Swerve Strickland: Shawn Michaels Was Responsible For My Upward Shift In NXT

Swerve Strickland gets candid about Shawn Michaels.

The former Isaiah Swerve Scott is getting candid about Shawn Michaels.

Swerve Strickland, who was known as Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott during his WWE/NXT run, has spoken before in the past about how he wanted to be one of Triple H’s main guys on the black and gold brand. In a new interview with Chris Jericho, Strickland noted that Shawn Michaels was the guy who really helped him turn around his NXT career.

“Honestly, the person that really cosigned me where things took a huge upward shift for me was Shawn Michaels. I literally got a promotion one day with [Matt] Bloom and Canyon [Ceman]. I’m in their office and I’m not afraid to let you know if something’s bothering me, especially if it’s justified and I know I can’t deliver on it. Now there’s a difference between bitching and whining about it or being an adult and giving the proper respects to people. I’m military, I understand that. I understand the chain of command. But I’m still gonna be like thank you for the promotion and the financial side of this, but I also want that to match what I’m doing on television. I don’t want to be paid to just be here. I want to be paid to perform. They were like ‘Shawn’s office is right there.”

Strickland went on and talked about his meeting with Michaels and how easy it was to reason with him.

“I went to Shawn. I was like ‘Hey, can I have some time with you on Tuesday?’. He was like ‘sure’. I sent him a couple matches. He actually liked me and Darby from an indie show and me and Riddle from an indie show. He was like ‘This is where we need to be with you.’ I’m like ‘You’d think?’. He’s like texting me while they’re in the meetings saying like this is what they wanna see next show, this is what they’re saying about you.” 

Strickland was released from WWE after a very short main roster run on November 18th, 2021. Since leaving the company, Strickland has joined All Elite Wrestling and has been teaming with Keith Lee.

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