimed that he would not have a rematch with Swerve Stickland. He also stated that he was aiming at bigger things now.
It will be interesting to see which other milestones Strickland achieves in the future.
